[270] There is nothing in the least astonishing in his having been this—if he was. The tendency of the Renaissance towards what is called "free thought" is quite well known; and the existence, in the seventeenth century, of a sort of school of boisterous and rather vulgar infidelity is familiar—with the names of Bardouville, and Saint-Ibal or Saint-Ibar, as members of it—to all readers of Saint-Évremond, Tallemant, the Ana, etc.
[271] Perhaps the dullest part is where (save the mark!) the Demon of Socrates is brought in to talk sometimes mere platitudes, sometimes tame paradoxes which might as well be put in the mouth of any pupil-teacher, or any popular journalist or dramatist, of the present day.—Of the attempt to make Swift Cyrano's debtor one need say little: but among predecessors, if not creditors, Ben Jonson, for his News from the New World discovered in the Moon, may at least be mentioned.
[272] The key-mongers, of course, identify the three with the author, her own husband, and La Rochefoucauld.
[273] He has ensconced himself in one of the smaller rooms of a garden pavilion outside of which they are sitting, having left their suite at some distance.
[274] Maîtresse de sa conduite, a curious but not difficult text as to French ideas of marriage.
[275] I have been obliged to insert "trials" to bring out the meaning of "exposée au milieu." "Exposée" has a fuller sense than the simple English verb, and almost equals the legal "exposed for sale."
[276] Mme. de la Fayette was a very accomplished woman, and, possibly from her familiarity with Queen Henrietta Maria, well acquainted with English as well as French history. But our proper names, as usual, vanquish her, and she makes Henry VIII. marry Jane Seimer and Catherine Havart.
[277] This does not apply to the main love story but to the atmosphere generally. The Vidame de Chartres, for instance, is represented as in love with (1) Queen Catherine; (2) a Mme. de Themines, with whom he is not quite satisfied; (3) a Mme. de Martignes, with whom he is; (4) a lady unnamed, with whom he has trompé them all. This may be true enough to life; but it is difficult to make it into good matter of fiction, especially with a crowd of other people doing much the same.
[278] It ought, perhaps, to be added that though manners, etc., altered not a little between Henri II. and Louis XIV., the alteration was much less than in most other histories at most other periods. It would be easy to find two persons in Tallemant whose actual experience covered the whole time.
[279] You had to call it so when I first saw it; when I last did so it was "Oiron." No doubt it is something else now.