Their card of invitation was either a rondeau or an enigma, which served as a subject to open conversation.  The lady received her visitors reposing on that throne of beauty, a bed placed in an alcove; the toilet was magnificently arranged.  The space between the bed and the wall was called the Ruelle[A], the diminutive of la Rue; and in this narrow street, or “Fop’s alley,” walked the favoured.  But the chevalier who was graced by the honorary title of l’Alcoviste, was at once master of the household and master of the ceremonies.  His character is pointedly defined by St. Evremond, as “a lover whom the Precieuse is to love without enjoyment, and to enjoy in good earnest her husband with aversion.”  The scene offered no indecency to such delicate minds, and much less the impassioned style which passed between les cheres, as they called themselves.  Whatever offered an idea, of what their jargon denominated charnelle, was treason and exile.  Years passed ere the hand of the elected maiden was kissed by its martyr.  The celebrated Julia d’Angennes was beloved by the Duke de Montausier, but fourteen years elapsed ere she would yield a “yes.”  When the faithful Julia was no longer blooming, the Alcoviste duke gratefully took up the remains of her beauty.

[Footnote A:  In a portion of the ancient Louvre, still preserved amid the changes to which it has been subjected, is the old wainscoted bedroom of the great Henry IV., with the carved recess, and the ruelle, as described above:  it is a most 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.