330 



S'vijiiu'. MADAME DE, the queen of letter- 

 writer*, and one of the most charming figures in 

 the literature of France, was born at Pans of an 

 ancient BmgBBdisn family, February 6, 1626. 

 Her maiden name was Mane de Rabutin-Cliantal. 

 and she was the second and only surviving child 

 of her parent*. Her father's mother had entered 

 a convent under the advice of Saint Francis ilr 

 Sales, became founder of the Order of the Visita- 

 tion, and was afterwards canonised. When the 

 child was but one year old her father fell fighting 

 against the English at Re ; a few years later her 

 mother followed, leaving her to be brought up at 

 Livry by her maternal uncle, the Abbe de Con- 

 langes, the ' Bienbon ' of her life-long affection. 

 She received a careful education under Menage 

 and Chapelain, and learned Latin, Italian, and 

 Spanish. From her childhood she saw clearly the 

 whole comedy of life, and all her days she was 

 ' une grande devoreuse de livres ' history, Virgil, 

 Plutarch, Tacitus, Nicole, Montaigne, and even 

 Rabelais. At eighteen (August 4, 1644) she 

 married the young and handsome Marquis Henri 

 de Sevigne, the head of an ancient family of 

 Brittany, but unfortunately for her happiness a 

 spendthrift and a libertine. Her daughter Fran- 

 coise Marguerite was born at Paris, October 10, 

 1646 ; her son, Charles, at her famous country- 

 house, the Rochers, in 1648. She loved her 

 husband in spite of his infidelities and indiffer- 

 ence ; forgave him even his passion for Ninon de 

 Lenclos, who lived to cast for a moment the same 

 evil spell upon her son ; and when he was killed 

 in a duel by a rival in a more sordid intrigue 

 (February 5, 1651), mourned him sincerely, yet 

 forgot him so completely that in the long corre- 

 spondence of later years with her children she does 

 not once mention his name. Madame de Sevigne 

 at the moment of her widowhood was but twenty- 

 five, brilliant in her beauty and fascination ; yet 

 without hesitation she embraced that holy voca- 

 tion of undivided motherhood to which she was to 

 give such complete and exquisite expression. Her 

 Handsome figure, splendid complexion, fair, wavy 

 hair, and brilliant eyes are spoken of by all who 

 have described her ; but her beauty was more that 

 of expression than of feature, and she herself has 

 told us that her nose was somewhat square, her 

 blue eyes ill-matched ( bigitrrta). Her portraits are 

 not satisfactory, and do not give the idea of beauty, 

 but doubtless her charm was of that subtle kind 

 that eludes the painter. After about a year's 

 retirement at the Rochers she returned to society, 

 but all the flatteries of the most brilliant court in 

 the world failed to touch her heart The Prince 

 ile Conti, Turenne, Fouquet the Surintendiuit of 

 Finance, Rohan, and her cousin Bussy-Rabuliii 

 (1613-93) sighed for her in vain; and, stranger 

 still, in the midst of that age of gilded corruption, 

 her name remains without a stain. She was 

 virtuous by temperament, with warmth only in 

 the intellect, says Hussy in his malicious portrait 

 of her; but the intended sneer recoils upon him 

 self, a* if it were no virtue for that warm heart 

 and impulsive temperament to be virtuous ! Her 

 heart was entirely occupied by a purer love an 

 intense devotion to her children, and a warmth 

 of friendship almost lieyond example. For no 

 one ever hail so many and such devoted friends 

 -no woman ever knew like her how to trans- 

 form a lover into a friend. La Rochefoucauld 

 said she fully satisfied his ideal of friendship, and 

 Madame de la Fayette said, almost at the close, 

 after forty years of friendship without a cloud, 

 ' Croyez, ma tres chere, que vons files la personne 



dll IIHITlde que j 'a i le |illl- \rlilalilenii-lit aitllee.' 



The real secret of this affection was her own good- 

 ness, which is reflected on every page of her letters; 



even the follies of her friends she touches with a 

 light hand ; her wit never stints, she lias n chari- 

 table interpretation for everything. Her sweet 

 and happy temper played lightly e\en with sorrow 

 and wrong-doing. She was pure in an age when 

 purity was rare, and if she had a single fault 

 it is that she was merely something too lenient 

 in her tolerance. She was a genial optimist, 

 not from general indifference, but from love, for 

 her friendships made a real part of her existence. 

 The graphic letters to Fomponne describing the 

 trial of Fouquet prove a noble fidelity of heart that 

 defies misfortune and disgrace. Some of her ow n 

 letters, discovered among the fallen surinteiulatit 's 

 papers and read by the king, caused for a moment 

 inuch talk and scandal, in allaying \\hich liuy 

 did his cousin a g^ood service. ' Vet fnrtively he 

 had done her a grievous wrong. Having been in 

 difficulties about 1656 he had applied to her for a 

 loan of 10,000 ecus (2400), but, some delay being 

 occasioned by Bienbon's desire to look into the 

 securities, he took offence, found the money fiom 

 the Marquise de Montglas, and, during the en- 

 forced solitude of a short banishment to his 

 country-house for some scandalous impieties, wrote 

 a few satirical sketches of the courtiers for the 

 amusement of this mistress the Histoire amour- 

 eiise dcs Gaulen. In this unclean company a cruel 

 and lying description of Madame de Sevigne was 

 inserted, and when the book was printed at Li6ge 

 (1665), without Bussy's knowledge, she had the 

 mortification to find herself in the mouths of all 

 the scandal-mongers of the day. Bnssy was 

 arrested on the 17th April, imprisoned in the 

 Bastille for thirteen months, and sentenced to 

 banishment from Paris for seventeen years. It 

 needed only to be unfortunate to ensure the 

 .sympathy of Madame de Sevigne, and the recon- 

 ciliation, which was complete by 1608, perhaps 

 left the repentant Bussy, says Mesnard, ' with a 

 more tender and serious feeling than he had ever 

 experienced in his life l>efore.' She herself in- 

 vented the word Itiiliiitiiiiiije to express the family 

 ties and the common sympathy which substantially 

 bound the two together. 



Meantime her daughter had grown up with a 

 beauty, if not a personal charm, that far surpassed 

 her mother's, and Madame de Sevigne's heart 

 was filled with joy at the sensation made by ' the 

 prettiest girl in France' on her first appearance at 

 court in the winter of 1662-63. In January 1669 

 she married Franpois Adhemar, the Comte de 

 Grignan, then Lieutenant-general of Languedoc, 

 but ere the close of the year, of Provence an 

 office which obliged him at once to leave Paris. 

 He had been twice married already, was thirty- 

 seven, of ancient race, honourable in his life and 

 dignified in manners, but he was overwhelmed 

 in financial difficulties which were yet to cause 

 much trouble to Madame de S6vignc. The great 

 grief of her life was this separation from her much 

 Foved daughter, but it is mainly to it that we owe 

 those letters extending, with intervals of union 

 (longest as well as most frequent between 1677 and 

 1688) over the twenty-five years until her death. 

 Bussy and Saint-Simon say that the daughter 

 lacked heart, and it is at least certain that she 

 was proud, shy, and uncommunicative to the outer 

 world. But she really loved her mother, and 

 never failed, except when ill, to write to her twice 

 a week throughout all the years of separation. It 

 is unfortunate for her that these letters have been 

 destroyed, and probably also, as Sainte-Beuve 

 suggests, her mother has harmed her somewhat in 

 our eyes by praising, her too much. She seems 

 cold by contrast with her mother's overflowing 

 affection, but it is impossible in the nature of 

 things that BO much love as Madame de Sevigne'* 



