Madame de Sévigné

“ One who looked so closely into souls, and especially one who was a near friend of La Rochefoucauld, could not escape some harsh conclusions, could not avoid seeing that all is not love that speaks kindly, nor all honor that pranks itself in stately phrase. Madame de Sévigné had her moments when she lost faith in humanity, moments of despair, moments of still more melancholy mocking. When she is most touched with the spirit of her cynical associate, she writes, “We like so much to hear people talk of us and of our motives, that we are charmed even when they abuse us.” ”

“ Madame de Sévigné went on to narrate that once, when at Les Rochers, Madame de La Fayette was quite certain that she, Madame de Sévigné, was losing her mind, for no one could live in the provinces and remain sane, poring over stupid books and sitting over fires. ”

“ To Madame de La Fayette his loss came as her death-blow; life seems at an end for her; for where, indeed, can she find another such friend, or such intercourse, such sweetness and charm—such confidence and consideration?"
There was a moment's silence after Madame de Sévigné's eloquent outburst. The eyes of the three friends were lost for a moment in the twinkling flames. The duchesse and Madame de Kerman exchanged meaning glances.
"Since the duke's death her thoughts are more and more turned toward religion. I hear she has been fortunate in her choice of directors, has she not? ”

“ Her letters written during the first years of her marriage are full of gayety; there is no trace of misfortune or sorrow. But her husband was fond of pleasure, extravagant in his expenses, heedless, and gay—a character not likely to escape the contagion of that universal depravity of manners which prevailed at the French court. His conduct threw a cloud over their happiness. Madame de Sévigné bore her misfortunes with dignity and patience. ”

“ And to this day, Madame de Sévigné remains the single instance of a woman who is supreme in a class of literature which has engaged the ambition of men; Madame Dacier still reigns the queen of blue stockings, though women have long studied Greek without shame ”

“ Walpole called her letters too womanish, but Lady Craven thought they must have been written by a man. Most readers will agree with Lady Craven. Even her vivacity lacks warmth. And it is here that she most falls short of the golden sunshine of Madame de Sévigné. Lady Mary is not quite the woman, even in her malice. Through her wit, through her thought, through her comment on life, even through her human relations runs a strain of something that was masculine. ”

“ Of the English admirers of Madame de Sévigné, the most distinguished and the most warm in the expression of their admiration are Horace Walpole and Sir James Mackintosh, men of totally opposite turns of mind; the former a professed wit, and himself a letter-writer, the latter a grave lawyer and statesman. We conclude this memoir by giving the character of Madame de Sévigné as drawn by the latter. “The great charm of her character seems to me a natural virtue. In what she does, as well as in what she says, she is unforced and unstudied ”

“ This circumstance greatly chagrined Madame de Sevigné, and caused much inquietude both to her, and the Countess de Grignan, her daughter, who were obliged to make frequent and long journies to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing each other. This separation has, however, been the cause of much entertainment to the public; and as most of Mde. de Sevigné's letters are still extant, they will do her head and her heart honour, and give her readers both pleasure and instruction, as long as any body lives who can relish fine sentiment, wit, humour, and refined taste. ”

“ Madame de Sévigné felt her misfortune, but bore it with dignity and patience. Not long after she had cause to congratulate herself on her forbearance, when her husband was killed in a duel by the chevalier {Pg 217} d'Albret. The occasion of the combat is not known, but such were too frequent in the days of the Fronde. The inconstancy of her husband did not diminish the widow's grief: she had lived six happy years of a brilliant youth with him; his gay, social disposition was exactly such as to win affection ”

“ To those who have sympathised in the energy and daring of earlier life, it seems marvellous to hear him mentioned in the gentle language of one of Madame de Sevigné's letters, where he is spoken of as a peculiarly mild and gentlemanlike old man, especially kind to the young, whose society he seemed to enjoy. ”

“ You and the glow out yonder make youth seem no longer a legend."
The duchesse delivered her flattering little speech with a caressing tone. She moved gently forward in her chair, as if to gain a better view of the twilight and her friend. At the sound of the duchesse's voice Madame de Sévigné again turned, with the same charming smile and the quick impulsiveness of movement common to her. During her long monologue she had remained standing; but she left the window now to regain her seat amid the cushions of the window. There was something better than the twilight and the spring in the air ”

