served the forms of the old
traditions, while violating their spirit. True to her Gallic instincts,
she presented her innovations sugar-coated. She had the fine sense of
fitness which is the conscience of her race, and which gave so
much power to the women who really revolutionized society without
antagonizing it.

Her conversations, which were full of wise suggestions and showed a
remarkable insight into human character, were afterwards published in
detached form and had a great success. Mme. de Sevigne writes to her
daughter: "Mlle. De Scudery has just sent me two little volumes of
conversations; it is impossible that they should not be good, when they
are not drowned in a great romance."

When the Hotel de Rambouillet was closed, Mlle. de Scudery tried to
replace its pleasant reunions by receiving her friends on Saturdays.
These informal receptions were frequented by a few men and women of
rank, but the prevailing tone was literary and slightly bourgeois. We
find there, from time to time, Mme. de Sable, the Duc and Duchesse de
Montausier, and others of the old circle who were her lifelong friends.
La Rochefoucauld is there occasionally, also Mme. de. La Fayette, Mme.
de Sevigne, and the young Mme. Scarron whose brilliant future is hardly
yet in her dreams. Among those less known today, but of note in their
age, were the Comtesse de la Suze, a favorite writer of elegies, who
changed her faith and became a Catholic, as she said, that she "might
not meet her husband in this world or the next;" the versatile Mlle.
Cheron who had some celebrity as a poet, musician, and painter; Mlle.
de la Vigne and Mme. Deshoulieres, also poets; Mlle. Descartes, niece
of the great philosopher; and, at rare intervals, the clever Abbess de
Rohan who tempered her piety with a little sage worldliness. One of the
most brilliant lights in this galaxy of talent was Mme. Cornuel, whose
bons mots sparkle from so many pages in the chronicles of the period.
A woman of high bourgeois birth and of the best associations, she had a
swift vision, a penetrating sense, and a clear intellect prompt to seize
the heart of a situation. Mlle. De Scudery said that she could paint
a grand satire in four words. Mme. de Sevigne found her admirable, and
even the grave Pomponne begged his friend not to forget to send him all
her witticisms. Of the agreeable but rather light Comtesse de Fiesque,
she said: "What preserves her beauty is that it is salted in folly."
O