The next stage was the portrait by itself, without any setting.  At the height of the popularity of the romances, Mlle de Montpensier hit upon a new kind of entertainment for the talented circle of which she was the brilliant centre.  It was nothing more nor less than a paper game.  They drew each other, or persons whom they knew, or themselves, and under their real names.  And they played the game so well that what was written for amusement was worth printing. Divers Portraits, Imprimes en l’annee M DC LIX was the simple title of the first collection, which was intended only for the contributors.[11] When it reached its final form in 1663, it contained over a hundred and fifty portraits, and was offered to the public as La Galerie des Peintures, ou Recueil des portraits et eloges en vers et en prose, contenant les portraits du Roy, de la Reyne, des princes, princesses, duchesses, marquises, comtesses, et autres seigneurs et dames les plus illustres de France; la plupart composes par eux-memes.[12] The introductory defence of the portrait cites Suetonius and Plutarch, and Horace and Montaigne, but also states frankly the true original of the new fashion—­’il faut avouer que nous sommes tres redevables au Cyrus et a la Clelie qui nous en ont fourni les modeles.’  About the same time Antoine Baudeau, sieur de Somaize, brought out his Grand Dictionnaire des Precieuses,[13] in which there are many portraits in the accepted manner.  The portrait was more than a fashion at this time in France; it was the rage.  It therefore invited the satirists.  Moliere has a passing jest at them in his Precieuses Ridicules;[14] Charles Sorel published his Description de I’isle de la Portraiture et de la ville des Portraits; and Boileau wrote his Heros de Roman.

The effects of all this in England are certainly not obvious.  It is quite a tenable view that the English characters would have been no less numerous, nor in any way different in quality, had every Englishman been ignorant of French.  But the memoires and romances were well known, and it was after 1660 that the art of the character attained its fullest excellence.  The literary career of Clarendon poses the question in a simple form.  Most of his characters, and the best as a whole, were written at Montpelier towards the close of his life.  Did he find in French literature an incentive to indulge and perfect his natural bent?  Yet there can be no conclusive answer to those who find a sufficient explanation in the leisure of these unhappy years, and in the solace that comes to chiefs out of war and statesmen out of place in ruminating on their experiences and impressions.

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