the headquarters of the pamphleteers who had held Mazarin up to bitter ridicule; and Scarron himself was the author of the Mazarinades.' It was in the Rue de la Tixeranderie that Françoise d'Aubigné, Madame de Maintenon,

made her debut in the world of Paris, and the deformed wit married the beautiful young provincial out of chivalrous compassion as much as admiration. He saved the future Queen of Versailles from the veil to which she had been devoted; and the heroine of that strange romance repaid him with grateful tenderness.

The Hôtel of the Cardinal, after his death, became a twin centre of society.

The half that took the name of Hôtel Mazarin had been part of the dowry of Hortense Mancini, who was married to the Maréchal de Meilleraie, afterwards created Duc de Mazarin. The other half, known as the Hôtel de Nevers, passed to the brother of Hortense, who had been ennobled as Duc de Nevers. Both were furnished with more than royal magnificence; for Mazarin, miserly as he was, had a mania for sumptuous decoration, and had sunk a portion of his hoards in the accumulation of objects of art. It was a strange fate that of the Duchess of Mazarin, who, after being courted as the niece of the all-powerful Minister, and sparkling among the queens of society, in all the luxury that wealth could command, spent the decline of her life in seclusion at Chelsea, and died there in such extremity of insolvency that her creditors laid an arrest on her remains. Faithful to her through all her changes of fortune was St. Evremond, whose career had been nearly as checkered as her own. The brilliant wit had been a soldier of fortune in his youth, and a satirist of fortune as well. He had transferred his ser

vices, in both capacities, to the Cardinal, after having been courted by the princes at the head of the Fronde; and the Cardinal, though always chary of his crowns, appreciated the value of the recruit he had gained. He might have been less satisfied with his new adherent had he known that St. Evremond was satirising him secretly; but, as it happened, it was reserved for Louis XIV. to revenge the memory of the Minister he had detested. The chance discovery of a stinging pasquinade on Mazarin, though only in the shape of a private letter, determined the King on making an example of a satirist, without seeming to be actuated by personal resentment. But St. Evremond had warning of the coming lettre de cachet, and escaped to Holland, and thence to England. There we meet him, in the pages of De Grammont, shining among the licentious wits at the Courts of the second Charles; and surviving into the eighteenth century, on a modest pension from the English Treasury, he died in narrow circumstances and the fulness of years, to be honoured with a funeral in Westminster Abbey.

The siècle of Louis XIV. was unfavourable to the salons. His ambition and enterprises gave them subjects enough for discussion and speculation; but the ascendancy of his all-absorbing personality must have weighed heavily upon them. It was no light matter to offend the absolute tyrant of a servile aristocracy. Moreover, the salons, as we have said, were distinctively Parisian-like Madame de Stäel, if any of these literary ladies were banished voluntarily or otherwise to the provinces, their thoughts would always turn regretfully to their own especial Rue du Bac-and Louis disliked Paris, and visited it as seldom as possible. He had never

forgiven the citizens their turbulence, and the humiliations they had heaped on his mother and himself. Nevertheless, while Marly, St. Germains, or Versailles were basking in the sunshine of the monarch's countenance, there were still houses in Paris where there were regular réunions, recruited by occasional visitors from the Court; while there were royal ladies who held rival courts of their own at the Palais Royal and the Luxembourg.

Hurrying on towards the middle of the eighteenth century, we come to those latter-day salons of the old régime that did the most towards hatching the Revolution. Among the most notable was that of Madame Geoffrin, which, indeed, was one of the institutions of the century. Already immense strides had been made towards actual equality in the republic of intellect. It was no longer a case of admitting brilliant young roturiers upon sufferance; or of tolerating "professional beauties" and feminine wits who were pushed forward by the men. Few of her predecessors had exercised more absolute authority than Madame Geoffrin. She is said to have been the daughter of a vintner; she had married a bourgeois colonel of the National Guard, who made a handsome fortune as a manufacturer of looking glasses. Yet before her death we find her corresponding on the easiest terms with Catherine, Empress of all the Russias; and she was tempted from Paris in her old age to pay a visit to Stanislas Poniatowski, who had announced to her his accession to the throne of Poland by writing, "Maman, votre fils est roi." Madame Geoffrin had formed the nucleus of her salon by seducing the friends of Madame de Tencin, who was alive to the proceedings of her un

