natural and unexaggerated feeling, and for the fact that it treats
of married life, occupying itself with such themes as have been dealt
with in many of its modern successors. The _Zayde_, of eight years
later, was written in collaboration with Segrais. It is in _La
Princesse de Cleves_ (1678) that the genius and the heart of Madame
de la Fayette find a perfect expression. The Princess, married to
a husband who loves her devotedly, and whom she honours, but whose
feelings she cannot return, is tempted by the brilliant Duc de Nemours
and by the weakness of her own passion, to infidelity. She resolves
to confide her struggle to her husband, and seek in him a protector
against herself. The hard confession is made, but a grievous and
inevitable change has passed over their lives. Believing himself
deceived, M. de Cleves is seized by a fever and dies, not without
the consolation of learning his error. Nemours renews his vows and
entreaties; the Princess refuses his hand, and atones for her error
in cloistered seclusion. The tale has lost none of its beauty and
pathos after a lapse of two centuries. Does it reveal the hidden grief
of the writer's life? And was her friend, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld,
delivered from his gout and more than a score of years, transformed
by Madame de la Fayette into the foiled lover of her tale?

CHAPTER V
BOILEAU AND LA FONTAINE

The great name in criticism of the second half of the seventeenth
century is that of Boileau. But one of whom Boileau spoke harshly,
a soldier, a man of the world, the friend of Ninon de l'Enclos, a
sceptical Epicurean, an amateur in letters, Saint-Evremond
(1613-1703), among his various writings, aided the cause of criticism
by the intuition which he had of what is excellent, by a fineness
of judgment as far removed from mere licence as from the pedantry
of rules. Fallen into disfavour with the King, Saint-Evremond was
received into the literary society of London. His criticism is that
of a fastidious taste, of balance and moderation, guided by tradition,
yet open to new views if they approved themselves to his culture and
good sense. Had his studies been more serious, had his feelings been
more generous and ardent, had his moral sense been less shallow, he
might have made important contributions to literature. As it was,
to be a man of the world was his trade, to be a writer was only an
admirable foible.

NICOLAS BOILEAU, named DESPREAUX, from a field (pr