interesting fragment of regal domestic
life.--ED.]

Their more curious project was the reform of the style of conversation, to
purify its grossness, and invent novel terms for familiar objects. Menage
drew up a "Petition of the Dictionaries," which, by their severity of
taste, had nearly become superannuated. They succeeded better with the
_marchandes des modes_ and the jewellers, furnishing a vocabulary
excessively _precieuse_, by which people bought their old wares with new
names. At length they were so successful in their neology, that with great
difficulty they understood one another. It is, however, worth observation,
that the orthography invented by the _precieuses_--who, for their
convenience, rejected all the redundant letters in words--was adopted, and
is now used; and their pride of exclusiveness in society introduced the
singular term _s'encanailler,_ to describe a person who haunted low
company, while their morbid purity had ever on their lips the word
_obscenite_, terms which Moliere ridicules, but whose expressiveness has
preserved them in the language.

Ridiculous as some of these extravagances now appear to us, they had been
so closely interwoven with the elegance of the higher ranks, and so
intimately associated with genius and literature, that the veil of fashion
consecrated almost the mystical society, since we find among its admirers
the most illustrious names of France.

Into this elevated and artificial circle of society our youthful and
unsophisticated poet was now thrown, with a mind not vitiated by any
prepossessions of false taste, studious of nature and alive to the
ridiculous. But how was the comic genius to strike at the follies of his
illustrious friends--to strike, but not to wound? A provincial poet and
actor to enter hostilely into the sacred precincts of these Exclusives?
Tormented by his genius Moliere produced _Les Precieuses Ridicules_, but
admirably parried, in his preface, any application to them, by averring
that it was aimed at their imitators--their spurious mimics in the
country. The _Precieuses Ridicules_ was acted in the presence of the
assembled Hotel de Rambouillet with immense applause. A central voice from
the pit, anticipating the host of enemies and the fame of the reformer of
comedy, exclaimed, "Take courage, Moliere, this is true comedy." The
learned Menage was the only member of the society who had the good sense
to detect the drift; he perceived the snake in the g