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Information and Communication
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e-Health: 4th International Conference,
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Selected Papers Panagiotis D. Bamidis
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Panagiotis D. Bamidis
Martina Ziefle
Leszek A. Maciaszek (Eds.)
Communications in Computer and Information Science 982

Technologies for Ageing Well
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4th International Conference, ICT4AWE 2018
Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, March 22–23, 2018
Revised Selected Papers
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Technologies for Ageing Well
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4th International Conference, ICT4AWE 2018
Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, March 22–23, 2018
Revised Selected Papers
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Editors
Panagiotis D. Bamidis Martina Ziefle
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Institut für Psychologie
Thessaloniki, Greece RWTH Aachen University
Aachen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Leeds Institute of Medical Education
University of Leeds
Leeds, UK
Leszek A. Maciaszek
Wrocław University of Economics
Institute of Business Informatics
Wrocław, Poland
Macquarie University
Department of Computing
Sydney, NSW, Australia
ISSN 1865-0929 ISSN 1865-0937 (electronic)

Communications in Computer and Information Science
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Preface
The present book includes extended and revised versions of a set of selected papers
from the 4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technolo-
gies for Ageing Well and e-Health (ICT4AWE 2018), held in Funchal, Madeira,
Portugal, during March 22–23, 2018.
We received 51 paper submissions from 20 countries, of which 20% are included in
this book. The papers were selected by the event chairs and their selection is based on a
number of criteria that include the classifications and comments provided by the
Program Committee members, the session chairs’ assessment and also the program
chairs’ global view of all papers included in the technical program. The authors of
selected papers were then invited to submit a revised and extended version of their
papers having at least 30% innovative material.
The International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for
Ageing Well and e-Health aims to be an international meeting point for those that study
and apply information and communication technologies for improving the quality of
life of the elderly and for helping people stay healthy, independent, and active at work
or in their community along their whole life. ICT4AWE facilitates the exchange of
information and dissemination of best practices, innovation, and technical improve-
ments in the fields of age-related health care, education, social coordination, and
ambient assisted living. From e-health to intelligent systems, and ICT devices, this will
be a point of interest for all those working in research and development and in com-
panies involved in promoting the well-being of aged people, by providing room for
industrial presentations, demos and project descriptions.
The ten papers selected to be included in this book contribute to the understanding
of relevant trends of current research on information and communication technologies
for ageing well and e-health: The topics covered by the authors show clearly the major
cornerstones in the development and design of timely and human-centered approaches
in a variety of usage contexts. In their contribution, Eva-Maria Schomakers and col-
leagues show how older adults can be integrated by personal and playful assessment
of their acceptance of AAL technologies. In line with this, Wiktoria Wilkowska and her
coauthors report on an empirical study in which older adults’ trust and trustfulness in
technical devices are explored as an important prerequisite for the devices’ successful
integration in home environments. The third study, authored by Julia Offermann-van
Heek and colleagues, changes the perspective to caregivers and shows how care pro-
fessionals perceive potential benefits and barriers of AAL technology usage. In a
position paper, a group of eight researchers (Diotima Bertel et al.) expand on the
concepts of engagement platforms and engagement ecosystems, arguing that an inte-
gration of physical and virtual worlds is necessary for AAL advisory services. In order
to empower people’s motivation to engage in physical activity at older age, another
study (authored by Despoina Petsani and coworkers) introduces an multidisciplinary
e-coaching approach (webFitForAll) that integrates new ideas from co-creation and
vi Preface
co-design with the actual users. However, not only the devices themselves are in the
focus, but also the question of how health-related information on websites can gain
credibility and trust for older adults, as shown by Luisa Verviers and colleagues. In
addition, ICT in health-related systems and devices are also useful for specific
age-related diseases and shortcomings. Robin Amsters and his colleagues demonstrate
a novel vision-based spatio-temporal gait analysis system using a mobile platform. As
diabetes prevalence has steadily been increasing over the past decades in the older
adults group, Andre Calero Valdez and coworkers developed and tested the user
acceptance of Diabetto, a novel digital diabetes diary with interactive therapy support
and access to a nutrition database through pen-input and text-to-speech. Another paper
moves from the home context to urban and suburban transport ecosystems and
examines the spread of service areas, accessibility of provided services, and availability
of demand-driven services for older adults and persons with disabilities (authored by
Stefan Ruscher and coworkers). The last paper in this book of selected papers is
authored by Andreia Nunes and colleagues and is directed at the acceptance of mobile
health applications, looking specifically at the role people’s demographic and per-
sonality factors play in the behavioral intention to use mHealth apps.
We would like to thank all the authors for their contributions and also the reviewers
who have helped ensure the quality of this publication.
March 2018 Panagiotis D. Bamidis

Martina Ziefle
Leszek A. Maciaszek
Organization
Conference Chair
Leszek Maciaszek Wroclaw University of Economics, Poland and Macquarie
University, Sydney, Australia
Program Co-chairs
Panagiotis Bamidis Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and Leeds
Institute of Medical Education, University of Leeds, UK
Martina Ziefle RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Program Committee
Mehdi Adda Université du Québec à Rimouski, Canada
Kenji Araki Hokkaido University, Japan
Carmelo Ardito Università degli Studi di Bari, Italy
Christopher Baber University of Birmingham, UK
Giacinto Barresi Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy
Rashid Bashshur Michigan Medicine, USA
Juan-Manuel Instituto de Biomecánica de Valência, Spain
Belda-Lois
Karsten Berns Robotics Research Lab, Germany
Laurent Billonnet Ensil-Ensci - Université de Limoges, France
Philipp Brauner RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Jane Bringolf Centre for Universal Design Australia Ltd., Australia
Yao Chang Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
Mario Ciampi National Research Council of Italy, Italy
Malcolm Clarke Brunel University, UK
Ana Correia de Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS, Portugal
Barros
Georg Duftschmid Medical University of Vienna, Austria
Stefano Federici University of Perugia, Italy
Ana Fred Instituto de Telecomunicações and Instituto Superior Técnico,
Lisbon University, Portugal
David Fuschi BRIDGING Consulting Ltd., UK
Alastar Gale Loughborough University, UK
Ennio Gambi Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy
Javier Gomez Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain
Florian Grond McGill University, Canada
Jaakko Hakulinen University of Tampere, Finland
Alina Huldtgren Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
viii Organization
Eila Jarvenpaa Aalto University, Finland

Petr Ježek University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic
Takahiro Kawamura Japan Science and Technology Agency, Japan
Peter Kokol University of Maribor, Slovenia
Evdokimos Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Konstantinidis
Mikel Larrea Universidad del País Vasco, Spain
Christine Lisetti Florida International University, USA
Ahmad Lotfi Nottingham Trent University, UK
Jin Luo London South Bank University, UK
Leszek Maciaszek Wroclaw University of Economics, Poland
and Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Heimar Marin Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Brazil
Maurice Mars University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Cezary Mazurek Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center, Poland
Elvis Mazzoni University of Bologna, Italy
René Meier Lucerne University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland
Iosif Mporas University of Hertfordshire, UK
Maurice Mulvenna Ulster University, UK
Anthony Norcio University of Maryland Baltimore County, USA
Marko Perisa University of Zagreb, Croatia
Zainab Pirani MHSaboo Siddik College of Engineering, India
Marco Porta Università degli Studi di Pavia, Italy
Amon Rapp University of Turin, Italy
Ulrich Reimer University of Applied Sciences St. Gallen, Switzerland
Philippe Roose LIUPPA/IUT de Bayonne/UPPA, France
Corina Sas Lancaster University, UK
Sreela Sasi Gannon University, USA
Andreas Schrader Universität zu Lübeck, Germany
Jitae Shin Sungkyunkwan University, Korea, Republic of
Oh-Soon Shin Soongsil University, Korea, Republic of
Josep Silva Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
Åsa Smedberg Stockholm University, Sweden
Luca Spalazzi Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy
Susanna Spinsante Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy
Taro Sugihara Okayama University, Japan
Babak Taati Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, Canada
Andrew Targowski Western Michigan University, USA
Carolyn Turvey University of Iowa, USA
Bert-Jan van University of Twente, Netherlands
Beijnum
Andrea Vitaletti Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, Italy
Doug Vogel Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Meng Wong Education National Institute of Singapore, Singapore
Organization ix
George Xylomenos Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece

Martina Ziefle RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Evi Zouganeli Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway
Additional Reviewer
Nikhil Deshpande Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy
Invited Speakers
Patty Kostkova University College London, UK
Giuseppe Conti Nively, Italy
Contents
Influence of User Factors on the Acceptance of Ambient Assisted Living

Technologies in Professional Care Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Julia Offermann-van Heek, Martina Ziefle, and Simon Himmel
Playfully Assessing the Acceptance and Choice of Ambient Assisted Living

Technologies by Older Adults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Eva-Maria Schomakers, Julia Offermann-van Heek, and Martina Ziefle
Determinants of Trust in Acceptance of Medical Assistive Technologies . . . . 45

Wiktoria Wilkowska and Martina Ziefle
The Best of Both Worlds: Combining Digital and Human AAL Advisory
Services for Older Adults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Diotima Bertel, Soraia Teles, Flora Strohmeier, Pedro Vieira-Marques,
Paul Schmitter, Stefan H. Ruscher, Constança Paúl,
and Andrea Ch. Kofler
“In Clarity We Trust!” - An Empirical Study of Factors that Affect

the Credibility of Health-Related Information on Websites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Luisa Vervier, André Calero Valdez, and Martina Ziefle
Extending Exergame-Based Physical Activity for Older Adults:

The e-Coaching Approach for Increased Adherence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Despoina Petsani, Evdokimos I. Kostantinidis, Unai Diaz-Orueta,
Louise Hopper, and Panagiotis D. Bamidis
Vision-Based Marker-Less Spatiotemporal Gait Analysis by Using

a Mobile Platform: Preliminary Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Benjamin Filtjens, Robin Amsters, Ali Bin Junaid, Nick Damen,
Jeroen Van De Laer, Benedicte Vanwanseele, Bart Vanrumste,
and Peter Slaets
Studying the Acceptance of a Digital Diabetes Diaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

André Calero Valdez and Martina Ziefle
Individual Factors that Influence the Acceptance of Mobile Health Apps:

