Mademoiselle was one of the first to profit by the "soul studies" which she had brought into favour. There remains a little passage in a portion of her _Memoires_, written after 1660, which clearly indicates this. Progress is equally marked in a little romance with a key, entitled _Histoire de la Princesse de Paphlagonie_, which was composed and printed at Bordeaux in 1659, during the prolonged sojourn of the Court at that place. This is not the only imaginative work for which this facile pen[107] is responsible, but it is the only one worthy of notice. The subject is without interest; Mademoiselle has incorporated in a literary tale the absurd quarrels of her household: "I made a little history which was finished in three days, by writing in the evening after returning from the Queen." In compensation, there are in the _Princesse de Paphlagonie_ some sketches after nature, written with a firm and live touch, a novelty with Mademoiselle. A passage upon the blue room of Mme. de Rambouillet will prove a great aid in any attempt to reconstruct an elegant interior under Louis XIV., if the experiment should ever be made as has been suggested of playing the comedies of Moliere in the true "chamber" of Philaminte or of Celimene. Others have spoken of the rooms in which Mme. de Rambouillet received. The harmonious decoration and the scholarly disorder have been before described, yet no one but Mademoiselle has given us the intimate atmosphere of the sanctuary, with its measured and discreet light, its luxury of flowers, its objects of art, and its small but choice library betraying the tastes and the preferences of the divinity of the place. The description resembles more nearly the salon of an intelligent woman of the twentieth century than a suite of the Chateau of Versailles. The guests of Mademoiselle profited also by the refinement of her tastes. She enforced one single rule in her salon: cards were banished. No one was exposed to the danger of being ruined, as was the case in the circle of the King, who encouraged heavy play. It did not displease Louis XIV. to be the Providence of the losers, this again being a method of keeping his nobles in hand. His cousin in no way shared in such considerations. She said: "I hate to play cards," and only played when it was impossible to avoid doing so. She did not at all like to lose. It was remarked that the Luxembourg had gained in gaiety with the exclusion of gambling games. "There is a hundred times as much laughter," relates the Abbe de Choisy,[108] at this date very young and a frequent guest at the palace of the Luxembourg, where he met numerous companions of his own age.