La Rochefoucauld’s maxims were composed according to the chance of conversation, which gave rise to various subjects and led to his serious reflection upon them.  Cousin even goes so far as to say that the Pensees of Pascal would never have been published in that form had not the Maxims enjoyed such favor.  Pascal often visited Port-Royal and naturally followed the general reflective tendency of its society.  His Discours sur les Passions de l’Amour possibly originated at the salon of Mme. de Sable, because the subject of which that work treated was one much discussed there.  La Rochefoucauld was in the habit of sending his maxims to Mme. de Sable with the message:  “As you do nothing for nothing, I ask of you a carrot soup or mutton stew.”

When La Rochefoucauld entered the society of Mme. de Sable, he had seen much of life, was familiar with most of the adventures and intrigues of the Fronde and the society of the time; he himself had acted his part in all, and at the age of fifty was ready to put his experience into a permanent form of reflection.  His Maxims created a stir, through the clearness and elegance of their character, their fine analyses of man as he was in the seventeenth century, and through their truthfulness and general applicability to men of every country.  From all the illustrious women of the day, either he or Mme. de Sable received letters of criticism or suggestion—­eulogies and condemnations of which he took notice in his next edition.  This shows the intense interest felt in the appearance of any new literary production.

Cousin says that the whole literature of maxims and reflections issued directly from the salon of a kind and good woman who had retired to a convent with no other desire than to live over her life, to recall her past and what she had seen and felt therein; and upon her society, that woman impressed her own tastes, elegance, and seriousness.  Her great act of benevolence was her protection of Port-Royal.  When, after the death in 1661 of Mother Angelique Arnauld, that institution became the object of persecution and its tenants were either imprisoned or compelled to seek refuge in the various families of Paris, Mme. de Sable remained faithful to its principles; she lived with her friends, Mme. de Longueville and Mme. de Montausier, until 1669, when, with the cooeperation of Mme. de Longueville, who exerted all her influence for Port-Royal, she finally succeeded in bringing about its reopening.  At least, Cousin ascribes this result to Mme. de Sable, but he may have somewhat exaggerated her influence in this respect.  From her retreat at Port-Royal, she kept up a constant correspondence with her friends all over France; she lived there until 1678, with but one intimate friend, Mme. de Longueville.