When Malherbe was dead and Balzac had retired to his country house on the borders of the Charente, some friends, “men of letters and of merits very much above the average,” says Pellisson in his _Histoire de l’Academie Francaise,_ “finding that nothing was more inconvenient in this great city than to go often and often to call upon one another without finding anybody at home, resolved to meet one day in the week at the house of one of them. They used to assemble at M. Conrart’s, who happened to be most conveniently quartered for receiving them, and in the very heart of the city (Rue St. Martin). There they conversed familiarly as they would have on an ordinary visit, and upon all sorts of things, business, news, and literature. If any one of the company had a work done, as, often happened, he readily communicated its contents to all the others, who freely gave him their opinion of it, and their conferences were followed sometimes by a walk and sometimes by a collation which they took together. Thus they continued for three or four years, as I have heard many amongst them say; it was an extreme pleasure and an incredible gain, insomuch that, when they speak nowadays of that time and of those early days of the Academy, they speak of it as a golden age during the which, without bustle and without show, and without any other laws but those of friendship, they enjoyed all that is sweetest and most charming in the intercourse of intellects and in rational life.” Even after the intervention and regulationizing of Cardinal Richelieu, the French Academy still preserved something of that sweetness and that polished familiarity in their relations which caused the regrets of its earliest founders. [They were MM. Godeau, afterwards Bishop of Grasse, Conrart and Gombault who were Huguenots, Chapelain, Giry, Habert, Abbe de Cerisy, his brother, M. de Serizay and M. de Maleville.] The secret of the little gatherings was not so well kept but that Bois-Robert, the cardinal’s accredited gossip, ever on the alert for news to divert his patron, heard of them and begged before long to be present at them. “There was no probability of his being refused, for, besides that he was on friendly terms with many of these gentlemen, the very favor he enjoyed gave him some sort of authority and added to his consequence. He was full of delight and admiration at what he saw, and did not fail to give the cardinal a favorable account of the little assembly, insomuch that the cardinal, who had a mind naturally inclined towards great things, and who loved the French language, which he himself wrote extremely well, asked if those persons would not be disposed to form a body and assembly regularly and under public authority.” Bois-Robert was intrusted with the proposal.