The Role of Age, Gender, and Personality Traits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Andreia Nunes, Teresa Limpo, and São Luís Castro
xii Contents
Moving Ahead: Elaboration on Cumulative Effects on Urban and Suburban

Transport Ecosystems by Enhancing Last Mile Mobility of Older Adults
and Persons with Disabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Stefan H. Ruscher, Andrea Ch. Kofler, Vincent Neumayer,
and Johanna Renat
Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Influence of User Factors on the Acceptance
of Ambient Assisted Living Technologies
in Professional Care Contexts
Julia Offermann-van Heek(&), Martina Ziefle, and Simon Himmel
Human-Computer Interaction Center, RWTH Aachen University,

52074 Aachen, Germany
vanheek@comm.rwth-aachen.de
Abstract. Demographic change in conjunction with increasing amounts of

older people and people in need of care pose high burdens and challenges for the
care sectors of today’s society. In the last decades, it is tried to face these
challenges by developing technical solutions in the area of Ambient Assisted
Living (AAL). Besides technical functions and opportunities, the acceptance of
future users is decisive for a successful implementation of those technologies in
everyday life situations. As AAL technologies have an enormous potential to
support care staff as well as caretakers in professional care situations, it is
questionable to what extent professional care staff accepts and adopts to use
assisting technologies in their professional everyday life. In more detail, it is of
major interest to analyze how care professionals perceive potential benefits and
barriers of AAL technology usage, specific characteristics of data gathering and
storage as well as if individual user factors of care professionals influence the
perception and acceptance of AAL technologies.
Keywords: Ambient assisted living technologies Technology acceptance

Professional caregivers User factors
1 Introduction
Increasing amounts of older people and people in need of care characterize demo-
graphic change and represent major challenges for today’s society and the respective
care sectors [1–3].
The consequences of demographic change become visible in diverse care areas: in
particular, lack of care specialists in combination with higher proportions of old and ill
people who have to be cared challenge geriatric and nursing care institutions [4–7].
Simultaneously, there is a comparably new phenomenon of a first generation of “old
people with disabilities” – on the one hand, due to medical and technical developments
in healthcare and, on the other hand, due to the specific historical background of
euthanasia offenses (in particular in Europe), in which disabled people have been
systematically deported or even murdered [8]. Thus, in accordance with the challenges
for geriatric and nursing care, the sector of care and support of people with disabilities
is also confronted with higher proportions of people in need of care with a
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

P. D. Bamidis et al. (Eds.): ICT4AWE 2018, CCIS 982, pp. 1–25, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15736-4_1
2 J. Offermann-van Heek et al.
simultaneously existing lack of care specialists [9]. To sum up, these three care areas
face essentially the same challenges and solutions have to be found to address those
challenges.
For this purpose, technical innovations and ideas have been increasingly developed
in the last years in order to relieve care staff, to enable a longer staying at the own home
for older people, or to enhance safety in emergencies. These technical developments
include technical single-case solutions as well as more complex ambient assisted living
(AAL) systems [10, 11], aiming for a detecting of falls and emergencies, monitoring of
vital parameters, or enabling a longer stay at the own home using smart home tech-
nology elements [12–15].
Besides a broad range of technical functions and opportunities, current research
revealed that those systems are rarely used in real life – specifically in professional
environments [16]. As the users’ acceptance is necessary and decisive for a successful
and sustainable implementation and usage of innovative assisting technologies, diverse
stakeholders and their perceptions have to be addressed. For a successful implemen-
tation in professional care contexts, the opinions, ideas, and wishes of professional
caregivers are decisive and should be investigated. Thus the current study focuses in
particular on care professionals’ perspectives on specific AAL technologies, on data
gathering, data storage and access as well as perceived benefits and barriers of AAL
technology usage. The results enable an integration of professional caregivers’ per-
spectives into the design of AAL technologies and a better understanding of profes-
sional caregivers’ requirements. This way, an adaption of those technologies to the
needs and wishes of professional caregivers can be enabled and the usage of AAL
technologies in professional care contexts can potentially be increased.
2 AAL Technologies in Professional Care Contexts
In the following section, the theoretical background of the current study is presented
starting with a short overview of current AAL technologies and systems. Afterwards,
the theoretical background of technology acceptance as well as results of previous
acceptance studies in the context of AAL technologies used in professional care
contexts are described.
2.1 AAL Technologies and Systems

The term Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) includes all assisting technologies or sys-
tems which contribute to the maintenance of autonomy in everyday life and are in
particular applied in care for prevention and rehabilitation [14, 17]. AAL technologies
cover a broad range of functions and applications reaching from monitoring of vital
parameters and detection of falls or positions to reminders and smart home function-
alities. Here, some prototypical examples are described. As a first example, Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID) tags are frequently used in the area of (outdoor)
tracking and detection of positions [18]. Further, integrating common Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT) (e.g., movement sensors, (infra-red) cameras,
microphones) into people’s living environments enables different types of monitoring.
Influence of User Factors on the Acceptance of Ambient Assisted Living Technologies 3
Those monitoring solutions aim for enhancing safety by detection of falls and emer-
gencies in private home environments [19] as well as in professional care contexts such
as hospitals or care institutions [20]. Besides those safety-relevant functions and safety-
enhancing reasons, other types of AAL technologies aim for facilitating everyday life
by using automated technologies such as memory aids or home automation [21, 22].
Further, another aim of AAL is the support of communication with families, friends,
and caregivers by integrating ICT in home environments [14]. Wearable technologies
(e.g., an emergency arm strap) represent a further area of AAL technologies and are
worn on the body or integrated in clothes that are able to communicate with intelligent
AAL systems or smart home environments [10, 23]. Along with those examples,
numerous systems and technologies are available on the market [e.g., 24, 25] or
focused in current research projects (e.g., [26]). However, those technologies and
systems have not reached sustainable success of those systems so far, as they are only
rarely used in real life [16] and in particular in professional care contexts [27].
This poses the question for what reasons the existing and assisting technologies
(including their facilitating and supporting potential in everyday care contexts) are not
widely used in professional care contexts? As future users’ acceptance as well as their
perception of benefits and barriers are decisive for a successful integration of AAL
systems in everyday life, it is of major importance to understand the barriers of AAL
usage in professional contexts. In this study, we therefore focused on professional
caregivers as potential and important user group of these systems, their perceptions,
ideas, wishes, and willingness to adopt home-integrated ICT.
2.2 Acceptance of AAL and the Diversity of Users

Previous research in the field of AAL technology acceptance revealed that AAL
technologies were mostly evaluated positively and that in particular the necessity and
usefulness of technical support were recognized as relevant benefits by diverse groups
of potential users [26, 28–30]. In more detail, participants acknowledged the potential
of AAL technologies to enable an independent and more autonomous life as well as a
longer staying at the own home for older, diseased and/or disabled people. In contrast
to perceived benefits, feelings of isolation [27, 31], feelings of surveillance, and
invasion of privacy [32–34] were reported to be the most relevant barriers of AAL
technology usage when the participants were asked to think about a concrete inte-
gration of those technologies in their living environment.
Previous qualitative research focused on people aged above 60 and their percep-
tions of AAL technologies in focus group [35, 36] and interview studies [30]: those
studies revealed in accordance to the previously mentioned general positive perception,
that older participants acknowledged the benefits of staying longer at the own home,
understood the chances and potential of AAL technologies as well as the problematic
lack of care staff. In contrast, the older participants expressed fears concerning a lack of
personal contact referring to the concern that care staff will might be substituted by
technologies, privacy concerns, and a dependency on technologies they are not able to
control. Numerous quantitative surveys confirmed these mostly qualitative gained
results (e.g., [29]).
So far, acceptance research has hardly considered the perspectives of professional

care givers on integrating AAL technologies in professional care contexts, although
their perspectives are mandatory in order to do justice to needs of care and care itself in
professional care environments. Nevertheless, single studies have already focused on
caregivers as potential users and on their perceived concerns regarding in-home
monitoring technologies [37]. Further, other studies investigated the effectiveness of
different technologies, analyzed requirements and the perception of AAL technology
usage, and derived guidelines for design and implementation of AAL technologies in
the context of professional care environments [38, 39].
Although the majority of studies in this regard revealed a general positive attitude
towards AAL technologies, a conducted comparative study found a more attitude of
professional caregivers towards AAL technologies compared to other user groups
(people with disabilities, relatives of people with disabilities, and “not”-experienced
people (neither professional expertise nor personal consternation)) [28]. These study
results provided the basis searching for an explanation why AAL technologies are not
widely used in professional care contexts and showed the importance to investigate the
perceptions, wishes, and needs of professional caregivers as specific user group in
depth. To fully understand the emerging negative attitude of professional caregivers it
is important to analyze relevant acknowledged benefits and existing perceived barriers,
specific data and technology configurations as well as their handling with regard to the
specific user group and their specific usage contexts and situations.
In the past years, well-known acceptance models such as TAM and UTAUT as well
as their adapted versions were urgently used to investigate the acceptance of assisting
ICT and AAL technologies. Within the specific context of care and in light of
increasing usage requirements in the context of care, the existing technology accep-
tance models are not sufficient due to (1) the sensible usage context of care, (2) the
models’ view of acceptance as static technology assessment, and (3) because of leaving
apart trade-offs between simultaneously existing benefits and barriers and in particular
analyses regarding user factor influences [40].
Therefore, we used interviews in a first step – specifically tailored to professional
caregivers –in order to identify challenges in care focusing on perceived benefits as
well as perceived barriers of AAL technology usage. Afterwards, we aimed for an
identification of which technologies are exactly (not) allowed to be used by profes-
sional caregivers. For this purpose, we took the results from the preceding interview
study and conceptualized an online questionnaire tailored to professional caregivers
needs and wishes ensuring that all relevant aspects (for this specific user group) can be
quantified.
3 Methodology
This section presents the methodological research design starting with the aim of the
study, the procedure, and specific research questions. Afterwards, the empirical design
of the quantitative online questionnaire study and the sample’s characteristics are
described.
3.1 Aim, Procedure, and Research Questions

Our study aimed for an investigation of professional caregivers’ perception and
acceptance of AAL technologies in professional care contexts. Thereby, perception
referred to diverse dimensions (e.g., perception of potential benefits and barriers of
AAL technology usage) with a potential to influence the acceptance operationalized as
intention to use AAL technologies and systems (see Fig. 1). In more detail, the study
aimed for answers to the following research questions. including the following research
questions:
• How do professional caregivers evaluate specific staff- and patient related benefits
and barriers of using AAL technologies? (RQ 1)
• How should data handling be realized? In more detail: Which data is allowed to be
gathered, which technologies should be used to gather data, and how are data access
and storage duration evaluated by professional caregivers? (RQ 2)
• Do relationships between user factors and the acceptance and perception of AAL
technologies exist? (RQ 3)
• Are there significant influences of user factors on the perception of AAL tech-
nologies? (RQ4)
• Which factors are most decisive for AAL technology acceptance? (RQ5)
• Do those factors differ for diverse user groups based on demographic and attitudinal
characteristics? (RQ6)
AAL perception
Perceived
benefits
Perceived
User Factors barriers
RQ1
Demographics
(age, gender, education, care Data
expertise) (information)
RQ 3 & 4 AAL acceptance

Technology
Attitudinal characteristics Usage RQ2
(Technical self-efficacy,
privacy needs, trust)
Data storage
Data access
RQ6 RQ6
RQ5
Fig. 1. Research model and research questions.

