a period whose history La Bruyère gathered from the recitals of the old men of that day. Voiture and Sarrazin were born for their century, and they appeared just at the time when they might have been expected; had they come forward with less precipitation they would have been too late; it is probable that had they come in our day they would have been just what they were at their own epoch. When they came upon the stage the light, sparkling conversations, the "circles" of meditative and critical groups convened to argue the literary and æsthetic questions of the day, had vanished, with the finely marked differences, the spiritual jests, the coquettish meanings hidden amidst the overshadowing gravity of serious discussion. The Circle no longer formed little parties admitting only the men who had proved their title to intellect; but the fame of the first Salon de Rambouillet--or, to speak better, the fame of the ideal Salon of the world--still clung to its successor. As children listen to tales told by their grandfathers, the delicate mind of Voiture listened to the story of those first days; Sarrazin the Gross might scoff, but Voiture gloried in the thought that it had all been true; the lights, the music, the merry jests, the spring flowers growing in the autumn, the flashing lances of the spirit, the gay letters from the absent.... And well might he glory! there had, in truth, been one supreme moment in the literary life of France, a moment as rapid, as fleeting as a smile, lost even as it came, never to appear again until long after the pigmy body which enshrined the winged soul that loved to dream of it had turned to dust. The memory of that first Salon was still so vivid that Saint Simon wrote: "The Hôtel de Rambouillet was the trysting-place of all then existent of knowledge and of wit; it was a redoubtable tribunal, where the world and the Court were brought to judgment." * * * * *