“ It cannot be too often or too solemnly laid down that an adoration of Madame de Sévigné as a letter-writer is not crotchet or fashion or affectation—is no result of merely taking authority on trust. The more one reads her, and the more one reads others, the more convinced should one be of her absolute non-pareility in almost every kind of genuine letter (as apart from letters that are really pamphlets or speeches or sermons) except pure love-letters, of [vii] which we have none from her. ”

“ Madame de Sévigné was much distressed by the conduct of her son. "Madame de la Fayette and I are using every effort to wean him from so dangerous an attachment," she writes to her daughter. "Besides, he has a little actress (Mlle. de Champmeslé) and all the Despréaux and the Racines. There are delicious suppers—that is to say, diableries." Then, on March 18: "Your brother is at Saint-Germain. He divides his time between Ninon and a little actress, and, to crown all, Despréaux. We lead him a sad life. ”

“ At that time de Sévigné was in love with an actress, Mademoiselle Champmêlé, but desired to withdraw his affections, or rather transfer them to a higher object, a countess, or a princess, as the reader may infer from his mother's hints in one of her letters to be given hereafter. To Ninon, therefore, he went for instruction and advice as to the best course to pursue to get rid of one love and on with a new. Madame de Sévigné and Madame de La Fayette vainly implored him to avoid Ninon as he would the pest. ”

“ During these earlier years Madame de Sévigné had a great affection for the establishment of Port Royal, which was not without its effect on her literary work. That work, however, dates in its bulk and really important part almost entirely from the last thirty years of her life. Her letters before the marriage of her daughter, though by themselves they would suffice to give her a very high rank among letter-writers, would not do more than fill one moderate-sized volume. Those after that marriage fill nearly ten large volumes in the latest and best edition. ”

“ The saying of Madame de Sévigné, 'Il faut être, si l'on veut paraître,' is applicable to the reader. An attempt to express what is beyond the range of his spiritual life and experience, at once betrays his deficiency. ”

“ I am glad you approve of the marriage with M. de Grignan ; he is a very good man, and very gentlemanly — has wealth, rank, holds a high office, and is much esteemed and respected by the world. What more is necessary ? I think we are fortunate, and as you are of the same opinion, sign the deed I sent you ; and be assured, my dear cousin, that if it depended on me, you should be first at the entertainment. How admirably well you would act your part! Since you left us, I have heard no wit equal to yours, and I have said to myself a thousand times, "Good heavens, what a difference!" ”

“ The term is long enough for all we have to learn. Madame de Sevigné said sportively, that she should be a very wise person if she could but live about two hundred years: je tâche tous les jours à profiter de mes reflexions; et si je pouvois vivre seulement deux cents ans, il me semble que je serois une personne bien admirable. This the Doctor thought might hold good in the case of Madame de Sevigné herself, and of all other persons who regarded the acquirement of information as an amusement, or at most an accomplishment ”

“ In the same year Madame de Sévigné was present at the Saint-Cyr performance of Esther, and some of her most amusing descriptions of court ceremonies and experiences date from this time. 1689 and 1690 were almost entirely spent by her at Les Rochers with her son; and on leaving him she went across France to Provence. There was some excitement during her Breton stay, owing to the rumour of an English descent, on which occasion the Breton militia was called out, and Charles de Sévigné appeared for the last time as a soldier ”

“ There had been some talk of her cousin Bussy, but fortunately for her this came to nothing. She married Henri, marquis de Sévigné, a Breton gentleman of good family, allied to the oldest houses of that province, but of no great estate. The marriage took place on August 4, 1644, and the pair went almost immediately to Sévigné's manor-house of Les Rochers, near Vitré, a place which Madame de Sévigné was in future years to immortalize. ”

“ She read through Madame de Sévigné every year, and her library of books excited the astonishment of her poorer neighbours, who said, "O la Contessa e tanto buona; legge sempre; prega sempre; e tanto buona," for they cannot understand any one reading anything but religious books.
Lady Anne was one of the daughters of that beautiful Lady Oxford whose offspring were named "the Harleian Miscellany." ”

