inal separation. United to a wife he did not
love, and whom he did not scruple to treat very ill, he gave himself
to glory and, it must be added, to unworthy intrigues. The pure-hearted
young girl buried her beauty and her sorrows in the convent of the
Carmelites, and was no more heard of in the gay world.

It is evident that the great soldier sometimes forgot the urbanity
which was so strongly insisted upon in this society. He is said to have
carried the impetuosity of his character into his conversation. When he
had a good cause, he sustained it with grace and amiability. If it was a
bad one, however, his eyes flashed, and he became so violent that it was
thought prudent not to contradict him. It is related that Boileau, after
yielding one day in a dispute, remarked in a low voice to a friend:
"Hereafter I shall always be of the opinion of the Prince when he is
wrong."

Bossuet, when a boy of seventeen, improvised here one evening a sermon
on a given theme, which was so eloquent that it held the company until
near midnight. "I have never heard any one preach so early and so late,"
remarked the witty Voiture, as he congratulated the youthful orator at
the close.

This famous bel esprit played a very prominent part here. His role was
to amuse, and his talents gave him great vogue, but at this distance his
small vanities strike one much more vividly than the wit which flashed
out with the moment, or the vers de societe on which his fame rests.
He owed his social success to a rather high-flown love letter which
he evidently thought too good to be lost to the world. He sent it to a
friend, who had it printed and circulated. What the lady thought does
not appear, but it made the fortune of the poet. Though the son of a
wine merchant, and without rank, he had little more of the spirit of a
courtier than Voltaire, and his biting epigrams were no less feared.
"If he were one of us, he would be insupportable," said Conde. But his
caprices were tolerated for the sake of his inexhaustible wit, and he
was petted and spoiled to the end.

A list of the men of letters who appeared from time to time at the
Hotel de Rambouillet would include the most noted names of the century,
besides many which were famous in their day, but at present are little
more than historical shadows. The conversations were often learned,
doubtless sometimes pretentious. One is inclined to wonder if these
noble cavaliers and high-born woman did not yawn oc