Thus, in the seventeenth century, religious agitations and religious reform were the work preeminently of women; but that reform and those agitations were productive of good results to a far greater degree than was any similar movement in any other century, with the possible exception of the nineteenth.  The seventeenth century was, as mentioned before, a century of stability, one that toned down and crushed all violations and abuses of the standard established by authority.  Woman, in her constant striving for the complete emancipation and gradual purification of her sex, rebelled against the power of established authority; she did not consciously or intentionally violate law and order, but in her intense desire to act for good as she saw it, and in her noble efforts to ameliorate all undesirable conditions, she created commotion and confusion.  The seventeenth-century woman is conspicuous as a champion of religion, moral purity, and social reform; therefore, her influence was mainly social, religious, moral, and literary, while that of the woman of the sixteenth century was mainly political.  This difference was the result of the greater advantages of education and training enjoyed by the females of the later period.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, young girls were granted greater privileges and received more attention from men and society than did their predecessors; they thus had more opportunities for mental development, more occasion to become aware of the temptations and injustices of life, without falling prey to them.  Such young girls as Julie d’Angennes, Mlle. d’Arquenay, and Mlle. de Pisani, took part in the balls, fetes, garden parties, and all amusements in which society indulged.  They met young men of their own age and became intimately acquainted with them, morals were purer, marriages of affection were much more frequent, and the state of married life was much more congenial, than in any other century.  Young men paid court to the older ladies, to refine their manners and sharpen their intellects, but not for any immoral purpose.  To a certain extent women were more world-wise when they reached the marriageable age, and inspired respect and admiration rather than passion and desire as in the next century.

Young girls of the seventeenth century were early placed in a convent, and when they left it they were ready for marriage; in the meantime, they frequently visited home and associated with their parents and brothers; at the convents intellectual intercourse with people of high rank and men of letters was encouraged.  Yet the discipline at those institutions was very rigid, the boarders being more carefully watched then than later on; two nuns always accompanied them on their walks, and when not busy with their studies, to prevent the mind from wandering, they were kept busy with their hands; “the transports of the soul of the young girl, as every reflection of the intelligence, are watched and held in check, every one of her inclinations opposed, all originality suppressed.”