But I drop the pen in weariness, only
saying, that if a Greek girl be such as I have
described her, what must a Greek boy be!"

COMPANY MANNERS.

VICTOR COUSIN, the French philosopher,
has undertaken a new task within the last
few years. Whether as a relaxation from,
or a continuation of, his study of metaphysics,
I do not know, but he has begun to write the
biographies of some of the celebrated French
women of the seventeenth century. In
making out his list, he is careful to distinguish
between authoresses and "femmes
d'esprit," ranking the latter infinitely
the higher in every point of view. The first
of his series is Jacqueline Pascal, the sister
of Blaise, known at Port Royal as the Sister
Euphemia—a holy, pure, and sainted woman.
The second whom the grave philosopher has
chosen as a subject for his biography is that
beautiful, splendid sinner of the Fronde, the
fair-haired Duchess de Longueville. He
draws the pure and perfect outlines of Jacqueline
Pascal's character with a severe and
correct pencil; he paints the lovely duchess
with the fond, admiring exaggeration of a
lover. The wits of Paris in consequence
have written the following epitaph for him:
"Here lies Victor Cousin, the great
philosopher, in love with the Duchess de Longueville,
who died a century-and-a-half before he
was born."

Even the friends of this Duchess, insignificant
in themselves, become dear and illustrious
to Cousin for her fair sake. It is not long since
he contributed an article on Madame de Sablé
to the Revue des Deux Mondes, which has
since been published separately, and which
has suggested the thoughts and fancies that
I am now going to lay before the patient
public. This Madame de Sablé was, in her
prime, an habitual guest at the Hôtel
Rambouillet, the superb habitation which was
the centre of the witty and learned as well as
the pompous and pedantic society of Paris, in
the days of Louis the Thirteenth. When
these gatherings had come to an end after
Madame de Rambouillet's death, and before
Molière had turned the tradition thereof into
exquisite ridicule, there were several attempts
to form circles that should preserve some of
the stately refinement of the Hôtel
Rambouillet. Mademoiselle Scudery had her
Saturdays; but, an authoress herself, and
collecting around her merely clever people,
without regard to birth or breeding, M.
Cousin does not hold the idea of her Saturdays
in high esteem. Madame de Sablé, a
gentlewoman by birth: intelligent enough
doubtless from having been an associate of
Menage, Voiture, Madame de Sevigné, and
others in the grand hotel (whose meetings
must have been delightful enough at the
time, though that wicked Molière has stepped
between us and them, and we can only see
them as he chooses us to do): Madame de
Sablé, friend of the resplendent fair-haired
Duchess de Longueville: had weekly meetings
which M. Cousin ranks far above the more
pretentious Saturdays of Mademoiselle
Scudery. In short, the last page of his
memoir of Madame de Sablé,—where we
matter-of-fact English people are apt to put
in praise of the morals and religion of the
person whose life we have been writing,—is
devoted to this acme of praise. Madame de
Sablé had all the requisites which enabled
her "tenir un salon" with honour to
herself and pleasure to her friends.

Apart from this crowning accomplishment,
the good French lady seems to have been
commonplace enough. She was well-born,
well-bred, and the company she kept must
have made her tolerably intelligent. She was
married to a dull husband, and doubtless had
her small flirtations after she early became a
widow; M. Cousin hints at them, but they
were never scandalous, or prominently before
the public. Past middle life, she took to the
process of "making her salvation;" and
inclined to the Port-Royalists. She was given
to liking dainty things to eat, in spite of her
Jansenism. She had a female friend that she
quarrelled with, off and on, during her life.
And (to wind up something like Lady
O'Looney, of famous memory) she knew how
"tenir un salon." M. Cousin tells us that
she was remarkable in no one thing or quality,
and attributes to that single simple fact the
success of her life.

Now, since I have read these Memoirs of
Madame de Sablé, I have thought much and
deeply thereupon. At first, I was inclined
to laugh at the extreme importance which
was attached to this art of " receiving
company,"—no! that translation will not do
"holding a drawing-room," is even worse,
because that implies the state and reserve
of royalty;—shall we call it the art of
"Sabléing?" But when I thought of my
experience in English society; of the evenings
dreaded before they came, and sighed over in
recollection, because they were so ineffably
dull; I saw that to Sablé well, did require, as M.
Cousin implied, the union of many excellent
qualities and not-to-be-disputed little graces.
I asked some French people if they could
give me the recipe, for it seemed most likely
to be traditional, if not still extant in their
nation. I offer to you their ideas, fragmentary
though they be; and then I will tell you
some of my own; at last perhaps, with the
addition of yours, oh most worthy readers!
we may discover the lost art of Sabléing.

Said the French lady: "A woman to be
successful in Sabléing must be past youth, yet not
past the power of attracting. She must do this
by her sweet and gracious manners, and quick,
ready tact in perceiving those who have not
had their share of attention, or leading the
conversation away from any subject which
may give pain to any one present." "Those