l'Académie franpaise, founded in

Page 102. — 1. portraits, character-sketches.

2. l'hôtel de Rambouillet, the Rambouillet mansion, the most prominent and influential salon of Paris in the first half of the seventeenth century. It was the centre of préciosité, of the bénéficiai but somewhat exaggerated movement for rendering the French language pure, élégant, and a perfect médium for polite society and letters.

Page 103. — 1. Mlle de Scudéry, an affected précieuse, who wrote monotonous and médiocre ten-volume octavo romances depicting contemporary society in a pseudo-antique setting.