In accordance with the research questions and model (Fig. 1), we were in a first
step interested in identifying probably relevant perceived staff- and patient-related
benefits and barriers of AAL technology usage (RQ1) in professional care contexts.
Afterwards, it was of importance to analyze the way in which handling of
data/information should be realized in professional care contexts (RQ2). For this
purpose, it was necessary to ask professional caregivers specifically for their opinions
and respectively evaluations of diverse types of data allowed to be gathered, specific
technologies allowed to be used to gather data as well as to what extent data is allowed
to be stored or be accessible for third persons. Based on these fundamental evaluations,
it was possible to investigate potential relationships between user factors and the
perception and acceptance of AAL technologies (RQ3). Subsequently, identified
relationships could be used as indicators for analyzing significant influences of user
factors on the acceptance and perception of AAL technologies (RQ4). Finally, it was of
importance to analyze which of the relevant and influencing factors is most decisive for
AAL technology acceptance (RQ5). Besides insights for the whole group of partici-
pants, it had to be investigated if different factors are most decisive for diverse groups
of professional caregivers (RQ6).
3.2 Empirical Design of Online Questionnaire

Findings of previous interview studies provided the basis for the conceptualization of
the questionnaire including the development of questionnaire items. The first part of the
questionnaire contained queries of demographic characteristics such as age, gender,
education, duration of professional experience, and care sector (i.e. geriatric care,
nursing care, care/support of disabled people). Afterwards, the participants were asked
to evaluate individual attitudinal characteristics, namely their technical self-efficacy
(using four items, a = .884; [41]), their needs for privacy (using six items, a = .833;
[42, 43]), and their interpersonal trust (using three items, a = .793 [44]).
A scenario was designed as a very personal everyday working situation wherein the
participants should imagine that an AAL system was integrated in their professional
working environment. Thereby, it was ensured that all participants pertain to the same
baseline referred to the evaluation of AAL technology. Further, all technologies which
were part of the AAL system (e.g., room sensors, ultrasonic sensors, microphones, and
video cameras) were introduced and their range of functions and options within the
AAL system were explained (e.g., automatic opening and closing of doors and win-
dows, reminders, alarms (emergencies, falls) etc.).
Subsequent to the scenario, the participants were asked to assess potential benefits
of the described AAL system’s usage within their professional working routine (using
14 items, a = .923; developed based on previous interview studies’ results). Further,
the participants also evaluated potential barriers of the AAL system’s usage (using 17
items; a = .861; just as the benefits developed based on previous interview studies’
results). Afterwards, the participants should indicate whether – in their opinion – the
AAL system is allowed to gather different types of data (using 14 items (data types),
a = .856; respective items based on necessary information to realize technical
functions).
In accordance with the data types, the participants were asked to evaluate different
technologies’ usage to gather data (using 12 items, a = .892; based on technical
configurations of AAL systems). To evaluate the acceptance of the AAL system, the
participants evaluated six different statements (a = .932) dealing with their general
perception of the system (e.g., “I find the described AAL system useful”) as well as an
concrete intention to use the system. During the assessment, all described items had to
be evaluated on six-point Likert scales (1 = min: “I strongly disagree”; 6 = max: “I
strongly agree”) and are presented in the results section.
At the end of the questionnaire, the participants were given opportunity to reason
their opinions on an optional basis and to provide their feedback concerning the study.
On average, the participants needed 20 min to complete the questionnaire. Data was
collected online in Germany and the questionnaire was made available for 3 months in
spring and summer 2017. Participants were recruited in online networks as well as by
personal and project contact to care institutions.
3.3 Participants and User Factor Segmentation

Overall, a total of 287 participants volunteered to participate in our questionnaire study.
As only complete data sets and suitable data sets (filled out by professional care givers)
could be used for statistical analyses, 113 data sets had to be excluded and a sample of
n = 174 remained. Most of the professional caregivers were acquired by personal and
by direct contact to professional care institutions. The mean age of the participants was
on average 36.3 years (SD = 11.2; min = 19; max = 68) and the participants were
predominantly female (74.7%) (25.3% male). The majority of the participants indicated
a completed apprenticeship (42.5%) as their highest educational level, while each
23.0% reported to hold a university degree and a university entrance diploma. Further,
7.5% indicated to hold a secondary school certificate, while 4.0% reported other
certificates.
All of the participants worked or have worked as professional caregivers: the
majority of them (52.9%, n = 92) in the area of care and support of people with
disabilities, while 25.9% (n = 45) worked in the area geriatric and 21.3% (n = 37) in
nursing care. On average, the caregivers indicated to be long-term experienced in
professional care: 43.5% (n = 74) reported to have more than 10 years care expertise,
41.8% (n = 71) between 3 and 10 years, and only 14.7% (n = 25) indicated to have
less than 3 years professional experience.
With regard to attitudinal variables, the participants reported to have on average a
middle technical self-efficacy (TSE) (M = 3.4; SD = 0.7; min = 1; max = 6) and also a
middle interpersonal trust (M = 3.5; SD = 0.8; min = 1; max = 6). The participants’
needs for privacy and data security were on average rather high (M = 4.2; SD = 0.9;
min = 1; max = 6).
For detailed analyses referring to potential influences of user factors on the per-
ception and acceptance of AAL technologies it was necessary to segment specific user
groups based on the respective frequency distribution and content-related fit. For age, it
was decided to distinguish between “younger” participants aged under 40 years
(63.5%) and “older” participants aged 40 years and older (36.5%). For care expertise, it
was tried to compared short- and long-term experience by dividing the participants in
two groups: “beginners” with less than 10 years professional care experience and “old
stagers” having more than 10 years professional care experience. For both attitudinal
variables, the mean of the scale (3.5) was used as group cut-off. Regarding technical
self-efficacy this cut-off resulted in a group with a “low TSE” (62.5%) and a group with
a “high TSE” (37.5%). Considering privacy needs, the segmentation revealed a smaller
group with a “low privacy need” (26.5%) and a larger group with a “high privacy need”
(73.5%).
4 Results
Before descriptive and inference analyses were conducted, item analyses were calcu-
lated to ensure measurement quality, while a Cronbach’s alpha >0.7 indicated a sat-
isfying internal consistency of the scales. Data was analyzed descriptively, and in
addition we used inferential statistics to identify user diversity effects, by correlation,
(M)ANOVA, and linear regression analysis. The level of significance was set at 5%.
Based on a preceding study [45], the results were first presented descriptively for
the perception of benefits and barriers identifying decisive factors for the acceptance of
AAL. Thereby, (a) staff- and patient-related benefits and barriers, (b) data gathering and
applied technologies, as well as (c) data access and storage duration are illuminated. In
a second step, it is analyzed whether and to which extent user factors (e.g., professional
care experience, needs for privacy) impact the perception of AAL. In a last step, it is
investigated which factors are most decisive for AAL acceptance differing between
(a) the whole sample of the participants and (b) specific user groups among the
participants.
4.1 Perception of AAL Technologies

This section presents the results concerning the perception of benefits and barriers of
using AAL systems in professional care contexts (RQ1). Further, it is investigated
which data is allowed to be gathered, how the data should be gathered, who should
have access to the data, and for how long data access should be allowed. Thereby, the
results initially refer to the whole sample of caregivers investigating (RQ 2).
Perception of Staff- and Patient-Related Benefits and Barriers. Figure 2 presents
the evaluation of perceived staff- (left side) and patient-related (right side) benefits of
an AAL system’s usage. Among the staff-related benefits, fast Assistance in emer-
gencies (M = 4.6; SD = 1.2) was perceived as the most important benefit, followed by
a higher control in everyday working life (M = 4.0; SD = 1.5), relief in documentation
of care (M = 3.9; SD = 1.4), simplified proof of rendered care (M = 3.9; SD = 1.4),
relief in everyday working life (M = 3.8; SD = 1.4), and time savings in everyday
working life (M = 3.7; SD = 1.3), which were all rated only slightly positively. An
increase of working quality (M = 3.5; SD = 1.4) was evaluated neutrally and was thus
not seen as a relevant benefit of using AAL systems. In contrast, the two aspects lower
fear to be able to do own mistakes (M = 2.9; SD = 1.5) and measure against crisis in
care (M = 2.9; SD = 1.6) were evaluated slightly negatively and were thus rejected to
be benefits of AAL technologies in professional care contexts. Among the patient-

related benefits, increase in safety (M = 4.3; SD = 1.2) represented the most important
aspect. In comparison, other potential benefits such as relief in everyday life (M = 3.8
SD = 1.3), extension of autonomy (M = 3.7; SD = 1.4), or reduction of dependency
(M = 3.5; SD = 1.4) were rated only slightly positively or almost neutrally.
In contrast to a comparatively diverse evaluation of benefits revealing accepted
(“real”) and rejected potential benefits, none of the potential barriers was rejected (see
Fig. 3). Strong agreements of almost all potential barriers of using AAL systems
showed that nearly all aspects were perceived as solid, “real” barriers of AAL tech-
nology usage in professional care contexts. In particular, aspects dealing with privacy
and data security (e.g., invasion in privacy (M = 5.2; SD = 1.0), data abuse by third
parties (M = 4.8; SD = 1.2), recording of data (M = 4.7; SD = 1.3)) as well as with a
perceived surveillance (i.e. surveillance by technology (M = 5.0; SD = 1.1), control by
supervisors (M = 4.9; SD = 1.2), control by colleagues (M = 4.6; SD = 1.3)) were
rated highest and represent relevant barriers of AAL technology usage in professional
care contexts.
Fig. 2. Perception of staff- (left side) and patient-related (right side) benefits of using AAL
technologies and systems.
Fear of isolation (M = 4.1; SD = 1.4), missing trust in technical functionality

