nt, compter tous ses malheurs,
Tu n'aura qu'a, compter les moments de sa vie.

The spirit of unrest is there beneath the calm exterior. It may be some
hidden wound; it may be only the old, old weariness, the inevitable
burden of the race. "Mon Dieu!" wrote Mme. de Maintenon, in the height
of her worldly success, "how sad life is! I pass my days without other
consolation than the thought that death will end it all."

Mme. de Rambouillet had worked unconsciously toward a very important
end. She found a language crude and inelegant, manners coarse and
licentious, morals dissolute and vicious. Her influence was at its
height in the age of Corneille and Descartes, and she lived almost to
the culmination of the era of Racine and Moliere, of Boileau and
La Bruyere, of Bossuet and Fenelon, the era of simple and purified
language, of refined and stately manners, and of at least outward
respect for morality. To these results she largely contributed. Her
salon was the social and literary power of the first half of the
century. In an age of political espionage, it maintained its position
and its dignity. It sustained Corneille against the persecutions of
Richelieu, and numbered among its habitues the founders of the Academie
Francaise, who continued the critical reforms begun there.

As a school of politeness, it has left permanent traces. This woman
of fine ideals and exalted standards exacted of others the purity
of character, delicacy of thought, and urbanity of manner, which she
possessed in so eminent a degree herself. Her code was founded upon the
best instincts of humanity, and whatever modifications of form time has
wrought its essential spirit remains unchanged. "Politeness does not
always inspire goodness, equity, complaisance, gratitude," says La
Bruyere, "but it gives at least the appearance of these qualities, and
makes man seem externally what he ought to be internally."

It was in this salon, too, that the modern art of conversation, which
has played so conspicuous a part in French life, may be said to have
had its birth. Men and women met on a footing of equality, with similar
tastes and similar interests. Different ranks and conditions were
represented, giving a certain cosmopolitan character to a society which
had hitherto been narrow in its scope and limited in its aims. Naturally
conversation assumed a new importance, and was subject to new laws. To
quote again from LaBruyere, who has so profoundly penet