Many persons have thought that the French language has become
impoverished since the time of Amyot and Montaigne: one does indeed
find in many authors expressions which are no longer admissible; but
they are for the most part familiar expressions for which equivalents
have been substituted. The language has been enriched with a quantity of
noble and energetic expressions; and without speaking here of the
eloquence of things, it has acquired the eloquence of words. It is in
the reign of Louis XIV., as has been said, that this eloquence had its
greatest splendour, and that the language was fixed. Whatever changes
time and caprice prepare for it, the good authors of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries will always serve as models.
_FRIENDSHIP_
Friendship is the marriage of the soul; and this marriage is subject to
divorce. It is a tacit contract between two sensitive and virtuous
persons. I say "sensitive," because a monk, a recluse can be not wicked
and live without knowing what friendship is. I say "virtuous," because
the wicked have only accomplices; voluptuaries have companions in
debauch, self-seekers have partners, politicians get partisans; the
generality of idle men have attachments; princes have courtiers;
virtuous men alone have friends. Cethegus was the accomplice of
Catilina, and Maecenas the courtier of Octavius; but Cicero was the
friend of Atticus.
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