(M = 3.9; SD = 1.4), or interruption of routines (M = 3.9; SD = 1.3) were evaluated
slightly positively and were thus slightly confirmed to be barriers of AAL technology
usage. In contrast, handling seems to be too complex (M = 3.5; SD = 1.3) and con-
frontation with new technology (M = 3.4; SD = 1.4) were rated neutrally and thus,
those aspects do not represent notably relevant barriers of AAL technology usage.
Fig. 3. Perception of potential barriers of AAL technology usage in professional care contexts
(based on [45]).
Realization of Data Handling: What, How, for How Long, and for Whom? The
participants were also asked for their perception of data handling with regard to AAL
technologies (RQ2). Thereby, the participants evaluated which data should be allowed
to be gathered and which specific technology should be used to gather data.
With regard to data allowed to be gathered (see Fig. 4) it was striking that
gathering of information related with emergency situations (emergencies (falls epileptic
seizures) (M = 5.3; SD = 0.9), actuation of emergency buttons (care staff: M = 5.2;
SD = 1.0; inhabitants: M = 5.2; SD = 1.0), and cries for help/support M = 5.2;
SD = 1.0) was clearly accepted. To gather patient-related information was partly
evaluated slightly positively, e.g., about fixations (M = 4.1; SD = 1.6) and rooms
(opening windows, doors, …) (M = 4.0; SD = 1.6). Otherwise, gathering the patients’
position (M = 3.6; SD = 1.4) was evaluated neutrally, while gathering data about
sleeping (M = 3.3; SD = 1.5) was slightly rejected. Interestingly, to gather the position
of care staff (M = 2.8; SD = 1.5) was clearly evaluated more negatively than gathering
the patients’ position.
Considering care-related information, a clear rejecting pattern is striking: to gather
information about the duration of care (M = 3.0; SD = 1.6), whole care situations
(M = 2.9; SD = 1.6), and times (rooms are entered or left) (M = 2.9; SD = 1.5) was
slightly rejected, while gathering data concerning a 24 h observation (M = 2.6;
SD = 1.6) and talks during care (M = 2.1; SD = 1.4) was clearly rated negatively and
was thus not accepted.
Fig. 4. Evaluation of data (information) allowed to be gathered in professional care contexts

(based on [45]).
In accordance with the diverse evaluation of the type of gathered data, the specific
technologies that are allowed to be used to gather data were also evaluated quite
differently (Fig. 5). Consistent with the evaluation of emergency-related information,
using emergency buttons (patients: M = 5.1; SD = 1.1; staff: M = 5.1; SD = 1.2) and
fall sensors into the floor (M = 4.8; SD = 1.4) was clearly accepted. In addition, fall
sensors in clothes on body of patients (M = 4.3; SD = 1.5) and room sensors (M = 4.1;
SD = 1.6) were rated positively. Usage of motion detectors (in rooms: M = 3.4;
SD = 1.6; in clothes of patients: M = 3.3; SD = 1.6) as well as ultrasonic sensors
(M = 3.3; SD = 1.5) was marginally rejected.
In contrast, infra-red cameras (M = 2.5; SD = 1.4), motion detectors in clothes of
staff (M = 2.5; SD = 1.5), microphones (M = 2.4; SD = 1.4), and cameras (M = 2.2;
SD = 1.3) were evaluated clearly negatively and were thus not accepted to be used to
gather data in professional care contexts.
Besides the evaluation of specific information and technologies, the participants
further assessed the storage duration and data access (Fig. 6).
Concerning data access, the most positive evaluations were found for room data: it
was evaluated slightly positively (or at least tolerated) to be accessible for colleagues
(M = 4.0; SD = 1.6), direct supervisors (M = 3.9; SD = 1.6), and all supervisors
(M = 3.7; SD = 1.7). Conversely, negative evaluations showed that position data,
audio data, and video data should neither be accessible for all supervisors (position:
M = 2.4; SD = 1.5, audio: M = 2.0; SD = 1.4, video: M = 2.2; SD = 1.4), direct
supervisors (position: M = 2.8; SD = 1.6, audio: M = 2.5; SD = 1.6, video: M = 2.7;
SD = 1.6), nor colleagues (position: M = 2.9; SD = 1.6, audio: M = 2.3; SD = 1.5,
video: M = 2.6; SD = 1.5).
Fig. 5. Evaluation of technologies allowed for data gathering in professional care contexts [45].
With regard to the evaluation of storage duration, comparably positive values

showed that data should only be allowed to be evaluated for the moment independent
from the data type (room: M = 4.1; SD = 1.5; position: M = 4.0; SD = 1.6; video:
M = 3.8; SD = 1.7; audio: M = 3.8; SD = 1.8). Data storage on a daily basis (posi-
tion: M = 2.8; SD = 1.5; audio: M = 2.6; SD = 1.6; video: M = 2.6; SD = 1.5) and in
particular long-term storage (position: M = 2.1; SD = 1.3; audio: M = 1.8; SD = 1.1;
video: M = 1.9; SD = 1.2) were partly clearly rejected for all data types except of room
data. Room data was evaluated almost neutrally for storage on a daily basis (M = 3.7;
SD = 1.7) as well as long-term storage (M = 3.4; SD = 1.8) indicating that data
storage was most likely tolerated with regard to room data.
Fig. 6. Perception of data access and data storage for different data types (based on [45]).
4.2 Do User Factors Influence Professional Caregivers’

Perception of AAL?
So far, predominantly descriptive results referring to the whole sample of caregivers
have been presented. Now, the results are analyzed in more detail focusing on potential
influences of demographic and attitudinal characteristics on the perception and
acceptance of AAL technologies. For this purpose, correlation analyses were conducted
in a first step to find out which demographic and attitudinal characteristics are possibly
relevant for the acceptance of AAL technologies (Fig. 7).
Fig. 7. Correlations between user factors and the evaluation of AAL technologies (adapted from
[45]).
Relationships Between User Factors and AAL Perception (RQ3). Considering

demographic characteristics, the results revealed single correlations with regard to the
perception and acceptance of AAL technology usage. First, it was striking that age was
not related at all with one of the perception and acceptance dimensions. Instead, it
correlated strongly with the participant’s duration of care expertise (q = .564; p < .01).
In turn, the duration of care expertise was the own variable which was related with the
perception of benefits (q = −.233; p < .01). Further, gender exclusively correlated only
slightly with the perceived barriers of AAL technology usage (q = −.156; p < .05)
revealing that women showed a slightly higher evaluation of perceived barriers than
men. Education was slightly related with the perception of barriers (q = −.202;
p < .01) and the acceptance of AAL technologies (q = .196; p < .05).
More striking relationships were found with regard to attitudinal characteristics. For
interpersonal trust, there were indeed only slight single correlations with the evaluation
of specific technologies (q = .189; p < .05) and acceptance of AAL technologies
(q = .186; p < .05). In contrast, the results showed stronger correlations for the two
attitudinal variables privacy need and technical self-efficacy (TSE). The analysis
revealed strongest correlations for the participants’ privacy need and the perception of
barriers (q = .209; p < .01), data access (q = −.301; p < .01), and storage duration
(q = −.228; p < .01). Those correlations indicated that participants with higher needs
for privacy showed higher evaluations of perceived barriers and a more negative
attitude towards data access and long-term data storage. Referring to the technical self-
efficacy of the participants, the strongest relationships were found for the evaluation of
specific technologies (q = .274; p < .01) and acceptance of AAL technology usage
(q = .299; p < .01). Here, the correlations indicated that participants with a higher
technical self-efficacy showed a more positive attitude towards specific applied tech-
nologies and a higher acceptance of AAL technologies.
Significant Influence of User Factors (RQ4). In order to get a broader understanding
of the influence of user factors on professional care personnel’s acceptance of assistive
technologies, we conducted MANOVA analyses including age, care expertise,
technical self-efficacy, and needs for privacy as user-related variables. Age and care
expertise were integrated in the MANOVA analyses as they are closely related to each
other and care expertise seems to be an explaining factor for the perception of benefits.
The attitudinal characteristics need for privacy and technical self-efficacy were chosen
as they each showed relationships to several dimensions of AAL technology perception
and acceptance.
Interestingly, significant effects of user factors were not found for the evaluation of
specific technologies, permitted gathering of specific data, data storage, data access,
and the acceptance of assistive technologies. In contrast, the evaluation of perceived
benefits, data access and perceived barriers was influenced by different user factors.
Starting with the evaluation of benefits, significant overall effects were found for age
(F(14, 123) = 1.947; p < .05) and professional care expertise (F(1, 123) = 1.866;
p < .05). Referring to age, specifically the benefit of a higher control in the everyday
working life (F(1, 151) = 4.545; p < .05) was evaluated significantly more positively
by younger care professionals aged under 40 years (M = 4.1; SD = 1.5) compared to
older care professionals (M = 3.6; SD = 1.4).
With regard to professional care expertise, the pattern was found that professional
“beginners” (less than 10 years professional experience) evaluated some of the per-
ceived benefits significantly more positively than professional “old stagers” (more than
10 years professional experience). In more detail (see Fig. 8), professional “beginners”
acknowledged the benefits simplified proof of rendered care (F(1, 151) = 11.515;
p < .01), relief in everyday life (for their “patients”) (F(1, 151) = 5.051; p < .05) and
time savings in everyday working life (F(1, 151) = 4.444; p < .05) more than the “old
stagers”. Further, the benefit of an increase of working quality (F(1, 151) = 4.680;
p < .05) was evaluated slightly positively by the “beginners”, while it was slightly
rejected by the “old stagers”. Finally, “old stagers” rejected the benefits of a potential
measure against crisis in care (F(1, 151) = 4.969; p < .05) and the lower fear to be
able to do own mistakes (F(1, 151) = 5.957; p < .05) more strongly than the profes-
sional “beginners”.
Fig. 8. Significant differences between professional “beginners” and “old stagers” regarding the
perception of perceived benefits.
With regard to the perception of barriers, significant influences of user factors were
neither found for age nor for professional expertise. In contrast, individual needs for
privacy influenced the perception of barriers significantly (F(17, 124) = 1.777;
p < .05). In more detail (see Fig. 9), people with a high privacy need confirmed the
potential barriers of invasion in privacy (F(1, 151) = 4.921; p < .05), unauthorized
data access by third parties (F(1, 151) = 5.586; p < .05), and replacement of human
attention by technology (F(1, 151) = 4.053; p < .05) significantly more than partici-
pants with a low privacy need. This pattern occurred even more with regard to the
barriers surveillance by technology (F(1, 151) = 2.823; p < .01) and data abuse by
third parties (F(1, 151) = 11.187; p < .01) showing a significantly stronger agreement
of participants with a high privacy need compared to people with a low privacy need.
Fig. 9. Significant differences between participants with a high and a low privacy needs
regarding the perception of barriers.
4.3 What Is the Most Decisive Factor for AAL Acceptance?

