‘The differentia of semi-Pelagianism is the tenet that in regeneration, and all that results from it, the divine and the human will are co-operating, co-efficient (synergistic) factors.’
In the train of the shadowy figure of Madame Cornuel, Madeleine mounts the great stairs of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. The door is flung open; they enter the famous Salle Bleue. Lying on a couch is an elderly lady with other ladies sitting round her, at whose feet sit gallants on their outspread cloaks.
‘Ah! dear Zénocrite, here you come leading our new bergère,’ cries the lady on the couch. ‘Welcome, Mademoiselle, I have been waiting with impatience to make your acquaintance.’
Madeleine curtseys and says with an indescribable mixture of modesty and pride:—
‘Surely the world-famed amiability of Madame is, if I may use the expression, at war with her judgment, or rather, for two such qualities of the last excellence must ever be as united as Orestes and Pylades, some falsely flattering rumour has preceded me to the shell of Madame’s ear.’
‘Say rather some Zephyr, for such always precede Flora,’ one of the gallants says in a low voice to another.
‘But no one, I think,’ continues Madeleine, ‘will accuse me of flattery when I say that the dream of one day joining the pilgrims to the shrine of Madame was the fairest one ever sent me from the gates of horn.’
‘Sappho, our bergère has evidently been initiated into other mysteries than those of the rustic Pan,’ says Arthénice, smiling to Mademoiselle de Scudéry, whom Madeleine hardly dares to visualise, but feels near, a filmy figure in scanty, classic attire.
Madeleine turns to Sappho with a look at once respectful and gallant, and smiling, says:—