The authors produced their plays or their poems and carried their manuscripts to the Hôtel de Rambouillet, where they read them in the presence of the company, and the Circle listened, approved, criticised, and exchanged opinions. All of Corneille's masterpieces cleared that port in disguise; their creator presenting them as the works of a strange author. When he read Polyeucte the Salon supposed that the drama was the work of a person unknown to them; all listened intently and criticised freely. No one suspected the real author, and when the last word was read, Voiture made haste to warn Corneille that he "would better lock up the play." When the Circle first heard the Cid they acclaimed it, and declared that it was the work of genius. Richelieu objected to it, and the Salon defended it against him. Books and plays were not the only subjects of discussion; in the Blue Room letters from the absent were read to the company, verses were improvised and declaimed, plays were enacted, and delicately refined expressions were sought with which to clothe the sentiment and the passion of love. Great progress was made in the exercise of wit, and at times the Circle, excited by the clash of mind with mind, exhibited the effervescent joy of children at play when fun runs riot in the last moment of recess, before the bell rings to recall them to the schoolroom. At such a time the members of the Circle were marshalled back to order and set down before the savants to contemplate the "ologies." Such was the first period of the reign of the Précieuses, 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."
But the followers of Arthénice did not shrink from mundane pleasures. In the gracious presence of their hostess the young people danced from love of action, laughed from love of laughter, and, dressed to represent the heroes and the heroines of Astrée, or to represent the tradesmen of Paris, went into the country on picnics, and enacted plays for the amusement of their guests, playing all the pranks of collegians in vacation. One day when they were all at the Château de Rambouillet the Comte de Guiche ate a great many mushrooms. In the night one of the gay party stole into his room and "took in" all the seams in his garments. In the morning it was impossible for de Guiche to dress; everything was too narrow to be buttoned; in vain he tugged at the edges of his garments,—nothing would come together; the Comte was racked by anxiety. "Can it be," he asked anxiously, "because I ate too many mushrooms? Can it be possible that I am bloated?" His friends answered that it might well be possible. "You know," said they, "that you ate till you were fit to burst." De Guiche hurried to his mirror, and when he saw his apparently swollen body and the gaps in his clothing, he trembled, and declared that he was dying; as he was livid and about to swoon, his friends, thinking that the jest had gone far enough, undeceived him. Mme. de Rambouillet was very fond of inventing surprises for her friends, but her jests were of a more gallant character. One day while they were at the Château de Rambouillet she proposed to the Bishop de Lisieux, who was one of her guests, to walk into the fields adjoining the château, where there was, as she said, a circle of natural rocks set among great trees. The Bishop accepted her invitation, and history tells us that "when he was so near the rocks that he could distinguish them through the trees, he perceived in various places, as if scattered about—[I hardly know how to tell it]—objects fairly white and glistening! As he advanced it seemed to him that he could discern figures of women in the guise of nymphs. The Marquise insisted that she could not see anything but trees and rocks, but on advancing to the spot they found—Mlle. de Rambouillet and the other young ladies of the house arrayed, and very effectively, as nymphs; they were seated upon the rocks, where they made the most agreeable of pictures." The good fellow was so charmed with the pleasantry that thereafter he never saw "fair Arthénice" without speaking of "the Rocks of Rambouillet."[57] The Bishop de Lisieux was an excellent priest; decorum did not oppose such surprises, even when the one surprised was a bishop. One day when the ladies were disguised to represent shepherdesses, de Richelieu's brother, the Archbishop of Lyons, appeared among them in the dress of a shepherd.
One of the most agreeable of Voiture's letters (addressed to a cardinal)[58] contains an account of a trip that he had made into the country with the Demoiselles de Rambouillet and de Bourbon, chaperoned by "Madame the Princess," mother of the great Condé; Mlle. Paulet (the bit of driftwood) and several others were of the party.
We departed from Paris about six o'clock in the evening, [wrote Voiture], to go to La Barre,[59] where Mme. de Vigean was to give collation to Madame the Princess.... We arrived at La Barre and entered an audience-room in which there was nothing but a carpet of roses and of orange blossoms for us to walk upon. After having admired this magnificence, Madame the Princess wished to visit the promenade halls while we were waiting for supper. The sun was setting in a cloud of gold and azure, and there was only enough of it left to give a soft and misty light. The wind had gone down, it was cool and pleasant, and it seemed to us that earth and heaven had met to favour Mme. de Vigean's wish to feast the most beautiful Princess in the world.
Having passed a large parterre, and great gardens, all full of orange trees, we arrived at a wood which the sunlight had not entered in more than an hundred years, until it entered there (in the person of Madame). At the foot of an avenue so long that we could not fathom its vista with our eyes until we had reached the end of it, we found a fountain which threw out more water than was ever thrown by all the fountains of Tivoli put together. Around the fountain were ranged twenty-four violinists with their violins, and their music was hardly able to cover the music of the fountain. When we drew near them we discovered a niche in the palisado, and in the niche was a Diana eleven or twelve years old, more beautiful than any goddess of the forests of Greece or of Thessaly. She bore her arrows in her eyes, and all the rays of the halo of her brother surrounded her. In another niche was one of Diana's nymphs, beautiful and sweet enough to attend Diana. They who doubt fables said that the two visions were only Mlle. de Bourbon and la Pucelle Priande; and, to tell the truth, there was some ground for their belief, for even we who have always put faith in fables, we who knew that we were looking upon a supernatural vision, recognised a close resemblance. Every one was standing motionless and speechless, with admiration for all the objects so astonishing both to ear and to eye, when suddenly the goddess sprang from her niche and with grace that cannot be described, began a dance around the fountain which lasted some time, and in which every one joined.