“Cleomire (Mme. de Rambouillet) had built, according to her own design, a place which is one of the finest in the world; she has found the art of constructing a palace of vast extent in a situation of mediocre grandeur.  Order, harmony, and elegance are in all the apartments, and in the furniture also; everything is magnificent, even unique; the lamps are different from those of other palaces, her cabinets are full of objects which show the judgment of her who chose them.  In her palace, the air is always scented; many baskets full of magnificent flowers make a continual spring in her room, and the place which she frequents ordinarily is so agreeable and so imaginative as to make one feel as if she were in some enchanted place.”

The very names of the frequenters of the salon of Mme. de Rambouillet testify to the prominence of her position in the world of culture:  Mlle. de Scudery, Mlle. du Vigean; Mmes. de Longueville, de la Vergne, de La Fayette, de Sable, de Hautefort, de Sevigne, de la Suze, Marie de Gonzague, Duchesse d’Aiguillon, Mmes. des Houlieres, Cornuel, Aubry, and their respective husbands; the great literary men:  Rotrou, Scarron, Saint-Evremond, Malherbe, Racan, Chapelain, Voiture, Conrart, Benserade, Pellisson, Segrais, Vaugelas, Menage, Tallemant des Reaux, Balzac, Mairet, Corneille, Bossuet, etc.  In the entire period of the French salon, no other such brilliant gathering of men and women of social standing, princely blood, genuine intelligence, and literary ability ever assembled from motives other than those of politics or intrigue; here was a gathering purely social and for purposes of mutual refinement.  The nobility went through a process of polishing, and the men of letters sharpened their intelligence and modified their manners and customs.

Julie, Duchess of Montausier, and Angelique, daughters of Mme. de Rambouillet, were popular, but the former lost much of her charm after she sacrificed her independence of thought and action by becoming governess of the children of the queen.  Julie was the centre of attraction for all perfumed rhymesters, all sighers in prose and verse, who thronged about her.  The stern and unbending Duke of Montausier was so under her influence that in 1641 he arranged and laid before her shrine the famous guirlande which was illustrated by Robert and to which nineteen authors contributed.  After her marriage to the duke, the Hotel de Rambouillet may be said to have ceased to exist, as madame, who was seventy years of age, had for a number of years kept herself in the background, and Julie had become the acknowledged leader.

With the outbreak of the Fronde, friends were separated by their individual interests and the reunions at the salon were interrupted from about 1650 to 1652.  After the death of her husband, Mme. de Rambouillet retired, to reside with her daughter, Mme. de Montausier; after that, she seldom appeared in public.  She hardly lived to see the spirit of the salon changed to the real preciosite—­the direction and aim she gave to it being gradually abandoned.