“ Here he appears anonymously by his effect:
“Warm affections are never tranquil;” a maxim.
Not a very sapid bit of gnomic wisdom, certainly. We must immediately make up to our readers, on Madame de Sévigné’s behalf, for the insipidity of the foregoing “maxim” of hers, by giving here two or three far more sententious excerpts from the letters, excerpts collected by another:
There may be so great a weight of obligation that there is no way of being delivered from it but by ingratitude. ”

“ In 1682 he was, at more than sixty years of age, recognized as one of the first men of letters of France. Madame de Sévigné, one of the soundest literary critics of the time, and by no means given to praise mere novelties, had spoken of his second collection of Fables published in the winter of 1678 as divine ”

“ Madame de Sévigné, who is beloved by all who dwell in the Temple, told me that her dear cousin, a man of great wit, but a little too vain, could never succeed so far as to make the God of Taste entertain the same favorable opinion of Mons. Roger de Rabutin, which the Count de Bussy had of him.
Bussy for pride and self-love famed,
Is by the god severely blamed;
Because too much a slave to fame,
Himself he often made his theme;
His son with every talent graced,
Is always well received by taste ”

“ For nearly ten years little of importance occurred in her life, which was passed at Paris in a house she occupied in the Place Royale (not as yet in the famous Hotel Carnavalet) , at Les Rochers, at Livry or at her own estate of Bourbilly in the Maconnais. She had, however, in 1658, a quarrel with her cousin Bussy. Notwithstanding Bussy's various delinquencies the cousins had always been friends; and the most amusing and characteristic part of Madame de Sévigné's correspondence, before the date of her daughter's marriage, is addressed to him. She had a strong belief in family ties ”

“ The early education of her children being completed, their establishment in life became a source of anxiety. Her son, when nineteen, joined the expedition to Candia; concerning which Madame de Sévigné writes to her cousin De Bussy, “I suppose you know that my son is gone to Candia. He mentioned it to M. de Turenne, to Cardinal de Retz, and to M. de la Rochefoucauld. These gentlemen so approved his design that it was resolved on and made public before I knew any thing of it. He is gone. I wept his departure bitterly, and am deeply afflicted. ”

“ And Nell Gwynn stripped her masks from her and dragged her down to her own unspeakable level in a way that no art could baffle. A specimen of Nell's method of torturing her rival would scarcely be suffered in print nowadays, but some idea of it may be got from the following style in which Madame de Sévigné describes it, taking advantage herself of the occasion to sneer at "Kéroual":—
"This is how Gwynn argues: 'That hoity-toity French duchess sets up to be of grand quality. Every one of rank in France is her cousin. ”

“ I received a letter from you, my dear cousin, when I was in Brittany, in which you talked of our ancestors, the Rabutins, and of the beauty of Bourbilly. But as I had heard from Paris that you were expected there, and as I had hoped myself to arrive much sooner, I deferred writing to you ; and now I find you are not coming at all. You know that nothing is now talked of but war. The whole court is at camp, and the whole camp is at court ”

“ While these visitors were with us Mrs. Moutray came over from Lissard, and we rejoiced in pride of soul to show them our Irish Madame de Sevigné. Her Madame de Grignan is more agreeable than ever. Mrs. ”

“ The world has been inclined to regard the son of Mme. de Sevigne as the more lovable of her two children, but she doubtless recognized in his light and inconsequent character many of the qualities of her husband which had given her so much sorrow during the brief years of her marriage. ”

“ It is thus that we walk blindly, taking for bad that which is good, and for good that which is bad, and always in utter ignorance." M. de Sévigné married Jeanne-Marguerite de Brehaut de Mauron, an {Pg 249} amiable and virtuous woman, whose gentleness, and common sense, and turn for piety, joined to a caressing and playful disposition, suited admirably both mother and son. In the autumn of this year she visited the new married pair at the Rochers. It was a sad blow to her to quit Paris, where her daughter was residing. ”