those associations were, in which the Abbé de Chaulieu and other friends of Vendome and Conti led the conversation. Literature was brought wholly under the dominion of audacious pretension and immorality, in the time of the Regency and during the minority of Louis the Fifteenth. In reference to the leaders there needs no proof. What could a Philip of Orleans or his Dubois take under his protection, except what corresponded with his ideas and mode of life?

The time of the minority of Louis the Fifteenth and that of the administration of Cardinal Fleury was for several reasons highly favourable to the formation of private societies, which entertained themselves with wit and satire, and carried on a quiet but continual contest with the persons and systems which were protected by the government and the clergy. Fleury regarded every thing as sinful which had the appearance of worldly knowledge, or partook of the character of jests, novels, or plays; Louis, as he grew up, showed himself quite indifferent to every thing which had no connexion with religious ceremonies, hunting, or handsome women. Fleury spoke and wrote in that ecclesiastical phraseology which was laughed at in the world: he favoured the clergy, school learning, the tone of the times of Louis the Fourteenth; but the spirit of the age demanded something different from this. All that was regarded with disfavour by Fleury assembled around those celebrated men, who held their reunions in Paris, and this court soon became more important to the vain than the royal one itself, and it was proved by experience that reputation and glory might be gained without the aid or protection of the court at Versailles. This no one could have previously believed, but the public soon learnt to do homage to the tone-giving scholars, to the ladies and gentlemen who fostered them, as it had formerly paid its homage to the ministers of the court. This gave to the ladies, who collected around them the celebrated men of the time (for reputation was much more the question than merit), and who protected and entertained them, a degree of weight in the political and literary world, which made them as important in the eighteenth century as Richelieu and Colbert had been in the seventeenth.

The queen, on her part, might have been able to exercise a beneficial influence, however little power she had in other respects, when compared with the mistresses of the king; but the daughter of Stanislaus Leckzinski was a gentle admi

rable woman, although somewhat narrow-minded, and wholly given up to irrational devotional exercises and bigotry. Like her father, she was altogether in the hands of the Jesuits, blindly and unconditionally their servant; such an attachment to a religious order, and such blind devotedness as hers would be quite incredible, if we did not possess her own and her father's autograph letters, as proofs of the fact. We shall present our readers with some extracts from these letters, which are preserved in the archives of the French empire, when we come to speak of the abolition of the order of Jesuits.

As to the enlightened mistresses who had much more power and influence than the queen, Pompadour seemed, as we learn from Marmontel, desirous of participating in the literature of the age and of doing something for its promotion, when she saw how important writers and the influence of the press had become; but partly because both she and the king were altogether destitute of any sense for the beautiful in literature or art, and partly because the better portion of the learned men at the time neither could nor would be pleased with what a Bernis, Düclos and Marmontel were disposed to be, who undoubtedly received some marks of favour from her. Voltaire is therefore quite right when he lays upon the court the blame of allowing the influence which literature then exercised upon the people, to be withdrawn altogether from the king and his ministers, and to be transferred to the hands of the Parisian ladies and farmers-general, &c. Voltaire, in his well-known verses*, admits, with great openness and simplicity, that he attached much importance to the applause of a court, although it neither possessed judgement nor feeling for the merits of a writer, nor for poetical beauties; and he complains at the same time that this court had neither duly estimated his tragedies nor his epic poems. It is characteristic both of the court and of Voltaire that he eagerly pressed himself forward for admission to its favour, and sought to attract attention by a work which he himself called a piece of trash, and that the court extended its approbation and applause to this miserable and

* Mon Henri quatre et ma Zaïre,

Et mon Américaine Alzire,

Ne m'ont valu jamais un seul regard du roi ;
J'eus beaucoup d'ennemis avec très-peu de gloire.
Les honneurs et les biens pleuvent enfin sur moi
Pour une farce de la foire.-La Princesse de Navarre.

altogether inappropriate piece ( La Princesse de Navarre'), which he composed on the occasion of the Dauphin's marriage with the Infanta of Spain, whilst it entirely neglected his masterpieces.

The Paris societies had got full possession of the field of literature, and erected their tribunals before the middle of the century, whilst at Versailles nothing was spoken or thought of except amusements and hunting, Jesuits and processions, and the grossest sensuality prevailed. The members of the Parisian societies were not a whit more moral or decent in their behaviour than those about the court at Versailles, but they carried on open war against hypocrisy, and all that was praised and approved of by the court.

We shall now proceed to mention three or four of the most distinguished of those societies, which have obtained an historical importance, not merely for the French literature and mental and moral culture of the eighteenth century, but for Europe in general, without however restraining ourselves precisely within the limits of the half century. The minute accounts which Grimm has given, for the most part affect only the later periods; we turn our attention therefore the rather to what the weak, vain, talkative Marmontel has related to us on the subject in his 'Autobiography,' because Rousseau was by far too one-sided in his notices, and drew public attention to the most demoralized and degraded members of the circle only.