The descriptive results showed that the acceptance of the mentioned AAL technologies
was overall evaluated rather neutrally (M = 3.6; SD = 1.3), while comparatively a
system consisting only of room sensors (M = 4.0; SD = 1.5) received the highest and a
system consisting of all mentioned technologies except of a camera was (M = 2.9;
SD = 1.4) the lowest evaluations. In order to analyze, which of the descriptively as well
as inference statistically analyzed and presented factors influences the acceptance of
AAL technologies the most, a step-wise linear regression analysis was conducted. In a
first step, this analysis referred to all participants. Afterwards, the analysis procedure
was conducted for diverse user groups.
Most Decisive Factors for the Whole Sample (RQ5). Within the regression analyses,
the acceptance of AAL technology usage was calculated as dependent variable, while
perceived benefits, perceived barriers, data that is allowed to be gathered, specific type
of technology, data access, and storage duration represented the independent variables.
The calculation revealed four significant models: The first model predicted 59.1% (adj.
r2 = .591) variance of AAL technology acceptance based on the specific technology
that is used to gather data. The second model additionally contained perceived benefits
and explained +8.5% (adj. r2 = .676) variance of AAL technology acceptance. The
third model explained +3.2% (adj. r2 = .708) variance based on the specific technol-
ogy, perceived benefits, and additionally on the type of gathered data. The fourth and
final model explained +2.2% (adj. r2 = .730) variance of AAL technology acceptance
and contained besides perceived benefits, specific technology, type of gathered data,
also perceived barriers. Interestingly, the other two integrated dimensions data access
and storage duration were not part of the regression models. Thus, those dimensions
did not influence the acceptance of AAL technologies significantly. Figure 10 illus-
trates the final regression model and displays the regression coefficient b for all
independent variables.
Fig. 10. Final regression model for all participants based on significantly influencing variables
[45].
Explaining Acceptance for Diverse User Groups (RQ6). Each two demographic
(age and care expertise) and attitudinal variables (technical self-efficacy and privacy
need) were integrated as user group variables into the regression analyses. (Figure 11).
Starting with the age groups, the final regression model for “younger” care persons
aged under 40 years explained 72.8% variance of AAL acceptance based on the per-
ception and evaluation of the technology used to gather data, the type of gathered data,
and benefits of AAL technology usage. For “older” care professionals (aged 40 and
older), the final regression model reached a slightly higher proportion of explained
variance of AAL acceptance (r2 = .739) and of the type of technology used to gather
data and perceived benefits of AAL technology usage. In contrast to the “younger”
participants’ model, the “older” participants’ model based additionally on perceived
barriers of AAL technology usage.
Referring to the care expertise groups a very similar pattern can be observed: the
final regression model for care “beginners” (less than 10 years professional care
expertise) explained 71.1% variance of AAL technology acceptance and based in
accordance with the “younger” group of participants on the evaluations of the tech-
nology used to gather data, the type of gathered data, and benefits of AAL technology
usage. In contrast, the final regression model for the “old stagers” (having more than 10
years professional care expertise) explained a higher proportion of AAL acceptance’
variance (r2 = .786) and based on the specific technologies and benefits of AAL
technology usage. In accordance with the “older” group of the participants, the “old
stagers” model additionally based on the perception of barriers of AAL technology
usage.
In addition, regression analyses were also conducted for the attitudinal variables
privacy needs and TSE. Starting with privacy needs (Fig. 11), the final model for
participants with “low privacy needs” explained 61.4% variance of AAL acceptance
based on the evaluation of specific technologies and perceived benefits of AAL tech-
nology usage. Conversely, the final regression model for participants with “high needs
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difficulty that the prudence of Turenne was able to keep under the
widespread dissatisfaction.
The policy of Mazarin’s “education” of the young king was already
bearing the fruit of the future misery of the country which his
Eminence’s alien authority so disastrously ruled.
The intimacy of Ninon and Marie Mancini grew into friendship, and
Marie’s confidences made it clear to Ninon that it was her uncle’s
intention, if not her own avowed one, that she should be the wife of
Louis XIV. But the constancy of the great young monarch was ever a
fragile thing.
CHAPTER XII
The Whirligig of Time, and an Old Friend—Going to the Fair—A Terrible

