Note 36 — MADAME DE LONGUEVILLE. INTRODUCTION.

We shall often return in this work, for example, 1st Part, chap. ii., to this difference between the literature of Louis XIII. and that of Louis XIV. We have elsewhere said, Fourth Series, vol. ii., of the illustrious women of the seventeenth century, p. 13: “Let us go on and examine the age of Louis XIV. An end has come to the manly vigor of the times of Richelieu; the freedom of the Fronde has ceased; Louis XIV. has made politeness and dignity, tempered by good taste, the order of the day. Fortunate are the minds which have been formed in the strength and liberty of the preceding age, which receive the polish of the new epoch! This was the privilege of Madame de Sévigné, as well as of Molière and of Bossuet.”