"Il y a longtemps que je dis que vous etes
_vraie_"]
The famous friends were excluded by their physical conditions from the
activities of life. Mme de La Fayette, who was perhaps something of a
hypochondriac, tossed all day among the pillows of that golden bed
with the extravagance of which the austerity of Mme de Maintenon
upbraided her. La Rochefoucauld, tormented by the gout, lay stretched
at her side in his long chair, and the days went by in endless
discussion, endless balancing of right and wrong, much gossip, much
reading of books new and old, and not a little consultation of artist
with artist. They kept their secrets well, and no curiosity of
successive critics has been able to discover how much of La
Rochefoucauld is hidden in the pages of "La Princesse de Cleves", the
earliest of the modern novels of the world, nor how much of Mme de La
Fayette in the revised and re-revised text of the "Maximes." [8] But we
know that she was no less sagacious and no less an enemy to illusion
than he was, and those are probably not far wrong who have detected a
softening influence from her conversation on the late genius of La
Rochefoucauld.
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