duced between the "Memoires" and the
"Maximes," and it is charmingly written, a portrait drawn in tones of
rose-colour and dove-grey, like the pastel-portraits of a century
later.

He begins by describing his physical appearance, but passes soon to
the moral and social qualities. It would be interesting to quote the
whole of this portrait, but we must confine ourselves to some brief
quotations. How far we seem from the beasts of prey which ranged the
forests of the Fronde, or tore one another to pieces in the streets of
Paris, when we follow this refined attempt to present the character of
a modern and a complicated man:--

"There is something," says La Rochefoucauld, "at once peevish and
proud in my appearance. This makes most people think that I am
contemptuous, but I am not so at all. So far as my humour goes, I am
melancholy, and I am so to such an extent that, in the last three or
four years, I have scarcely been seen to laugh three or four times. It
seems to me nevertheless that my melancholy would be supportable and
mild enough if it depended solely on my temperament, but it comes so
much from outside causes, and what so comes fills my imagination to
such a degree, and occupies my thoughts so exclusively, that most of
the time I move as in a dream, and scarce listen to what I myself am
saying."

Here we have the disappointed courtier still brooding over his
disgrace, but we pass to an account of the relief which the new-born
man of letters find in the cultivation of the intellect alone--

"I am fond of general reading, but that in which I find something to
fashion the mind and to fortify the soul is what I like best. Above
all it gives me an extreme satisfaction to read in company with an
intelligent person, for in this way one is kept constantly reflecting
on what one reads, and the reflections thus exchanged form a species
of conversation than which no other in the world is so agreeable or so
useful. I give a sound opinion about works in verse and prose which
are submitted to me, but perhaps I allow myself too much freedom in
expressing that opinion. Another fault of mine is that I am sometimes
too scrupulously delicate and too severely critical. I do not dislike
to listen to argument, and sometimes I am glad to take my share in the
discussion, but I usually support my opinion with too much heat, and
when any one pleads an unjust cause in my presence, sometimes, in my
zeal for logic, I myself become exceed