At the time when Louis XIV erected Versailles, his contemporaries tried to create a new way of life that opposed Versailles. Such an alternative for them was the sphere of private relations - an ideal space of communication, where a person himself constructed his identity. These experiments were carried out not only in life, but also on paper, so that the reader of this book has a double opportunity to get acquainted with how contemporaries of Louis XIV imagined the art of private life, and expand their ideas about French literature of the XVII century.