Mademoiselle preserved the taste for literature formed at Saint-Fargeau. Her name is associated with several incidents, great and small, of the literary history of the times. In 1669, when _Tartuffe_ was definitely authorised, she wished to have it performed in her salon. This fact is noteworthy as the Church still forbade its representation. On August 21, Mademoiselle gave a fete. When most of the guests had departed, "_Tartuffe_, the fashionable piece, was played before twenty women and numbers of men."[195] Did the end of the phrase contain a slight excuse--"which was the fashionable piece"? However this may be, Mademoiselle could boast to her confessor that she had been "economical" with Moliere. The entertainment at the Luxembourg was paid for with three hundred francs given to the actors, the current price being for such a performance five hundred and fifty francs. Thus the virtuous homes evidenced their piety! On another occasion, Mademoiselle had the honour, if the Abbe d'Olivet may be believed, of supplying Moliere with an entire scene ready made: and what a scene! Among the _habitues_ of the salon figured one of the victims of Boileau, the impudent Abbe Cotin, who not finding himself sufficiently _etrille_ (thrashed) had provoked new retaliations in gossiping about Moliere. One day he brought some verses of his own composition to the palace of the Luxembourg to read them to Mademoiselle. In the midst of her admiration another writer, supposed to be Menage, entered. Mademoiselle committed the error of showing the verses of the Abbe and, without mentioning the name of the author, of defending the expressed opinions. The result was the scene between Vadius and Trissotin (at first named "Tricotin" lest one should be deceived). It was only needful for Moliere to give the touch of genius as in the sonnet to the Princess Uranie and in the verses upon the _Carosse Amarante_. In these two cases, it is well known that the lines are copied word for word from a volume written by the Abbe Cotin.[196] Many echoes of the grand literary battle of the century[197] still resounded in the Luxembourg. The success of the first tragedies of Racine irritated that portion of the public, always large, which has a horror of being disturbed in its habits of thought by importunate novelties. Such a disturbance is a punishment to many persons, whether the moving force comes from literature, science, or art. There are many examples of this fixed state of mind to be found in the past century: it will suffice to recall the struggles hardly yet quieted between Pasteur and Wagner.