The article analyzes the peculiar language of the French preciueses presented in the prose of the middle of the XVIIth century (Jean Baptiste Moliere, A. Baudeau de Somaize). The characteristic fascination with periphrasis is associated with the specific features of women’s education and with the emphasis on the metaphor theory which was developed by Aristotle and popularized in Baroque treatises of the end of the XVIth – the beginning of the XVIIth centuries.