Here they were wont to hold the most solemn discussions on the most frivolous topics, but especially on matters relating to gallantry and love, which they debated with all the subtilty and metaphysical refinement that centuries before had characterized the romantic Courts of Love in the south of France. All this was conducted in an affected jargon, in which the most common things, instead of being called by their usual names, were signified by ridiculous periphrases; which, while it required neither wit nor ingenuity to invent them, could have had no other merit, even in their own eyes, than that of being unintelligible to the vulgar. To this was superadded a tone of exaggerated sentiment, and a ridiculous code of etiquette, by which the intercourse of these exclusives was to be regulated with each other, all borrowed from the absurd romances of Calprenede and Scudéri. Even the names of the parties underwent a metamorphosis, and Madame de Rambouillet's christian name of Catherine being found too trite and unpoetical, was converted into Arthénice, by which she was so generally recognised as to be designated by it in Fléchier's eloquent funeral oration on her daughter.[1] These insipid affectations, which French critics are fond of imputing to an Italian influence, savour quite as much of the Spanish cultismo as of the concetti of the former nation, and may be yet more fairly referred to the same
- ↑ How comes La Harpe to fall into the error of supposing that Fléchier referred to Madame Montauasier by this epithet of Arthénice? The bishop's style in this passage is as unequivocal as usual. See Cours de Litérature, &c., tome vi, p. 167.
