inconsolable nature of his grief.

Without tact or fine discrimination, the Grande Mademoiselle was
a woman of generous though undisciplined impulses, loyal
disposition, and pure character; but her egotism was colossal.
Under different conditions, one might readily imagine her a
second Joan of Arc, or a heroine of the Revolution. She says of
herself: "I know not what it is to be a heroine; I am of a birth
to do nothing that is not grand or elevated. One may call that
what one likes. As for myself, I call it to follow my own
inclination and to go my own way. I am not born to take that of
others." She lacked the measure, the form, the delicacy of the
typical precieuse; but her quick, restless intellect and ardent
imagination were swift to catch the spirit of the Hotel de
Rambouillet, and to apply it in an original fashion. Though many
subjects were interdicted in her salon, and many people were
excluded, it gives us interesting glimpses into the life of the
literary noblesse, and furnishes a complete gallery of pen-
portraits of more or less noted men and women. With all the
brilliant possibilities of her life, it was through the diversion
of her idle hours that this princess, author, amazon, prospective
queen, and disappointed woman has left the most permanent trace
upon the world.


CHAPTER V. A LITERARY SALON AT PORT ROYAL
Mme. de Sable--Her Worldly Life--Her Retreat--Her Friends--
Pascal--The Maxims of La Rochefoucauld--Last Days of the Marquise

The transition from the restless character and stormy experiences