An interesting anecdote is told in connection with the travels and cooeperation of Mlle. de Scudery and her brother; once, on the way to Paris, while stopping over night at Lyons, they were discussing the fate of one of their heroes, one proposing death and the other rescue, one poison and the other a more cruel death; a gentleman from Auvergne happened to overhear them and immediately notified the people of the inn, thinking it was a question of assassinating the king; the brother and sister were thrown into prison and only with great difficulty were they able to explain matters the next morning.  From this incident Scribe drew the material for his drama, L’Auberge ou les Brigands sans le Savoir.

At the Hotel de Rambouillet where Mlle. de Scudery was received early, she won everyone by her modesty, simplicity, esprit, and lovable disposition, and, in spite of her homeliness and poor figure, she attracted many platonic lovers.  She was one of the few brilliant and famous women of the seventeenth century whose popularity was due solely to admirable qualities of mind and soul.  With her, friendship became a cult, and it was in time of trouble that her friends received the strongest proof of her affection.  She preferred to incur disgrace and the disfavor of Mazarin rather than forsake Conde and Madame de Longueville; to them she dedicated the ten volumes, successively, of her novel, Cyrus; the last volume was published after Mme. de Longueville’s retirement and partial disgrace.

After the brilliant society of the Hotel de Rambouillet had been broken up by the marriage of Julie and the operations of the Fronde, and after her brother’s marriage in 1654, Mlle. de Scudery became independent and established the custom of receiving her friends on Saturday; these receptions became famous under the name of Samedi, and besides the regular rather bourgeois gathering, the most brilliant talent and highest nobility flocked to them, regardless of rank or station, wealth or influence.  Pellisson, the great master, the prince, the Apollo of her Saturdays, was a man of wonderfully inventive genius, and possessed in a higher degree than any of his contemporaries the art of inventing surprises for the society that lived on novelty.  When, on account of his devotion to Fouquet, he was imprisoned in the Bastille, Mlle. de Scudery managed to persuade Colbert to brighten his confinement by permitting him to see friends and relatives.  Part of every day she spent in his prison, conversing and reading; and this is but one instance of her fidelity and friendship.

Mlle. de Scudery, considering all men as aspirants for authority who, when husbands, degenerate into tyrants, preferred to retain her independence.  Her ideas on love were very peculiar and were innovations at the time:  she wished to be loved, but her love must be friendship—­a pure, platonic love, in which her lover must be her all, her confidant, the participator in her sorrows and her conversation; and his happiness must be in her alone; he must, without feeling passion, love her for herself, and she must have the same feeling toward him.  These sentiments are expressed in her novels, from which the following extracts are taken: