Legouvé gives as the object and mission of Mme. de Rambouillet: "to combat the sensualism of Rabelais, Villon, and Marot, to reform society through love by reforming love through chastity; to place women at the head of civilization, by beginning a crusade against vice in the disguise of sentiment. The word 'fame' must, in the seventeenth century, apply to both man and woman, meaning honor for the one and purity for the other. Her ideal falls with the accession of Louis XIV.; the dazzling luxury of royalty hardly conceals, under its exterior elegance, the profound and deep-seated grossness of Versailles and Marly."
To Mme. de Rambouillet, then, belongs the distinction of having been the first to bring together men of letters and great lords on a footing of social equality and for mutual benefit. Her salon and friends continued in the seventeenth century what Marguerite d'Angoulême had begun in the first part of the sixteenth--an intellectual, social, and moral reform.
Many salons which were all more or less patterned after that of Rambouillet sprang into existence. Among these the Academy of the Vicomtesse d'Auchy, with Malherbe as president and tyrant, was of little influence as far as women were concerned. The members were all of second-rate importance, and Malherbe tolerated only the discussion of his verses, while Mme. d'Auchy was better known for her splendid neck than for any intellectuality. Every salon had a master of ceremonies, who performed the rite of presentation; these men were frequently abbés, and some of them, such as Du Buisson and Testu, became famous.
Among the most noted of these salons was that of the celebrated beauty, Ninon de Lenclos, she who called the _précieuses_ the "Jansenists of love," an expression which became very popular. Her salon was situated on the Rue des Tournelles. Ninon de Lenclos was a woman of the most brilliant mind and exquisite taste, and it was at her hôtel that Molière first read his _Tartuffe_ before Condé, La Fontaine, Boileau, Lulli, Racine, and Chapelle, and it was there that he received the principal ideas for his drama.
Ninon became famous for making staunch friends of her former lovers, in which connection some interesting tales are told. She was the mother of two children; upon the arrival of the first, a heated discussion arose between Count d'Estrées and Abbé d'Effiat, both claiming the honor of paternity. When the mother was consulted, she made no attempt to conceal her amusement; finally, the rivals threw dice for "father or not father."