When the future bishop of Grasse and Vence had recited his poems, which were love-pieces and doubtless of a light description--for he afterwards begged them back from Conrart and burned them--the conversation became general, and the evening passed so pleasantly that the company was unanimous that these instructive and entertaining meetings must be repeated. There were eight of these friends gathered together, all authors or men intimately occupied with literature. They were agreed in determining to keep up their discussions, and first of all it was proposed that they should meet successively in each other's houses. But no one of them was rich, and Conrart's house was far the most comfortably situated; he was anxious to be the perpetual host, and the rest were glad to give way to him. They decided to meet once every week to discuss literature and language in Conrart's house at the corner of the Rue Saint Martin. The names of the eight friends are not equally celebrated in the history of French literature; most of them, indeed, are not celebrated at all; but I must record them here, before I proceed, because of the leading part they took at the inception of the Académie. They were Chapelain, Conrart, Godeau, Gombauld, Philippe Habert, Habert de Cerisy, Sérisay, and Malleville. We must try to form some impression of each of them, though most are but fugitive and phantasmal figures.
Of Valentin Conrart a tolerably clear image can be formed by collating what the memoir-writers have recorded of him. It was much noted that he was no scholar; like Shakespeare he had little Latin and less Greek; indeed it was roundly asserted that he had none of either. But he studied much Italian and Spanish, and he had a fine library exclusively of modern literature. He wrote a great deal in prose and verse, but mainly for his private pleasure; he kept a prudent silence about his works, which were understood to be mediocre. He was always an invalid; already, in his youth, he began to be a sufferer from the gout, which was to torture him for thirty years. But pain did not affect his temper, nor his extraordinary gregariousness. He lived for the small enjoyments of others. He was the confidant of everybody, the healer of all quarrels and disputes. As time went on, and Conrart became absorbed in the duties of perpetual Secretary to the Académie, his qualities may have become exaggerated. His enemies began to say that he was too indulgent, too easy-going with offenders. The super-subtle declared that he had become infatuated with his own friendliness, and that he went through Paris murmuring "Ah! ma belle amitié!" He was a great depositary of secrets, and liked nothing so much as to run about--or rather, poor man! to hobble about--pouring oil upon troubled waters. Tallemant des Réaux, who hated him, says that Conrart had an unpleasant wife, whose face was like a gingerbread nut, but we need not believe all that Tallemant des Réaux says.