The _mémoire_ was not the only setting for French portraits at this time. There were the French romances, and notably the _Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus_ and the _Clélie_ of Madeleine de Scudéry. The full significance of the _Grand Cyrus_ has been recovered for modern readers by Victor Cousin, with great skill and charm, in his _Société française au XVIIe siècle_, where he has shown it to be, 'properly speaking, a history in portraits'. The characters were drawn from familiar figures in French society. 'Ainsi s'explique', says Cousin, 'l'immense succès du _Cyrus_ dans le temps où il parut. C'était une galerie des portraits vrais et frappants, mais un peu embellis, où tout ce qu'il y avait de plus illustre en tout genre--princes, courtisans, militaires, beaux-esprits, et surtout jolies femmes--allaient se chercher et se reconnaissaient avec un plaisir inexprimable.'[9] It was easy to attack these romances. Boileau made fun of them because the classical names borne by the characters were so absurdly at variance with the matter of the stories.[10] But instead of giving, as he said, a French air and spirit to Greece and Rome, Madeleine de Scudéry only gave Greek and Roman names to France as she knew it. The names were a transparent disguise that was not meant to conceal the picture of fashionable society. The next stage was the portrait by itself, without any setting. At the height of the popularity of the romances, Mlle de Montpensier hit upon a new kind of entertainment for the talented circle of which she was the brilliant centre. It was nothing more nor less than a paper game. They drew each other, or persons whom they knew, or themselves, and under their real names. And they played the game so well that what was written for amusement was worth printing. _Divers Portraits, Imprimés en l'année M DC LIX_ was the simple title of the first collection, which was intended only for the contributors.[11] When it reached its final form in 1663, it contained over a hundred and fifty portraits, and was offered to the public as _La Galerie des Peintures, ou Recueil des portraits et éloges en vers et en prose, contenant les portraits du Roy, de la Reyne, des princes, princesses, duchesses, marquises, comtesses, et autres seigneurs et dames les plus illustres de France; la plupart composés par eux-mêmes_.[12] The introductory defence of the portrait cites Suetonius and Plutarch, and Horace and Montaigne, but also states frankly the true original of the new fashion--'il faut avouer que nous sommes très redevables au _Cyrus_ et à la _Clélie_ qui nous en ont fourni les modèles.' About the same time Antoine Baudeau, sieur de Somaize, brought out his _Grand Dictionnaire des Précieuses_,[13] in which there are many portraits in the accepted manner. The portrait was more than a fashion at this time in France; it was the rage. It therefore invited the satirists. Molière has a passing jest at them in his _Précieuses Ridicules_;[14] Charles Sorel