"Les Femmes Illustres" (1642) addresses itself to women and defends education, rather than the beauty or cosmetic, as a means of social mobility for women. This text was a means to justify women's participation in rhetoric and literary culture. It uses women speakers as models for the speeches, including Cleopatra of Egypt. In "Les Femmes Illustres" (1642), "Conversations Sur Divers Sujets" (1680), and "Conversations Nouvelles sur Divers Sujets, Dediees Au Roy" (1684), Madeleine de Scudéry adapted classical rhetorical theory from Cicero, Quintilian, Aristotle, and the sophists to a theory of salon conversation and letter writing. Scudéry's Conversations Sur Divers Sujets, included dialogues covering "Conversation," "The Art of Speaking," "Raillery," "Invention," and "The Manner of Writing Letters." This text offers the rhetoric of salon conversation and model scenarios where women take intellectual control of the conversation. Other works devoted to conversations, pertaining to the education of women include: "The Slave Queen" (1660), "Mathilda of Aguilar, a Spanish Tale," (1667), and "The Versailles Promenade, or the Tale of Celanire" (1669). These covered the art of speaking, invention, the manner of writing letters, and scenarios where women had control of the intellectual conversation.