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This hotel had been building from 1610 to 1617 in the Rue St. Thomas-du-Louvre. Polite society began to gather there soon after its completion, and began to desert it only thirty years later. The heroic romances of the period were among the chief topics of conversation; and this is easily understood: they were meant as copies of this same polite society, and of its chiefs; under feigned names people recognized in Cyrus the Grand Condé; in Mandane, Madame de Longueville; in Sapho, the authoress herself, Mdlle. de Scudéry ; in Aristhée, the poet Jean Chapelain. Persons thus designated often continued in real life to be called by their romance appellations; thus Madame de Sévigné is wont to subscribe herself "the very humble servant of the adorable Amalthée." I Men and women considered it a great honour to have their portraits in a romance; they felt sure then of going down to the remotest posterity, a fond belief to which posterity has already given the lie. Much intrigue went on to obtain such a valuable favour. While we are scarcely able now to plod on for a few chapters along the winding road which led Cyrus to his victories, these volumes were awaited with intense interest and discussed with passion as soon as published. Neither the expectation of the next number of the "Revue des deux Mondes," when it contains some important new study of actual life, nor the discussion about the last play of Dumas, can give us now an adequate idea of the amount of interest concentrated in Paris at that

1 I.e., Mme. du Plessis Guénégaud, who figures in "Clélie " under this name. "Letter to Pompone, Nov. 18, 1664."

time upon those heroical, grandiloquent, periwigged figures.

And sometimes it was a very long time before the end of the adventures, and the answers of the lovers were known. These books were not written without care and thought and some attention to rules and style. In the preface to his "Ibrahim " Scudéry gives us a sort of "Ars poetica" for heroic romance writers; he states what precepts it is necessary to follow, and those which may sometimes be dispensed with; he informs us that attention is to be paid to the truth of history, and that manners must be observed. For example, in "Ibrahim" he has thought fit to use some Turkish words, such as "Alla, Stambol"; these he calls "historical marks," and they correspond to what goes now under the name of local colour; according to his way of thinking they give a realistic appearance to his story. His heroes in this particular romance are not kings, he confesses; his excuse is that they are worthy to be such, and that besides they belong to very good families. He has been careful to use an easy, flowing style, and to avoid bombast "except in speeches." He has something to say about the unities, which have their part to play even in romances. Nothing must be left to chance in those works; and as for himself, he would have refused, he declares, the praise bestowed upon the Greek painter who, by throwing his brush against his work, obtained thus the finest effect in his picture. In Scudéry's picture everything is drawn with a will and a purpose, everything is the result of thought and calculation, and, if we are to believe him, much art was thus spent by the gallant

Gouverneur de Nostre Dame; much art that is now entirely concealed from the dim eyes of posterity.'

Speeches, with descriptions, letters (which are always given in full as if they were documents of state), conversations and incidental anecdotic stories, were among the most usual means employed to fill up the many volumes of an ordinary heroical romance. For the volumes were many: "There never shone such a fine day as the one which was to be the eve of the nuptials between the illustrious Aronce and the admirable Clélie." Such is the beginning of the first volume of "Clélie, histoire romaine," by Madeleine de Scudéry, published in January, 1649. It happens that the marriage thus announced is delayed by certain little incidents, and is only celebrated towards the end of the tenth and last volume published in September, 1654. Volume I. contained the famous "Carte du Tendre," to show the route from "Nouvelle amitié" to "Tendre," with its various rivers, its villages of "Tendre-surInclination," "Tendre-sur-Estime," with the ever-to-beavoided hamlets of Indiscretion and Perfidy, the Lake of Indifference and other frightful countries. Let us turn away from them and go back to our heroes.

One of their chief pleasures was to tell their own stories. Of this neither they nor their listeners were ever tired. Whenever in the course of the tale a new person is introduced, the first thing he is expected to do is to tell us who he is and what he has seen of the world. Sometimes stories are included in his own, and when the first are finished, instead of taking up again

I

Scudéry's preface to "Ibrahim, or the illustrious bassa... englished by Henry Cogan," London, 1652, fol.