The first lady who must be mentioned, is Madame de Tencin. She belonged to the period within which we must confine ourselves, and she gained for herself such a name, not only in Paris, but in all Europe, that she was almost regarded as the creator of that new literature which stood in direct and bold opposition to the prevailing taste, inasmuch as she received at her house, entertained and cherished, those who were really its originators and supporters. This lady could not boast of the morality of her early years, nor of her respect even for common propriety. She is not only notorious for having exposed, when a child, the celebrated D'Alembert, who was her natural son, and for regarding with indifference his being brought up by the wife of a common glazier as her own son; but stories still worse than even these are told of her. She enriched herself, as many others did, in the time of Law's scheme, by no very creditable means; and fell under such a serious suspicion of having been privy to

the death of one of those who had carried on an intrigue with her, that she was imprisoned and involved in a criminal prosecution, from which she escaped, not through her own innocence, but by means of the powerful influence of her distinguished relations and friends.

All this did not prevent Pope Benedict the Fourteenth, who, as Cardinal Lambertini, had been often at her house, as a member of the society of men of talents who met there, from carrying on a continual intercourse with her by letter; he also sent her his picture as a testimony of kind remembrance. This lady succeeded in procuring for her brother the dignity of a cardinal, and through him had great weight with Fleury, with the court, and with the city in general; she is also known as an authoress. As we are not writing a history of literature properly speaking, we pass by her novels in silence, with this remark only, that people are accustomed to place the Comte de Comminges,' written by Madame de Tencin, on the same footing with the 'Princess de Clêve,' by Madame de Lafayette.

The society in the house of Madame de Tencin consisted of well-known men of learning, and some younger men of distinguished name and family; she united, in later years, a certain amiability with her care for the entertainment and recreation of those whom she had once received into her house. This society, after the death of De Tencin, assembled in the house of Geoffrin. It appears, however, that Madame de Tencin, as well as the whole fashionable world to which she belonged, could never altogether disavow their contempt for science, if indeed it be true, that she was accustomed to call her society by the indecent byname of her ménagerie. Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Mairan, Helvetius who was then quite young and present rather as a hearer than a speaker, Marivaux and Astruc, formed the nucleus of this clever society and led the conversation. Marmontel, who was not well suited to this society, in which more real knowledge and a deeper train of thought was called for than he possessed, informs us in the passage quoted below, what the tone of this society was, and speaks of their hunting after lively conceits and brilliant flashes of wit, in a somewhat contemptuous manner*. Marmontel, however, himself admits, that he was

Marmontel,-Mém. d'un Père,' vol. i. liv. iv. pp. 206-207. “J'y vis...... je ne sais qui encore tous gens de lettres ou savans, et au milieu d'eux une femme d'un esprit et d'un sens profond, mais qui, enveloppée dans son exté

only once in the society, and that in order to read his Aristomenes,' and that greater simplicity and good humour prevailed there than in the house of Madame Geoffrin, in which he was properly at home.

Madame de Tencin's influence upon the new literature of the opposition party, or rather upon the spirit of the age, may be best judged of from the fact, that she largely contributed to the first preparation and favourable reception of Montesquieu's 'Spirit of Laws.' It is certain, at least, that she bought a large number of copies and distributed them amongst her friends. Madame Geoffrin went further; the society which had previously met at Madame de Tencin's, no sooner held their reunions in her house, than she drew together the whole literary and the fashionable world, foreign ministers, noblemen and princes who were on their travels, etc. Marmontel also says, that the aged Madame de Tencin had guessed quite correctly the intentions of Madame Geoffrin, when she said, that she merely came to her house so often in order to see what part of her inventory she could afterwards make useful.

Madame Geoffrin became celebrated all over Europe, merely by devoting a portion of her income and of her time to the reception of clever society. She had neither the knowledge, the mind, nor the humility of Madame de Tencin, which the latter at least affected towards the close of her life; she was cold, egotistical, calculating, and brought into her circle nothing more than order, tact and female delicacy. Geoffrin also assumed the tone of high life, which always treats men of learning, poets and artists, as if they were mantua-makers or hair-dressers; and which must ever value social tact and the tone which is only to be acquired in good society, higher than all studies and arts

rieur de bonhommie et de simplicité, avait plutôt l'air de la ménagère que de la maîtresse de la maison, c'était là Madame de Tencin...... et en effet, je m'aperçus bientôt qu'on y arrivait préparé à jouer son rôle, et que l'envie d'entrer en scène n'y laissait pas toujours à la conversation la liberté de suivre son cours facile et naturel. C'était à qui saisirait le plus vite et comme à la volée, le moment de placer son mot, son conte, son anecdote, sa maxime, ou son trait léger et piquant, et pour amener l'apropos, on le tirait quelquefois d'un peu loin. Dans Marivaux l'impatience de faire preuve de finesse et de sagacité perçait visiblement. Montesquieu avec plus de calme, attendait que la balle vint à lui, mais il l'attendait. Mairan guettait l'occasion. Astruc ne daignait pas l'attendre. Fontenelle seul la laissait venir sans la chercher, et il usait si sobrement de l'attention qu'on donnait à l'entendre, que ses mots fins, ses jolis contes, n'occupaient jamais qu'un moment. Helvetius, attentif et discret, recueillait pour semer un jour."