| Show FRENCH WOMEN OF EARLY SAL SALONS ONS the traits which strike us most forcibly in the lives and characters of the women of the early salons are deli delicacy cac and sensibility they ran through their literary pastimes times and gave a to their conversation it t was these qualities added to a decided taste for pleasure of the intellect and an innate social genius that led them to revolt from the gross of the court and form upon a new basis a society that has given another complexion to the last two centuries the natural result was at I 1 first rot a reign of sentiment that was often overstrained over strained but which represented on the whole a reaction of morality and refinement the wits and beauties of the salon mu bleu may have committed a thousand follies but their chivalrous codes of honor r t and of manner their fastidious tastes even their prudish affect ioas were open through sometimes rather bizarre tributes to the virtues that j lie at the very foundation of a well ordered society they had bad exalted ideas ot of the dignity of womanhood of purity of loyalty of devotion the heroines of mlle mile de Scud ery with their endless discourses upon the metaphysics of love were xio no doubt tiresome sometimes to the blase courtiers as well as to tho the critics but their r lofty and fine spun epim sentiments charmed the great conde in his cell at vincennes the eloquent ascetic dat dilly at port royal as well as the romantic maidens who sighed over their fanciful dreams and impossible adventures they had their originals in living women who reversed the common traditions of a gabrielle and a marion deloraw Delor nw who combined with the intellectual brilliancy and fine courtesy of the greek As aspasia the mom moral gram graces that give so poetic a fascination to the christian and medieval ty types madame do de la fayette painted with rare delicacy the old At struggle ruggle between passion and duty but character triumphs over passion and duty is the final victor in spite of the low standards of the age the ideal woman of society as of literature was noble tender modest pure and loyal ten turg |