Experience—The Young Abbé—“The Brigands of La Trappe”—The New
Ordering—An Enduring Memory—The King over the Water—Unfulfilled
Aspirations—“Not Good-looking.”
Tempora mutantur. Ninon, in the course of the years which were now
bringing her to middle life, had seen many changes; but when her
friend St Evrémond came back about this time from the wars, after
seven or eight years’ absence, he told her that she had not changed
with them. Beautiful and youthful-looking as ever he assured her she
was, and to prove his words, he took a little mirror in one hand, and
in the other the portrait Rubens had painted of her years before, and
bade her make the comparison herself.
There is little doubt, at all events, that Time’s finger had scarcely
dulled the delicacy of her complexion, or the brightness of her eyes.
Were thanks due to the Man in Black for this? It was a question
she put to St Evrémond very seriously, but the cheery Epicurean had
only a smile and a witticism for answer. The devil, he assured her,
did not exist, and he proposed to escort her to the fair of St Germain
that fine February afternoon. This was scarcely the best way to make
good his assertion; for if his Satanic Majesty was to be found in
Paris, it was certainly in that quarter; for was not the rue d’Enfer,
whence the Capucins had ejected him from his house, hard by?
This, however, had by no means hindered the brethren of St
Germain des Prés countenancing the proceedings, which had come
to be near to an orgy, of the annual market, or fair of St Germain des
Prés—by the letting their ground for it to be held upon. From the
king, to the most villainous of the populace, everybody went to the
fair. The booths were within hail of the ground known as the Pré aux
Clercs, the haunt of the basochiens, the lawyers’ clerks of the Palais
de Justice, away upon the Ile de la Cité, between St Sulpice and St
Germain—the church of the three steeples. The roof of the modern
flower-market now covers this ground. Everything conceivable could
be purchased at the stalls, from the richest silks and velvets to a
pancake or a glass eye, or a wooden leg or a wax arm, or essences
and waters for turning old people young again; every game of
chance, thimblerig, lottery, cards, held out its temptation; every kind
of entertainment, dancing, tumbling, jugglery, music of fiddle and fife,
and drum and tabor—a deafening tintamarre; all kinds of beverages
—wine, cider, tea, coffee—“to drive away melancholy;” syrups were
concocted for the dust-dried throats of the surging crowd of fine
ladies, students, lackeys, soldiers, dainty-shod, short-cloaked, blond-
bewigged abbés, pages, beggars, gipsies. Respectable bourgeois
families rubbed shoulders with flaunting women, and the wretched
crew of mendicant impostors from the old cours de miracles. Often it
was the scene of fracas and fisticuffs and damaged countenances.
On one occasion, a page of the Duc de Bouillon cut off the ears of a
clerk of the basoche and put them in his pocket. The students of the
quarter fell to murderous assault upon the fellow, while the pages
retaliated, and many a dead body of page and student was found
afterwards in the ditches of the Abbaye. At once an earthly paradise
and a pandemonium was the time-honoured annual market of St
Germain des Prés, and in the midst of the madding riot and
confusion a great deal of serious business was transacted among
the merchants and foreign traders who came from afar to exhibit
their wares, as for centuries had been the custom, ever since
mediæval day, when church porches and convent gates were nearly
the only rendezvous for buying and selling.
Not absolutely accepting St Evrémond’s theory, Ninon and her
cavalier left the fair to walk homewards, little thinking that they were
to be confronted by the blood-chilling tale the pale lips of Madame de
Chevreuse poured hurriedly out to them from the window of her
carriage, which she called to a halt as they passed across the Pont
Neuf—a tale upon whose precise details the chronicles of the time
slightly differ, even to casting doubt upon it as a fact, though the
circumstances are no more than consonant with probability. The
beautiful but profligate Madame de Montbazon, it will be
remembered, had been sent by the queen, on account of her glaring
attempts at mischief-making, to reflect upon her misdeeds at Tours.
It was held that she would not find the punishment so tedious and
unpleasant as it might have been if M. l’Abbé de Rancé had not
been in the neighbourhood. He was her lover, and a most ardent
one, constantly by her side, but not to persuade her to penitence; on
the contrary, de Rancé was wild and profligate of life as the woman
he adored. He was brilliantly clever. At school he out-rivalled his
class-fellow Bossuet, and when but thirteen, he published an essay
on the dignity of the soul; and beneath his dissolute ways the gold of
a conscience, of which so many of the Courtly circle in which he
moved seemed absolutely devoid, often shone through. Armand
Jean de Rancé was one of an old and distinguished family, and he
was only ten years old when the Abbey of la Trappe in Normandy
was bestowed on him.
The monastery of la Grand Trappe du Perche, said to have been
so named from its hidden position among the dense forests of the
stormy Norman headland, is of very ancient foundation. It was
established in the twelfth century by Robion, Comte du Perche. The
brethren followed the Cistercian rule, and for several centuries it was
in high repute for the sanctity of its community, and for its wealth,
which was put to its legitimate charitable uses. In course of time, like
so many other abbeys, it was given in commendam, and its pious
repute fell away to such an extent that the seven monks—all that
remained in the monastery—were called by the surrounding
peasantry “the brigands of la Trappe.” They were notorious for their
evil-living, spending the time in drinking and hunting; and shunned
alike by men, women and children, the Trappist monks were the
terror of the district.
It was at this time that the child, Armand de Rancé, was made
Abbé, and affairs at la Trappe continued to fall from bad to worse. As
de Rancé grew up, among many benefices conferred on him, he was
appointed Almoner to the Duke of Orléans, and spent most of his
time in a whirl of dissipation in the Courtly circles in Paris. His
splendid entertainments, his magnificent house, the trappings of his
horses, especially those of the chase, were the talk of Paris, and his
daring intrigues startled even the licence indulged in by the society
he moved in. In this circle de Rancé specially singled out the
stepmother of the Duchesse de Chevreuse, Madame de Montbazon,
a woman as notorious for her profligacy and unscrupulous character
as she was physically beautiful.
After a time spent in banishment at Touraine, she had been
permitted to return to her Paris home, and de Rancé, who had been
absent for a short time, returning to Paris, hastened to call upon her.
Arrived at the house, he found it deserted, and passing in by an
open door, he hurried along the silent passages, calling for the
servants and upon her name, but there was no response. At last he
reached the door of her apartments, and rushing across the
anteroom, he flung aside the portières of her bedchamber. An open,
trestle-supported coffin, across which a sheet lay carelessly flung,
met his eyes, and turning from it to the table close by, the
decapitated head of Madame de Montbazon confronted him.
Momentarily he failed to recognise the features of the ghastly object;
for the face was blurred with the ravages of smallpox. The fell
disease had attacked Madame de Montbazon, and she had died of
it. The body and head were being prepared for embalming, and for
this end—or as some versions of the tale tell, because the coffin had
not been made long enough—the head had been cut off, and placed
upon the table.
The silent horror of this ghastly experience carried an eloquence
beyond all power of words to the heart of de Rancé. Swayed by a
revulsion of feeling, naturally sensitive and imaginative, he looked
back upon his past life with loathing. The hollowness of worldly
pleasures, and uncertainties of a worldly existence were yet still
more deeply impressed upon his mind, by a serious accident he
suffered in the hunting-field, and by the death of his patron, the Duc
d’Orléans. All seemed vanity.
De Rancé was at this time thirty-four years old. With the exception
of the ancient monastery of la Trappe, lost amid the wild forests
verging on the perilous rock-bound shores of extreme North-Western
Normandy, he divested himself of his property and possessions, and
went to take up his residence in la Trappe, endeavouring to establish
the old discipline in it. But the seven spirits he found there were
unruly, and had no mind for being disturbed. So entirely were they
opposed to the abbé’s reforms, that his life was in danger from them,
for they threatened to throw him into the fish-ponds; and Brigadier
Loureur, stationed at Mortagne, the nearest town of importance,
begged de Rancé to accept a guard of his soldiery; but de Rancé
decided that since the brigands of la Trappe had clearly less than no
vocation for the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they were
best entirely got rid of—and he pensioned them off and sent them
away, not in wrath, but in peace. Their place was filled by Cistercian
brethren of the strict observance.
The position of an abbé, or for that matter, an abbess in the ranks
of the Church, had long become an anomalous one. The relaxation
of the old rigid conventual ruling had wrought great changes. It was
not unusual to find some lady of a noble family appointed to the
nominal charge of a monastery, and some equally nobly-born
gentleman set over a community of nuns; and in either case, as
likely as not, they had no knowledge, or next to none, of the
everyday mode of life or working of such community. At the fair of St
Germain the abbés always swarmed thick as flies, in their short
black habits and delicate little linen bands, as where did they not
congregate in the society of the time? The salons of the Hôtel de
Rambouillet and other brilliant assemblies were dotted all over with
them. They were the makers of petits vers and bouts rimés, and, if
nothing more, pretty well indispensable to the following of a fine lady
as cavaliere serventis. They were wont to make themselves
generally amusing and agreeable, everything, in short, but useful to
the spiritual needs of the Church in whose ranks they were
supposed to serve. They wore their vows too lightly for the Abbé de
Rancé to dream of exercising real authority in virtue of the title alone;
and he qualified himself for the dignity he intended to assume of
Superior of the monastery of la Trappe in Normandy—by entering as
a novice in the Cistercian Abbey of Persigny. This ended, he took the
vows, in company with a servant who was deeply attached to him,
and was confirmed abbot.
The order of strict Cistercian observance is rigid in the extreme—
almost utter silence, hard labour, total abstinence from wine, eggs,
fish, and any seasoning of the simple fare of bread and vegetables.
The earnestness and eloquence of de Rancé stirred the men
desirous of joining the brotherhood to such a deep enthusiasm, that
many of them wanted to take the full vows at once; but the Abbé of
la Trappe refused them this, lest they should not have truly counted
the cost of their sacrifice. And not only in this case, but in others the
famous reformer of the ancient monastery showed a singular
judgment and reasonableness in the ordering of his community. And
“his works do follow him”; for still as of old, hidden amid those dark
forests, though not far from the haunts of men, stands the Priory of
Notre Dame de Grâce de la Trappe, its brethren, spending their time
not given to devotion, in alms-giving and healing and acts of charity
of every kind.
In England, meanwhile, great if not unanticipated changes had
befallen. Oliver Cromwell was dead. He had passed away in
comparative peace in his bed. Had his days numbered even a few
more, they might have terminated in assassination, for deep-laid
schemes for this were hatching. The dreary Commonwealth was
growing daily more displeasing, and the English people were longing
for the king to have his own again. It was a day of joy indeed to
Queen Henrietta Maria which saw the progress of King Charles II. to
London. She had some desire that he should wed la Grande
Mademoiselle, Gaston d’Orléans’ daughter; but Mademoiselle
nursed a hope of becoming the wife of her cousin, Louis XIV., a hope
that was not to be realised. Possibly, as Mazarin had said, the
Bastille cannonading had killed that husband; but after her long
wanderings she was again at Court, and in fair favour.
Louis XIV., without being strictly handsome, had agreeable
features and a fine presence, which his pride and self-consciousness
knew very well how to make the most of. He had grown from the
mere youth into a dignified, courtly young manhood, and the want of
knowledge and defective bringing up were fairly well concealed by
“the divinity which doth hedge a king.” It certainly always enfolded
Louis XIV. “Ah, my dear cousin,” cried Queen Christina of Sweden,
when she first saw him, “some one told me you were not good-
looking! Sacré-bleu!” she added, bestowing a sounding kiss on both
of Louis’s cheeks, “if I had the man who told that lie here, I would cut
off his ears before you!” and she still stood gazing admiringly at the
king. So there could be no further doubt about his attractive
appearance; for Queen Christina was accounted an unerring judge
in such matters.
CHAPTER XIII
Christina’s Modes and Robes—Encumbering Favour—A Comedy at the Petit-

Bourbon—The Liberty of the Queen and the Liberty of the Subject—Tears and
Absolutions—The Tragedy in the Galérie des Cerfs—Disillusions.
Christina, ex-Queen of Sweden, was not more nice in style of dress

