Not long before the beginning of the Fronde, the fine world of Paris, stirred to action by the spectacle of the royal infatuation and by the subjection of the national welfare to the suppositive exigencies of "the foreigner," embraced the theory of Opposition, and to be of the Opposition was the fashion of the hour. All who aspired to elegance wore their rebellion as a badge, unless they had private reasons for appearing as the friends of Mazarin. The women who were entering politics found it to their interest to join the opposing body. Politics had become the favourite pastime of the highways and the little streets. Men and women, not only in Paris, but in the châteaux and homes of the provinces, and children--boys and girls--began to express political opinions in early youth. "Come, then, Grandmamma," said little Montausier to Mme. de Rambouillet, "now that I am five years old, let us talk about affairs of State." Her grandmother could not have reproved with a good grace, because her own "Blue Room" had been one of the chief agents responsible for the new diversion just before the Fronde. A mocking but virile force arose in the Opposition to check the ultra-refinements of the high art, the high intellectual ability, and the other superfine characteristics of the school of Arthénice. The mockery of the Opposition was as keen and its irony was as effective as the mental sword-play of the literary extremists. Wit was its chief weapon and its barbed words, and merry yet sarcastic thrusts had power to overthrow a ministry. The country knew it and gloried in it. The people of France would have entered upon revolution before they would have renounced their "spirituality." In the polemics of the new party the turn of a sentence meant a dozen things at once; a syllable stung like a dagger. Frenchmen are the natural artists of conversation, and they never found field more favourable to their art than the broad plains of the Opposition. Avowed animosity to the pretensions of the pedants and light mockery of the preciosity of the _Précieuses_ offered a varied choice of subjects and an equally varied choice of accessories for their work. The daring cavaliers of the Opposition passed like wild huntsmen over the exhausted ground, with eyes bent upon the trail, and found delicate and amusing shades of meaning in phrases scorned and stigmatised as "common" by the hyper-spiritual enthusiasts of the Salons.