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Updated: May 19, 2025
Yet they looked very bored, these soldiers and seigneurs, yawning and blinking over the missals, while some who seemed more intent upon their devotions were really dipping into the latest romance of Scudery or Calpernedi, cunningly bound up in a sombre cover.
Balzac, still in retirement at his country-place, made no mistake as to the state of mind either in the Academy or in the world when he wrote to Scudery, who had sent him his Observations sur le Cid, "Reflect, sir, that all France takes sides with M. Corneille, and that there is not one, perhaps, of the judges with whom it is rumored that you have come to an agreement, who has not praised that which you desire him to condemn; so that, though your arguments were incontrovertible and your adversary should acquiesce therein, he would still have the wherewith to give himself glorious consolation for the loss of his case, and be able to tell you that it is something more to have delighted a whole kingdom than to have written a piece according to regulation.
M. du Bled describes them as follows: "What they did in the salon of Mlle. de Scudéry you can guess readily: they amused themselves as at Mme. de Rambouillet's, they joked quite cheerfully, smiled and laughed, wrote farces in prose and poetry.
Scudery arose with a vainglorious and pedantic air; and, unrolling upon the table a sort of geographical chart tied with blue ribbons, he himself showed the lines of red ink which he had traced upon it. "This is the finest piece of Clelie," he said. "This chart is generally found very gallant; but 'tis merely a slight ebullition of playful wit, to please our little literary cabale.
"I have heard that Mademoiselle Scudery and Madame de Sevigne wrote books, but it was not the best thing they did." "Are you going to dine at Les Touches, monsieur?" said Mariotte, when Calyste entered. "Probably," replied the young man. Mariotte was not inquisitive; she was part of the family; and she left the room without waiting to hear what the baroness would say to her son.
"Well, Madame," resumed Scudery, "I now declare it in your house: this work, printed under my name, is by my sister she who translated 'Sappho' so agreeably." And without being asked, he recited in a declamatory tone verses ending thus: L'Amour est un mal agreable Don't mon coeur ne saurait guerir; Mais quand il serait guerissable, Il est bien plus doux d'en mourir.
Mlle. de Scudery held a ready pen, and was in the habit of noting down in her letters to absent friends the conversation, which ran over a great variety of topics, from the gossip of the moment to the gravest questions.
Mlle. de Scudéry actually perceived this, and published a collection of model correspondence which was culled bodily from the huge store-house of her own romances, from Le Grand Cyrus and Clélie. These interchanges of letters were kept up by the severity of the heroines.
She preserved the old romantic manner, a kind of corruption of the splendid Scudéry and Calprenède folly of the middle of the seventeenth century. All that distinguished her was her vehement exuberance and the emptiness of the field. Ann Lang was young, and instinctively attracted to the study of the passion of love. She must read something, and there was nothing but Eliza Haywood for her to read.
"Monsieur de Scudery, the author of 'Clelie, and of 'Le Grand Cyrus, which were composed partly by him and partly by his sister, who is now talking to that pretty person yonder, near Monsieur Scarron." Raoul turned and saw two faces just arrived.
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