grateful élève. Savez-vous," she said, "ce que la Geoffrin vient faire ici? Elle vient voir ce qu'elle pourra recueillir de mon inventaire." Madame Geoffrin's recruiting was more than successful, and Sainte-Beuve dilates on the company she entertained. Each Monday she had a dinner for the artists-Vanloo, Vernet, Boucher, La Tour, Vien, &c. Each Wednesday she entertained the literary world, and among the guests at the brilliant feasts of reason were D'Alembert, Mairan, Marmontel, Morellet, SaintLambert, Helvetius, Grimm, D'Holbach, and many a kindred spirit. Her saloons were thrown open for receptions after dinner, and the evening closed with the most select of little suppers, limited to some half-dozen of her intimates. Princes came to her, says Sainte-Beuve, as private individuals, and "les ambassadeurs n'en bougeaient des qu'ils y avaient mis pied." Madame Geoffrin, like the Marquise de Sablé, tabooed politics and religion; and she lent a watchful ear to the conversation around her, peremptorily checking any risqué or dangerous speeches with a "Voilà qui est bien." Her sterling good sense was as conspicuous as her good-nature; and she showed the latter quality in endless deeds of benevolence. more questionable use of her ample means was in the liberality with which she subsidised the Encyclopédie; and apropos to her long-standing liaison with the Encyclopedists, her last bon mot is recorded. She was lying on her deathbed, struck down by pralysis, when her daughter, more devout than her mother, closed the door of the room against the philosophers. There was profound sensation, of course, among the old friends of the house, and the rumor of it reached the dying woman. "My daughter," she said, "like

A

Godfrey de Bouillon, wishes to defend my tomb against the infidels." No one of the leaders of French society has been better known in England than Madame du Deffand. We naturally associate the blind old lady with her maternal affection for Horace Walpole; and it was in London that the best collection of her letters was first published, from manuscripts found among Walpole's papers. If Madame Geoffrin embodied sterling good sense, Madame du Deffand represented excellent taste, and the letters she has left are models of composition. She owed little to education, and almost everything to self-instruction and intellectual society. Her style, as Walpole wrote to her, was specially her own; and he could hardly have paid it a higher compliment than in warning her against trying to change for the better by modelling her writing after Madame de Sevigné. In her old age she fell on comparatively evil days, and she had to repent the act of benevolence which should have given her a daughter by adoption. In her discovery of a congenial spirit in Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse, we are reminded of the story of Cimabue and Giotto. Madame du Deffand, who was of a noble family of Burgundy, had met in her native province a bright young girl who was the souffre-douleur of the family that had received her for "charity." She appreciated at first sight the qualities of the Cinderella, brought her to Paris, installed her as her companion, and presented her to the company who frequented her receptions. Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse acted towards her patroness as Madame Geoffrin had behaved to Madame de Tencin. Madame du Deffand was an invalid who rose

late, and Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse profited by her opportunities. The mistress of the house soon discovered that she was being deprived of the monopoly of her most cherished possession in the shape of the devotion of her fidèles. There was a storm, which scarcely cleared the air, and Madame du Deffand had no reason to congratulate herself on having precipitated a rupture. The attentions that had been paid to her faithless confidante proved to have been no unmeaning compliment; and the seceders who, as Sainte-Beuve expresses it, followed the fortunes of the spirituelle emigrante, framed themselves into a joint-stock company to establish her in a salon of her own. Among them were numbered D'Alembert, Turgot, and Brienne, the future archbishop and chancellor-a secession that the blind lady might well deplore.

"From that moment Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse lived apart, and became, by her salon and by her influence on D'Alembert, one of the recognised powers of the eighteenth century."

It is time that we brought our article to a close. It is not in its plan to break ground on the new epoch that may be said to have begun with Madame Récamier; nor need we recapitulate what we have said, directly and indirectly, as to the influence of those salons of the eighteenth century on the terrible dramas that were to be enacted at its close. The mere names that are scattered over the last few pages are amply suggestive of the extent of that influence. If the precursors of the later revolutionists were in the dissolute aristocracy of the dim ages, its most able and indefatigable pioneers are to be found among the friends of the Geoffrins, the Deffands, and the L'Espinasses.

