Critics often reproach Mlle. de Scudery for having portrayed herself—­as Sapho—­in a flattering light in her novel Cyrus; but it must be remembered that at that time this was a common custom, women of the highest quality indulging in such pastimes, there even being a prominent salon where verbal portraiture was the sole occupation.  No one has written more or better on the condition of woman, for she, above all, had the experience upon which to base her writings.  The idea of woman’s education and aim, which was generally entertained by the intelligent and modest women of the seventeenth century, is well expressed by Mlle. de Scudery in the following: 

“The difficulty of knowing something with seemliness does not come to a woman so much from what she knows as from what others do not know; and it is, without doubt, singularity that makes it difficult to be as others are not, without being exposed to blame.  Seriously, is not the ordinary idea of the education of women a peculiar one?  They are not to be coquettes nor gallants, and yet they are carefully taught all that is peculiar to gallantry without being permitted to know anything that can strengthen their virtue or occupy their minds.  Don’t imagine, however, that I do not wish woman to be elegant, to dance or to sing; but I should like to see as much care devoted to her mind as to her body, and between being ignorant and savante I should like to see a road taken which would prevent annoyance from an impertinent sufficiency or from a tiresome stupidity.  I should like very much to be able to say of anyone of my sex that she knows a hundred things of which she does not boast, that she has a well-balanced mind, that she speaks well, writes correctly, and knows the world; but I do not wish it to be said of her that she is a femme savante.  The best women of the world when they are together in a large number rarely say anything that is worth anything and are more ennuye than if they were alone; on the contrary, there is something that I cannot express, which makes it possible for men to enliven and divert a company of ladies more than the most amiable woman on earth could do.”

Mlle. de Scudery considered marriage a long slavery and preferred virtuous celibacy enlivened by platonic gallantry.  When youth and adorers had passed away, she found consolation in interchanges of wit, congenial conversation, and the cultivation of the mind by study.  Making of love a doctrine, a manual of morals or savoir-vivre, has had a refining effect upon civilization; but the process has rendered the emotion itself too subtle, select, narrow, enervating, and exhausting; it has resulted in the production of splendid books with heroes and heroines of the higher type, and has purified the atmosphere of social life; this phase of its influence, however, is felt by only a set of the elite, and its adherents are scattered through every age and every country.  Mlle. de Scudery was a perfect representative of that type, but healthy and normal rather than morbidly aesthetic.