Mme. de Rambouillet was very particular in the choice of friends, and they were always sincere and devoted, knowing her to be undesirous of political favors and incapable of stooping to intrigue. Even Richelieu could not, as compensation to him for a favor to her husband, induce her to act as spy on some of the frequenters of her salon.
While not a woman of remarkable beauty, she was the personification of reason and virtue; her unassuming frankness, exquisite tact, and exceptional reserve discouraged all advances on the part of those gallants who frequented every mansion and were always prepared to lay siege to the heart of any fair woman. Her wide culture, versatility, modesty, goodness, fidelity, and disinterestedness caused her to be universally sought. Mlle. de Scudéry, in her novel Cyrus, leaves a fine portrait of her:
"The spirit and soul of this marvellous person surpass by far her beauty: the first has no limits in its extent and the other has no equal in its generosity, goodness, justice, and purity. The intellect of Cléomire (Mme. de Rambouillet) is not like that of those whose minds have no brilliancy except that which nature has given them, for she has cultivated it carefully, and I think I can say that there are no belles connaissances that she has not acquired. She knows various languages, and is ignorant of hardly anything that is worth knowing; but she knows it all without making a display of knowing it; and one would say, in hearing her talk, 'she is so modest that she speaks admirably of things, through simple common sense only'; on the contrary, she is versed in all things; the most advanced sciences are not beyond her, and she is perfectly acquainted with the most difficult arts. Never has any person possessed such a delicate knowledge as hers of fine works of prose and poetry; she judges them, however, with wonderful moderation, never abandoning la bienséance (the seemliness) of her sex, though she is far above it. In the whole court, there is not a person with any spirit and virtue that does not go to her house. Nothing is considered beautiful if it does not have her approval; no stranger ever comes who does not desire to see Cléomire and do her homage, and there are no excellent artisans who do not wish to have the glory of her approbation of their works. All people who write in Phénicie have sung her praises; and she possesses the esteem of everyone to such a marvellous degree that there is no one who has ever seen her who has not said thousands of favorable things about her--who has not been charmed likewise by her beauty, esprit, sweetness, and generosity."
Mlle. de Scudéry describes the salon of Mme. de Rambouillet in the following:
"Cléomire (Mme. de Rambouillet) had built, according to her own design, a place which is one of the finest in the world; she has found the art of constructing a palace of vast extent in a situation of mediocre grandeur. Order, harmony, and elegance are in all the apartments, and in the furniture also; everything is magnificent, even unique; the lamps are different from those of other palaces, her cabinets are full of objects which show the judgment of her who chose them. In her palace, the air is always scented; many baskets full of magnificent flowers make a continual spring in her room, and the place which she frequents ordinarily is so agreeable and so imaginative as to make one feel as if she were in some enchanted place."
The very names of the frequenters of the salon of Mme. de Rambouillet testify to the prominence of her position in the world of culture: Mlle. de Scudéry, Mlle. du Vigean; Mmes. de Longueville, de la Vergne, de La Fayette, de Sablé, de Hautefort, de Sévigné, de la Suze, Marie de Gonzague, Duchesse d'Aiguillon, Mmes. des Houlières, Cornuel, Aubry, and their respective husbands; the great literary men: Rotrou, Scarron, Saint-Evremond, Malherbe, Racan, Chapelain, Voiture, Conrart, Benserade, Pellisson, Segrais, Vaugelas, Ménage, Tallemant des Réaux, Balzac, Mairet, Corneille, Bossuet, etc. In the entire period of the French salon, no other such brilliant gathering of men and women of social standing, princely blood, genuine intelligence, and literary ability ever assembled from motives other than those of politics or intrigue; here was a gathering purely social and for purposes of mutual refinement. The nobility went through a process of polishing, and the men of letters sharpened their intelligence and modified their manners and customs.
Julie, Duchess of Montausier, and Angélique, daughters of Mme. de Rambouillet, were popular, but the former lost much of her charm after she sacrificed her independence of thought and action by becoming governess of the children of the queen. Julie was the centre of attraction for all perfumed rhymesters, all sighers in prose and verse, who thronged about her. The stern and unbending Duke of Montausier was so under her influence that in 1641 he arranged and laid before her shrine the famous guirlande which was illustrated by Robert and to which nineteen authors contributed. After her marriage to the duke, the Hôtel de Rambouillet may be said to have ceased to exist, as madame, who was seventy years of age, had for a number of years kept herself in the background, and Julie had become the acknowledged leader.
With the outbreak of the Fronde, friends were separated by their individual interests and the reunions at the salon were interrupted from about 1650 to 1652. After the death of her husband, Mme. de Rambouillet retired, to reside with her daughter, Mme. de Montausier; after that, she seldom appeared in public. She hardly lived to see the spirit of the salon changed to the real préciosité--the direction and aim she gave to it being gradually abandoned.
In her salon, for nearly fifty years, no pedantry, no loose manners, no questionable characters, no social or political intrigues, no discourtesies of any kind, were recorded; hers was a reign of dignity and grace, of purity of language, manners, and morals. She died in 1665, at the advanced age of seventy-seven, esteemed and mourned by the entire social and intellectual world of France. Her influence was incalculable; it was the first time in the history of France that refined taste, intellectuality, and virtue had won importance, influence, and power.
It must be remembered that in the first period of the salon there were no blue-stockings, no pedants: these were later developments. It was, primarily, a gathering which found pleasure in parties, excursions, concerts, balls, fireworks, dramatic performances, living tableaux; the last form of amusement very strongly influenced the development of the art, for in the galleries there appeared a surprisingly large number of portraits of the women of the day in character--sometimes as a nymph, sometimes as a goddess.