A MINISTER Who is the object of worship almost idolatrous to the great mass of his partisans, and behind whom they now sit in overwhelming majority, has had control of the nation's interests for about five months. In ordinary circumstances such a period might well be held too short to justify any decided criticism of a statesman's proceedings. But the position of the Ministry which now holds office is different from that of any ordinary Administration, whether as regards the events antecedent to its accession to power, or those of the few months of its existence. The mode and manner of its coming into being

were

unlike anything previously known in parliamentary history; the power given to it by the constituencies was almost unheard of; and the course it has run for little more than the third part of a year, has been as much if not more out of the common than might have been expected, either from the peculiarity of its hatching, or the gigantic monstrosity that was the issue of it. Never in the constitutional history of this or any other country was the political war for the overthrow of a Government conducted as was that which the present Prime Minister and his friends waged against the late Administration of Lord Beaconsfield. A policy which commended itself to the judgment of Parliament, and overcame the arguments of party orators so effectually as to bring over to its side many whose political associations necessarily made them jealous critics, was assailed again and again in vain. The House of Commons remained unmoved by opposition rhetoric, and gave an unflinching support to the Government. The un

wonted spectacle was seen of men who had once been Ministers of the Crown rushing about the country during vacations and recesses, in order to excite crowds by violent declamation in favour of views which, when Parliament assembled, they were unable to induce very many of their own party to sanction. Those who, on platforms crowded with admirers, roared as veritable lions, were as dumb dogs in comparison when obliged to stand in face of their opponents at St. Stephen's. As Lord Salisbury truly said, "Butter would not melt in their mouths." Not once during the momentous years since 1874 were they able to talk in the Houses of Parliament as they ranted from waggons or railway bridges, lest they should disgust those of their political friends who repudiated their views, and alienate others whom party loyalty alone kept from open revolt. For it was one of the anomalies of the last Parliament, which history will have to explain, that while never was a Ministerial policy more fiercely and persistently assailed, and held up to public scorn as weak, unworthy, and immoral, never was the invective of opposition less effectively supported when brought to the crucical test of division. Never did Lord Hartington the nominal shepherd, or Mr. Gladstone the real leader-the butting-ram- of the flock, succeed in bringing their followers together. A score or so of wandering sheep would break away and rush into the wrong pen, and another score would resist with absolute stolidity all attempts to lead or drive them.

But while the firmness and patriotism of Parliament were thus upholding the Ministry of the day

against opposition, which, whether right in its views or not, was undoubtedly factious in its action, the enemies of the Government were hard at work with the only weapons left to them-those of invective and abuse. It cannot be doubted that the strength and continued success of the Government in Parliament were most satisfactory from a patriotic point of view, and as furnishing an incident to be recorded with pride in British history-national representatives putting aside party trammels when questions of world-wide importance are at issue. But it is equally true that the negative effect was most damaging to constitutional interests. The patriotic were lulled into false security; while, at the same time, the vanity and conceit of those who were endeavouring to make political capital against the Government were so piqued by their repeated defeats, that they were stimulated to tremendous exertion, and induced to adopt any weapons, however unworthy. Their only hope was to overthrow, by a gigantic effort, the Ministry which their most violent attacks had hitherto been unable even to shake. Sensible men of all classes, and powerful journals of all politics, looked upon the Government as able, without any strengthening of its fortifications, to resist every attack in the future, as it had done in the past. Being unable to see any breach as the result of so many previous assaults, they were confident that everything was secure, and that no fresh works need be thrown up, or extra guards mounted. The efforts of the enemy had so signally failed, in comparison with the energy displayed in them, that all the defending and a great number of the attacking party looked on the result of the final great struggle as a foregone conclusion.

The last assault might cause some loss to the defenders, but it was not believed that it could compel a surrender.

One thing above all others tended to produce this feeling of security, which in the end proved so disastrous to the late Government. It was quite manifest to all who were well informed, and who retained sufficient calmness to watch the struggle with reasonable impartiality, that the attack was being conducted in a manner in which there was a great deal of glaring misrepresentation, and much that was so wild as to border on, the frantic. The rules which usually obtain in such contests were again and again overstepped. Words that social etiquette scarcely permits, and many words that it forbids, were freely and vehemently used by the leader of the clamour, and re-echoed by his followers. "Insane, suicidal, and wicked," were among the mildest of the epithets which formed the fighting vocabulary of excited orators. The Lowes and the Harcourts, the Brights and the Chamberlains, the Rylands and the Andersons, and those lower down, if indeed there be any, vied with each other in the licence of vituperation and invective, which they, as imitators of their chief, permitted to themselves. He and they bade the nation believe the proceedings of the Government then in power to have been such that "no honest

people could think of them without shame and degradation," that to suffer a continuance of their foreign and colonial policy would be immoral; and "Heaven's name" was again and again invoked in passionate appeal against the existence of a Ministry of such vain counsels and evil lusts. The tone used was so extravagant, the energy so excited, that it roused contempt rather