Page:Cousin Phillis (1865).djvu/147

Victor Cousin, the French philosopher, has undertaken a new task within the last few years. Whether as a relaxation from, or a continuation of, his study of meta-physics, I do not know, but he has begun to write the biographies of some of the celebrated French women of the 17th century. In making out his list, he is careful to distinguish between authoresses and "femmes d'esprit," ranking the latter infinitely the higher in every point of view. The first of his series is Jacqueline Pascal, the sister of Blaise, known at Port Royal as the Sister Euphemia — a holy, pure, and sainted woman. The second whom the grave philosopher has chosen as a subject for his biography is that beautiful, splendid sinner of the Fronde, the fair-haired Duchess de Longueville. He draws the pure and perfect outlines of Jacqueline Pascal's character with a severe and correct pencil; he paints the lovely duchess with the fond, admiring exaggeration of a lover. The wits of Paris, in consequence, have written the following epitaph for him: "Here lies Victor Cousin, the great philosopher, in love