f James II of England, she remarked, "The Holy Spirit has eaten up
his understanding." The saying that the eight generals appointed at the
death of Turenne were "the small change for Turenne" has been attributed
to her. It is certainly not to a woman of such keen insight and ready
wit that one can attach any of the affectations which later crept into
the Samedis.

The poet Sarasin is the Voiture of this salon. Conrart, to whose house
may be traced the first meetings of the little circle of lettered men
which formed the nucleus of the Academie Francaise, is its secretary;
Pellisson, another of the founders and the historian of the same learned
body, is its chronicler. Chapelain is quite at home here, and we
find also numerous minor authors and artists whose names have small
significance today. The Samedis follow closely in the footsteps of the
Hotel de Rambouillet. It is the aim there to speak simply and naturally
upon all subjects grave or gay, to preserve always the spirit of
delicacy and urbanity, and to avoid vulgar intrigues. There is a
superabundance of sentiment, some affectation, and plenty of esprit.

They converse upon all the topics of the day, from fashion to politics,
from literature and the arts to the last item of gossip. They read their
works, talk about them, criticize them, and vie with one another in
improvising verses. Pellisson takes notes and leaves us a multitude of
madrigals, sonnets, chansons and letters of varied merit. He says there
reigned a sort of epidemic of little poems. "The secret influence began
to fall with the dew. Here one recites four verses; there, one writes
a dozen. All this is done gaily and without effort. No one bites his
nails, or stops laughing and talking. There are challenges, responses,
repetitions, attacks, repartees. The pen passes from hand to hand, and
the hand does not keep pace with the mind. One makes verses for every
lady present." Many of these verses were certainly not of the best
quality, but it would be difficult, in any age, to find a company of
people clever enough to divert themselves by throwing off such poetic
trifles on the spur of the moment.

In the end, the Samedis came to have something of the character of a
modern literary club, and were held at different houses. The company was
less choice, and the bourgeois coloring more pronounced. These reunions
very clearly illustrated the fact that no society can sustain itself
above the average of its membe