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284 is a principle so universal that it is difficult to draw any deduction from it which experience of life and one's own heart will not verify. And La Rochefoucauld's aphorisms have been brought to the test of experience, the experience of reflection and observation. They are models of wit as Johnson defined it, not "what oft was thought," for the shock they give proves that they are not mere platitudes, but "that which though not obvious is upon its first production acknowledged to be just."

In style La Rochefoucauld's ideal is that of Balzac and the Précieuses. He cultivated the art of writing as "une seconde science." The Maximes were as regards their form a product of the salons, which after the Fronde took the place of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. Each salon cultivated some special form—letters, madrigals, portraits. At that of Madame de Sablé, which La Rochefoucauld frequented, the fashion was maxims, and it was under the influence of the critical spirit which was at work in society that he chiselled, polished, and pointed his aphorisms. In La Rochefoucauld's prose "préciosité," of which there is just a trace in some of the Maximes, passed into the perfection of classical prose, the right word in the right place, and no word that is unnecessary.