of power, prestige and luxury found in 17th-century literature may be distasteful or even offensive. Corneille's heroes, for example, have been labeled by modern critics as vainglorious, extravagant and prideful; however, contemporary aristocratic readers would see these characters (and their actions) as representative of nobility. The château of Versailles, court ballets, noble portraits, triumphal arches – all of these were representations of glory and prestige. The notion of glory (whether artistic or military) was not vanity or boastfulness or hubris, but rather a moral imperative for the aristocracy. Nobles were required to be generous, magnanimous and to perform great deeds disinterestedly (i.e. because their status demanded it, without expectations of financial or political gain), and to master their own emotions (especially fear, jealousy and the desire for revenge). One's status in the world demanded appropriate externalisation ( or "conspicuous consumption"). Nobles indebted themselves to build prestigious urban mansions (hôtels particuliers) and to buy clothes, paintings, silverware, dishes and other furnishings befitting their rank. They were also required to show generosity by hosting sumptuous parties and by funding the arts. Conversely, social parvenus who took on the external trappings of the noble classes (such as the wearing of a sword) were severely criticised, sometimes by legal action (laws concerning sumptuous clothing worn by the bourgeois existed since the Middle Ages). These aristocratic values began to be criticised in the mid-17th century; Blaise Pascal, for example, offered a ferocious analysis of the spectacle of power and François de La Rochefoucauld posited that no human act—however generous it pretended to be—could be considered disinterested. Classicism In an attempt to restrict the proliferation of private centers of intellectual or literary life (so as to impose the royal court as the artistic center of France), Cardinal Richelieu took an existing literary gathering (around Valentin Conrart) and designated it as the official Académie française in 1634. Other original members included Jean Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, Jean Ogier de Gombauld, Jean Chapelain, François le Métel de Boisrobert, François Maynard, Marin le Roy de Gomberville and Nicolas Faret; members added at the time of its official creation included Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, Claude Favre de Vaugelas and Vincent Voiture. This process of state control of the arts and literature would be expanded even more during the reign of Louis XIV. "Classicism" (as it applies to literature) implies notions of order, clarity, moral purpose and good taste. Many of these