than she was in the choice of a word to add strength to her
affirmations, and “sacré-bleu” was a mild sponsor for the swear-word
she really selected on the occasion. The startling force of it,
combined with the extraordinary costume she wore, excited an
irrepressible burst of laughter from the queen and from Mazarin, and
all present followed suit—all but the king, who looked disconcerted
and rebukeful.
Christina wore a wig, standing up high over her forehead, with
tufts of curls sticking out, all rough and tousled, on each side of her
face, which was, however, far from really ill-looking. She had on a
coat, which was a cross between a man’s pourpoint and a woman’s
cape, put on so carelessly that it left one shoulder half-exposed. Her
skirt was not cut à la mode into a long train; it was merely a round
petticoat, so short as to afford ample display of leg. A man’s shirt and
a man’s boots completed this costume, in which the great King of
Sweden’s daughter presented herself to the Majesties of France.
She met the risible gaze of the Court with displeasure, and
inquired what they were all staring at. “Am I humpbacked?” she
demanded, “or aren’t my legs well-shaped?” The king, with courtly
good-nature, threw oil on the troubled waters, and Christina was
pacified, observing that Louis spoke like the king and gentleman he
was. “And as for you others,” she added to the rest, “mind
yourselves.”
Ninon, who was indisposed, was not present at this scene; but
recovering some days later, she went to the Louvre, where, thanks to
her friend Madame de Choisy, she came and went constantly; and
as she passed along a gallery leading to that lady’s apartments she
met Madame de Choisy and Christina, who was attired in very much
the same manner as already described, but slightly less outré.
The queen was fascinated at first sight with Ninon. She placed her
two hands on her shoulders and gazed long and fixedly into her face.
“Now I understand, my dear,” she said at last, “all the follies the men
commit, and will commit for you. Embrace me,” and she bestowed
two such sounding kisses on Ninon’s cheeks, as she had bestowed
on the king’s. Then taking her by the arm, she led her to her own
assigned apartments, at the door of which stood two bearded men,
one of them Count Monaldeschi, her Grand Master of the Horse, the
other the successor of the redoubtable Desmousseaux, the
Chevalier Sentinelli, captain of her guard.
Some time before her visit to Paris, Christina had abdicated,
declaring that the formalities and restrictions of the existence of a
crowned queen were unendurable, the cares of a kingdom rendered
life a slavery, and she desired perfect liberty. The liberty she sought
for herself, however, she in no wise extended to others; for while she
renounced her claims to her inherited kingdom, she reserved to
herself absolute and supreme authority, with the right of life and
death over all who should enter her service or be of her suite. Then,
a Protestant born, she joined the Catholic communion. It was
probably a mere caprice; for she did not spare her coarse witticisms
on the newly-adopted faith, and very soon she contrived so seriously
to offend the College of Cardinals that she was forced to leave
Rome, which she had entered on horseback, dressed almost like a
man. After a while she had come to France, and probably somewhat
impressed with the elegancies of the Court, she made some
modification of the hideous attire she had first appeared in. When
Ninon first met her in the Louvre gallery, Her Majesty wore a grey
petticoat skirt of decent length, trimmed with gold and silver lace, a
scarlet camlet coat, her wig was of the unvarying pale yellow hue,
and she carried a handkerchief of costly lace, and a broad-brimmed
hat, plumed with black ostrich feathers. With her white skin, her
aquiline nose and fine teeth, she would have made a very
presentable boy.
She was very voluble, and her immeasurable admiration of Ninon
to her face, was almost disconcerting, even to one so very well
accustomed to compliments. At last, the subject being exhausted,
the ex-queen fell to asking all sorts of questions about the king, the
queen, the cardinal, the new palace at Versailles, the Italian Opera.
Then she had much to say about her own country and her
abdication; about Descartes, who had died at her Court a victim to
the climate; about Count Monaldeschi, with whom, she confided to
Ninon, she was on terms of very close intimacy, and about a
hundred other things.
During Christina’s stay in Paris, Ninon had the delight of seeing
again that most dear friend and protégé of hers, Molière, after his
long absence in the provinces. Christina was with Ninon when he
arrived, and as he and his company were to play that same night the
Cocu Imaginaire, at the Petit-Bourbon, it was arranged that the two
ladies should be present.
Christina had the appetite of an ogress, and before they started for
the theatre, she did ample justice to the handsome repast Perrote
served up. Then Her ex-Majesty summoned her captain of the
Guards, and Grand Master of the Horse—who had been regaled in
another room on turkey and other dainties, and they repaired to the
Petit-Bourbon.
The evening proved anything but enjoyable to Ninon. A market-
woman would have comported herself more decently than this
eccentric, semi-barbarous royal person. She greeted the sallies of
the actors with loud shouts of laughter, and used language that was
rankly blasphemous; while she wriggled and lolled in her chair, and
stretched her feet out among the footstools and cushions, in
appalling fashion. It was in vain Ninon respectfully intimated that the
eyes of everybody were upon them; Christina’s only reply was to beg
her to let her laugh as much as ever she wanted.
The queen’s liking for Ninon grew embarrassing. Six months of her
constant society were almost more than the most good-natured
tolerance could endure, and for that length of time the favour of the
queen’s presence was bestowed on Paris. Then Cardinal Mazarin,
also more than tired of her, entertaining moreover, suspicions that
she was brewing political mischief, contrived to tempt her to seek
change of air and scene at Fontainebleau.
Christina caught the wily cardinal’s bait. Very well—yes, it was a
good idea. She had a great desire to see the renowned palace that
Francis I. had loved so well, and to Fontainebleau, to the relief of
Ninon and of divers other people, the ex-queen went: not to remain
long, however. One morning, at a very early hour, the Chevalier
Sentinelli arrived at the rue des Tournelles and informed Ninon that
she was wanted at the Palais Royal, by his royal mistress, who had
returned to Paris.
It was useless to devise some excuse for not obeying the
summons—invitation, or what it might be—for that was only to bring
the queen herself to the rue des Tournelles; and so to the Palais
Royal Ninon went, to find Christina stretched upon a miserable
pallet-bed, with an evil-smelling, just-extinguished candle on the
table beside her. A serviette did duty for a night-cap, tied round her
head, which was denuded of every hair; for she had had it shaved
close on the previous night. Christina presented a strangely
grotesque and wretchedly miserable picture. Seizing Ninon by both
hands, she told her that she was suffering the deepest agony of
mind—a grief that was horrible—and begged her to stay by her. At
this moment, Sentinelli entered, and a whispered conversation
ensued. “Oh, they will prevent me?” she cried then. “They will
prevent me, will they? Let them dare. Am I not a queen? Have I not a
right to high justice? Very well, then,” she went on, when again
Sentinelli had bent to whisper again. “We must dissimulate. I will go
back to Fontainebleau. There at least, I can do as I please,” and she
prevailed on Ninon to accompany her. And there in the Galérie des
Cerfs at Fontainebleau the hideous tragedy was enacted. The farce
of this woman’s daily life fades out in the thought of her ferocity and
revengeful instincts. Monaldeschi had offended her: he had done
worse, he had been treacherous towards her. Pitiless, with eyes
glittering with rage and hatred, she stood in the Galérie, where the
fading daylight was illumined by the flare of the torches held by her
pages, and taxed the wretched culprit—pleading for mercy at her
feet—with his crimes; but it was not accorded; “Ah, let me live!” he
entreated—“let me live!”
And Ninon, who had dreaded something, but was utterly
unprepared for such a frightful scene, joined her entreaties to his and
to those of his confessor, the monk Lebel. “Ah, no! A woman,” she
sobbed, “cannot give an order for this man to die.”
“I am not a woman,” replied Christina; “I am a queen, and I have
the right to punish a traitor.” She gave the signal. There was a fearful
struggle, the flash of Sentinelli’s sword, an agonised cry, a crimson
stream upon the floor—and then the silence of death.
It had been with extreme reluctance that Ninon had accompanied
the queen to Fontainebleau; but for all Christina’s enigmatical and
elaborate preparations before starting, any conception of her
murderous intentions did not occur to Ninon. She had grown
accustomed to the royal lady’s freaks and eccentricities. On this
occasion, Christina had sent for a confessor, and having attired
herself from head to foot in black, she knelt before him when he
arrived, and first desiring Ninon not to leave the apartment, but to
seat herself in a distant corner of it, she muttered out to the
perplexed-looking Bishop of Amiens—whom she had sent for, he
staying at that time at the Tuileries, spending a kind of brief retreat—
what she had to say.
It occupied some five minutes, and as she proceeded, an
expression of deep discomfiture and perplexity overspread the
bishop’s face. He gave her a hurried absolution, and departed, while
Christina went to the chapel of the Feuillants and communicated. All
these pious preparations had disarmed Ninon of any extreme of
uncomfortable suspicion she might have entertained. Christina could
not possibly be nursing any evil intentions—while Ninon was a
woman, and curiosity had impelled her to Fontainebleau, to see what
was the end of the affair, and find out the cause of such floods of
tears.
In the coach with them were Monaldeschi and Sentinelli. To the
first she did not address a single word throughout the journey. It was
nearing five o’clock, and night was shadowing in, when they arrived;
and when they had had supper, Christina commanded Monaldeschi
to go to the Galérie des Cerfs, where she would presently come to
him. Then she bade Sentinelli follow the count, and motioning Ninon
to accompany her, she proceeded between two rows of Swiss
Guards, armed with halberds tied about with black crape, to the
Galérie. Now thoroughly fearful, Ninon had followed with trembling
limbs. “In Heaven’s name,” she faltered, “what does this mean,
Madame?—something terrible is about to happen.” With an evil
smile Christina threw open the double doors, disclosing
Monaldeschi, with his hands fast bound, kneeling at the feet of
Lebel, whose features were ghastly with consternation at the task
imposed on him, of hearing the doomed man’s confession.
At sight of Christina, Monaldeschi turned, and his agonised cry for
pardon rang through the Galérie; but there was no mercy in that
hideously hate-distorted face; and so, in cold blood, the murder was
perpetrated, and out into the darkness Ninon rushed, calling for a
carriage to bear her from the terrible place, heedless of the queen’s
gibes and endeavours to persuade her at least to remain till morning.
It was nothing—what she had done, she said; “only a traitor had
received his deserts, and the world was well rid of him.”
But the coach drew up, and Ninon fled into its shelter, never
stopping till she reached home. There she took to her bed in a high
state of fever, having ever before her the terrible scene of blood at
Fontainebleau, and for three weeks she remained prostrated by the
memory of it. She never saw Christina again, neither did Paris.
Though the Court took no proceedings against her—insult to
hospitality as her act was, all other considerations apart—she was
avoided, and regarded with loathing, and she planned for herself a
visit to England. But Cromwell had already supped full of murder.
The image of it was sufficiently haunting, and the endeavours of his
conscience to make peace with Heaven before he died were not to
be disturbed by the presence of such a woman. He turned his face
from her instead, and Christina betook herself to Rome, where she
fell deep in debt, and quarrelled fiercely with the pope.
Overweening ambition was the bane of this undoubtedly clever
woman. In the murder at Fontainebleau, it is thought that vanity and
the love of power tempted her to display what she was pleased to
regard as a full length of it. Exactly the nature of Monaldeschi’s
offence remains unexplained. Christina said he had grossly betrayed
her, and some assert that it was politically he had done so; but it
seems more probable that he was a traitor in love. She defended
herself by saying that she had reserved every right of life and death
over all who were in her service. The atrocious deed caused a
sensation in Paris; especially among those of whom the ex-queen
had been a guest, and Anne of Austria sent for Ninon to relate all the
details of her fearful experience at Fontainebleau.
The chief topic of conversation and speculation now was the
marriage of the young king. It was well known that Mazarin hoped to
crown his successful ambitions, by marrying his niece, Marie
Mancini, to Louis, and that Anne of Austria was as strongly opposed
to any such alliance was equally well-known. It was her wish and her
will that Louis should wed the Infanta Maria Théresa. Any thwarting
of this project, the queen vowed, should bring about the setting aside
of Louis, and placing her second son on the throne of France in his
stead—“La reine le veut.” Mazarin had to bite the dust. The
preliminaries for the Spanish marriage were set on foot. The French
and Spanish emissaries met on the Isle of Pheasants. Poor Marie
Mancini, who had a sincere affection for her young royal admirer,
was sent out of the way for a month into the convent of the
Daughters of Calvary, which was hard by Ninon’s house. Louis
whispered in her ear at parting, that if the king was separated from
her, the man would never cease to think of her. Then he whistled to
his dogs, and with his courtly train went hunting in the woods of
Chambord. So ended the love-story of Mazarin’s niece, Marie
Mancini. So much “for the snows of yester year”; but there had been
warm affection between Ninon and the young girl, and they parted
with many tears.
CHAPTER XIV
Les Précieuses Ridicules—Sappho and Le Grand Cyrus—The Poets of the Latin

