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What follows is translated literally from Segrais: "Virgil had considered that the greatest virtues of Augustus consisted in the perfect art of governing his people, which caused him to reign for more than forty years in great felicity. He considered that his emperor was valiant, civil, popular, eloquent, politic, and religious; he has given all these qualities to AEneas.
"I would take great care not to say so to anybody else," he whispered in the ear of Segrais, who was sitting beside him, "because they would say that I said so from jealousy; but, mind you, there is not in Bajazet a single character with the sentiments which should and do prevail at Constantinople; they have all, beneath a Turkish dress, the sentiments that prevail in the midst of France."
These indeed are but suppositions on both sides, yet those of Segrais seem better grounded; for the feast of Dido, when she entertained AEneas first, has the appearance of a summer's night, which seems already almost ended, when he begins his story. Therefore the love was made in autumn; the hunting followed properly, when the heats of that scorching country were declining.
Segrais reckons another way, and his computation is not condemned by the learned Ruaeus, who compiled and published the commentaries on our poet which we call the "Dauphin's Virgil."
If it be replied, continues Segrais, that it was not difficult for him to undertake and achieve such hardy enterprises because he wore enchanted arms, that accusation in the first place must fall on Homer ere it can reach Virgil. But I insist not on this because I know you believe not there is such an art; though not only Horace and Persius, but Augustus himself, thought otherwise.
Segrais, whose recollections of him are among the most precious which have come down to us, says that La Rochefoucauld never argued. He had the Socratic manner, and led others on to expose and expound their views.
He applauded Segrais, whose works nobody reads; he abused Quinault, whose poetical pieces every one has got by heart; and is wholly silent upon La Fontaine. Waller, though a better poet than Voiture, was not yet a finished poet. The graces breathe in such of Waller's works as are writ in a tender strain; but then they are languid through negligence, and often disfigured with false thoughts.
There is a beauty of sound, as Segrais has observed, in some Latin words, which is wholly lost in any modern language. He instances in that mollis amaracus, on which Venus lays Cupid in the first AEneid.
She liked to pass an evening in the literary coterie at the Luxembourg; to drop in familiarly upon Mme. de La Fayette, where she found La Rochefoucauld, Cardinal de Retz, sometimes Segrais, Huet, La Fontaine, Moliere, and other wits of the time; to sup with Mme. de Coulanges and Mme. Scarron.
The touch of a merciless criticism stripped them of their already fading glory. Their subtle analysis and etherealized sentiment were declared antiquated, and fashion ran after new literary idols. It was Boileau who gave the severest blow. "This Despreaux," said Segrais, "knows how to do nothing else but talk of himself and criticize others; why speak ill of Mlle. de Scudery as he has done?"
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