Diversions--Corneille--Balzac--Richelieu--Romance of the
Grand Conde--The Young Bossuet--Voiture--The Duchesse de
Longueville--Angelique Paulet--Julie d'Angennes--Les
Precieuses Ridicules--Decline of the Salon--Influence upon
Literature and Manners

The Hotel de Rambouillet has been called the "cradle of polished
society," but the personality of its hostess is less familiar
than that of many who followed in her train. This may be partly
due to the fact that she left no record of herself on paper. She
aptly embodied the kind advice of Le Brun. It was her special
talent to inspire others and to combine the various elements of a
brilliant and complex social life. The rare tact which enabled
her to do this lay largely in a certain self-effacement and the
peculiar harmony of a nature which presented few salient points.
She is best represented by the salon of which she was the
architect and the animating spirit; but even this is better known
today through its faults than its virtues. It is a pleasant task
to clear off a little dust from its memorials, and to paint in
fresh colors one who played so important a role in the history of
literature and manners.

Catherine de Vivonne was born at Rome in 1588. Her father, the
Marquis de Pisani, was French ambassador, and she belonged
through her mother to the old Roman families of Strozzi and
Savelli. Married at sixteen to the Count d'Angennes, afterwards
Marquis de Rambouillet, she was introduced to the world at the
gay court of Henry IV. But the coarse and depraved manners which
ruled there were altogether distasteful to her delicate and
fastidious nature. At twenty she retired from these brilliant