Quarter—The Satire which Kills—A Lost Child—Periwigs and New Modes—
The Royal Marriage and a Grand Entry.
Molière’s comedy, Le Cocu Imaginaire—which had created such

unrestrainable delight in the ex-queen of Sweden—had been
preceded a year earlier by the famous Précieuses Ridicules. To call
this play the dramatist’s masterpiece, is to do rank injustice to his
work of greater length and importance, notably, if one dare to
choose, to Le Tartufe. The Précieuses, however, took Paris by storm,
and was accounted a gem. Still a delightful little bit of humour, and
not lacking now in its way of a home-thrust, it carried a double-edged
power in the days of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, when the affectations
of speech and conversation had run to such absurd extravagance,
that Molière’s satire was little or no exaggeration. Mademoiselle de
Scudéri’s “Inutile! retranchez le superflu de cet ardente,” is distinctly
precious.
Of the queens of these intellectual réunions, Mademoiselle de
Scudéri was the reigning novelist. Her long life, exceeding Ninon’s in
years, was devoted to the production of romances and the lighter
sort of literature, which ran to a lengthy record. Le Grand Cyrus
stands best remembered, but is scarcely more than a memory. A
long day’s journey would be needed to find the most ardent of fiction-
readers who would now care to follow through the windings of that
romance which in its day created such enthusiasm, and made a
lioness of the amiable if some way from beautiful Madeleine de
Scudéri. Artamène; ou, le Grand Cyrus, after all, was, to be sure,
scarcely fiction. It was composed of little more than thinly-veiled
facts, presenting under classic names the living men and women of
society; heroes and heroines of antiquity stood sponsors to the fine,
broad-skirted, perruqued gentlemen and fashionable dames of
Versailles and the Louvre and the Palais Royal. Artaban, Agathyse,
Zenocrates—these were, in their modish habit as they lived,
severally the Duc de St Bignon, M. de Rainez, M. Ysern, and others
—while Mademoiselle de Scudéri herself was Sappho. It was in her
salon that was drawn up the famous Carte du Tendre—gazetteer of
articles necessary to the pursuit of love. Mademoiselle de Scudéri
wrote with grace and much sense; but her romances were
insufferably prolix. Ninon found them wearisome to a degree, even
though the Grand Cyrus is a record of the great Prince de Condé.
George de Scudéri, Madeleine’s brother, was also a very fertile
novelist of his day, scarcely to be rivalled in speed of production by
Dumas himself. Nor does there appear that the ghosts who worked
for this great, more modern enchanter of the realm of historical
romance, rendered any services to the seventeenth-century novelist.
The salons of Madame de Rambouillet and of Madame de Sablé
were the rendezvous of the most aristocratic of these versifiers and
epigram-makers, who really occasionally uttered something witty or
poetical; though for the most part the wit and poetry did not rise
above such greatness as that of Sir Benjamin Backbite, in Lady
Sneerwell’s drawing-room, on the macaroni ponies whose
“Legs were so slim,
And their tails were so long.”
The refinements and elegance of speech to be heard at those

réunions, fostered, and indeed were a powerful influence in, the
reformation effected by the Académie for the French language. But
the passion for these improvements was often torn to tatters, and the
puerilities and affectations excited a reaction among men of the
more Bohemian class of writers and versifiers, such as Scarron, St
Amand and others, and the curious mixture of real poetic expression
and thought, profanity and coarseness, in their productions, carry
back to the days of Rabelais and of Villon, with echoes of Ronsard
and of Charles of Orléans. But the simplicity and beauty of their
numbers only now and again shone through the grossness of their
compositions, and sheer opposition to the “Clélies” and “Uranies”
and “Sapphos” probably inspired the numerous parodies and the
odes to cheese and good feeding produced by these authors, who
hailed with delight the now famous actor-manager Molière’s
Précieuses Ridicules.
The piece was first produced at the Petit-Bourbon early in the
winter of 1659. The plot, deep-laid if simple, consists of the
successful playing off by two lovers respectively of the two charming
young women they love honestly and deeply, but who meet refusal
on the score of their language being too natural, and their attire not
sufficiently fashionable. The two young men thereupon dress up their
valets, Mascarille and Jodelet, in fine costumes, bestow on them the
titles of marquis and vicomte, and contrive to introduce them to the
précieuses. The exquisite humour of the dialogue between Gorgibus,
the father of one of the two girls, and uncle of the other, sets the ball
rolling; his contempt for the new names, Aminte and Policène, which
they have selected in place of those given them, as he says, by their
godfathers and godmothers; his dim grasp of what he calls their
jargon, when they try to instil into him some idea of its elegancies, is
the essence of genuine comicality, as are the compliments of the two
aristocratic visitors who inform the ladies that it is the reports of their
exquisite attractions and beauty, reaching far and wide, which has
brought them to their feet. Then follows the flutter of delight, veiled
under the attempt at calm graciousness, of the précieuses. “But
Monsieur,” says Cathos to Mascarille, the marquis, inviting him to sit
down, “I entreat you not to be inexorable to this armchair, which has
been stretching out its arms to you for this quarter of an hour past;
allow it the satisfaction of embracing you.” The fun grows apace, as
the slips of tongue and bearing of the two pretended gentlemen
begin to disconcert the two infatuated girls. At last a dance is
proposed, the fiddlers are sent for, and behind them enter the two
masters of the valets, who tear their fine coats off their backs, and
turn them out. “And you,” says Gorgibus, chasing the précieuses
from the room, to repent at leisure of their affectations and thirst for
la galantérie, “out of my sight, and to the devil with all these verses,
romances, sonnets, and the rest of it—pernicious amusements of
do-nothings and idlers!” So the curtain descended on the Précieuses
Ridicules, and the story goes that before very long the play
extinguished the glory of the salon of the Hôtel de Rambouillet.
The Comte de Fiesque, who had gone with Condé to Spain, was
killed in Catalonia by the bursting of a bomb. Ninon, not able
personally to ask the widow where the child was which de Fiesque
regarded as his, commissioned two persons to ascertain for her from
Madame de Fiesque some intelligence concerning its whereabouts,
but the countess asserted that she had no knowledge of this. The
remorse and regret of Ninon were of no avail: she was unable to
trace the lost one.
At last, after long negotiations, Maria Théresa of Austria was
united to Louis XIV. This brought Condé back to allegiance to
France, by the Peace of the Pyrenees, effected by Cardinal Mazarin,
one of the few of his achievements which really benefited France.
Ninon was one in the gorgeous cortège which proceeded to
Grosbois, beyond Charenton, to receive the young princess. It was a
brilliant show. The fashions of the early days of the young king had
greatly changed since his father’s time, which was so greatly
distinguished, at least as far as male attire went, for its elegant
simplicity. Bright hues had superseded the black, the beautiful but
sombre colouring of the material of the silk or satin or velvet doublets
with large, loose slashed sleeves; the falling bands of rich point lace;
the long, straight, fringed or pointed breeches meeting down to the
lace-ruffled or lawn wide-topped boots, and the eminently graceful
Flemish plumed beaver hat. In place of the long hair waving to the
neck, full-bottomed periwigs had come into vogue; the doublets were
short and waistcoatless, displaying a bulging shirt-front, tied with
ribbons to the nether garments, which, like the large loose sleeves,
were covered with points and bows; deep lace ruffles drooped from
the knees, and only the falling collar, with a hat higher crowned than
of yore, but still plumed, remained of the old style.

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Information and Communication

Technologies for Ageing Well and

Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing

Smart Cities Green Technologies and Intelligent

Sensor Networks 6th International Conference SENSORNETS

E-Business and Telecommunications: 15th International

Information and Communication Technologies in

Simulation and Modeling Methodologies Technologies and

Futuristic Trends in Network and Communication

Communications in Computer and Information Science 982

Information and Communication

Martina Ziefle Leszek A. Maciaszek (Eds.)

Information and Communication

ISSN 1865-0929 ISSN 1865-0937 (electronic)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019934738

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

March 2018 Panagiotis D. Bamidis

Eila Jarvenpaa Aalto University, Finland

George Xylomenos Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece

Influence of User Factors on the Acceptance of Ambient Assisted Living

Playfully Assessing the Acceptance and Choice of Ambient Assisted Living

Determinants of Trust in Acceptance of Medical Assistive Technologies . . . . 45

“In Clarity We Trust!” - An Empirical Study of Factors that Affect

Extending Exergame-Based Physical Activity for Older Adults:

Vision-Based Marker-Less Spatiotemporal Gait Analysis by Using

Studying the Acceptance of a Digital Diabetes Diaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Individual Factors that Influence the Acceptance of Mobile Health Apps:

Moving Ahead: Elaboration on Cumulative Effects on Urban and Suburban

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Julia Offermann-van Heek(&), Martina Ziefle, and Simon Himmel

Human-Computer Interaction Center, RWTH Aachen University,

Abstract. Demographic change in conjunction with increasing amounts of

Keywords: Ambient assisted living technologies Technology acceptance

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

2 AAL Technologies in Professional Care Contexts

2.1 AAL Technologies and Systems

2.2 Acceptance of AAL and the Diversity of Users

So far, acceptance research has hardly considered the perspectives of professional

3.1 Aim, Procedure, and Research Questions

RQ 3 & 4 AAL acceptance

Fig. 1. Research model and research questions.

3.2 Empirical Design of Online Questionnaire

3.3 Participants and User Factor Segmentation

4.1 Perception of AAL Technologies

be beneﬁts of AAL technologies in professional care contexts. Among the patient-

Fear of isolation (M = 4.1; SD = 1.4), missing trust in technical functionality

Fig. 4. Evaluation of data (information) allowed to be gathered in professional care contexts

With regard to the evaluation of storage duration, comparably positive values

4.2 Do User Factors Influence Professional Caregivers’

Relationships Between User Factors and AAL Perception (RQ3). Considering

4.3 What Is the Most Decisive Factor for AAL Acceptance?

The Whirligig of Time, and an Old Friend—Going to the Fair—A Terrible

Christina’s Modes and Robes—Encumbering Favour—A Comedy at the Petit-

Christina, ex-Queen of Sweden, was not more nice in style of dress

Les Précieuses Ridicules—Sappho and Le Grand Cyrus—The Poets of the Latin

Molière’s comedy, Le Cocu Imaginaire—which had created such

The refinements and elegance of speech to be heard at those

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