The society of the Hôtel de Rambouillet had a language and conduct all its own; these were embodied in the endless novels of mademoiselle Scuderi. Gallantry and love were the watchwords, and metaphysical disquisitions were the labours of the set. But these were not allowed to subsist in homely phrase or a natural manner. The euphuism of our Elizabethian coxcombs was tame and tropeless in comparison with the high flights of the heroes and heroines of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. All was done by rule; all adapted to a system. The lover had a regular map laid out, and he entered on his amorous journey, knowing exactly the stoppages he must make, and the course he must pass through on his way to the city of Tenderness, towards which he was bound. There was the village of _Billets galans_; the hamlet of _Billets doux_; the castle of _Petits Soins_; and the villa of _Jolis Vers_. After possessing himself of these, he still had to fear being forced to embark on the sea of Dislike, or the lake of Indifference; but if, on the contrary, he pushed off on the river of Inclination, he floated happily down to his bourne. Their language was a jargon, which, as Sir Walter Scott observes, in his "Essay on Molière," resembled a highlander's horse, hard to catch, and not worth catching. They gave enigmatic names to the commonest things, which to call by their proper appellations, was, as Molière terms it, du dernier bourgeois. When an "innocent accomplice of a falsehood" was mentioned, a _Précieuse_ (they themselves adopted and gloried in this name; Molière only added ridicules, to turn the blow a little aside from the centre of the target at which he aimed) could, without a blush, understand that a night-cap was the subject of conversation; water with them was too vulgar unless dignified as celestial humidity; a thief could be mentioned when designated as an inconvenient hero; and a lover won his mistress's applause when he complained of her disdainful smile, as "a sauce of pride."