Classic French Course in English

6-1

he was not a woman of letters, but only a woman of-letters. For Madame de Sévigné's addiction to literature was not at all

e. She was rightly placed to be what she was. This will appear from a sketch of her

ome the mother of two children, a son and a daughter. The daughter grew to be the life-long idol of the widowed mother's heart. The letters she wrote to this daughter, married, and living remote from her, compos

irs who managed her property well. During her long and stainless widowhood-her husband fell in a shameful duel when she was but twenty-five years old, and she lived to be seventy-she divided her time between

e lifetime of her husband,-we mean Count Bussy,-says, in a scurrilous work of his, that Madame de Sévigné remarked, on returning to her seat after her dancing-bout with the king, that Louis possessed great qualities, and would certainly obscure the lustre of all his predecessors. "I could not help laughing in her face," the ungallant cousin declared, "seeing what had produced this panegyric." Probably, indeed, the young woman was pleased. But, whatever may have been her faults or her follies, nothing can rob Madame de Sévigné of the glory that is hers, in having been strong enough in womanly and

ctionate adulation that this French woman of rank and of fashion, literally in almost every letter of hers, eff

Sunday, Jun

more in the satisfaction you express in your situation, and the beauty of your castle; you represent it to me with an air of grandeur and magnificence that enchants me. I once saw a similar account of it by the first Madame de Grignan; but I little thought at that time, that all these beauties were one day to be at your command. I am very much obliged to you for having given me so particular an account of it. If I could be tired in reading your letters, it would not only betray a very bad taste in me, but would likewise show that I could have v

igné makes of her regard for her daughter. This regard was a passion, morbid, no doubt, by excess, and, even at that, extravagantly demonstrated; but it was fundamentally sincere.

g at Versailles. This letter, too, is addressed to the daughter-Madame de Grignan, by her married n

, a hundred thousand crowns in a month, these are the pretty memorandums he puts down in his pocket-book. He was kind enough to say that I was partners with him, so that I got an excellent seat. I made my obeisance to the king, as you told me; and he returned it as if I had been young and handsome.... The duke said a thousand kind things without minding a word he uttered. Marshal de Lorges attacked me in the name of the Chevalier de Grignan; in short, tutti quanti [the whole company]. You know what it is to get a word from everybody you meet. Madame de Montespan talked to me of Bourbon, and asked me how I liked Vichi, and whether the place did me good. She said that Bourbon, instead of curing a pain in one of her knees, injured both.... Her size is reduced by a good half, and yet her complexion, her eyes, and her lips, are as fine as ever. She was dressed all in French point, her hair in a thousand ringlets, the two side ones hanging low on her cheeks, black ribbons on her head, pearls (the same that belonged to Madame de l'H?pital), the loveliest diamond earrings, three or four bodkins-nothing else on the head; in short, a triumphant beauty, worthy the admiration of all the foreign ambassadors. She was accused of preventing the whole French nation from seeing the king; she has restored him, you see, to their eyes; and you cannot conceive

h is sighed by "everybody," that such pleasant things may "last." Well, they did last the writer's time. But m

ears ago and more, in the "Edinburgh Review." Again we draw from the same source-this time, the description

1st Oct.

e stood in the middle of four furnaces; and the demons came passing about us, all melting in sweat, with pale faces, wild-staring eyes, savage mustaches, and hair long and black,-a sight enough to frighten less well-bred folks than ourselves. As for me,

e m

th Novemb

ushings back, people run over; in short, a whirlwind, a distraction; questions without answers, compliments without knowing what is said, civilities without knowing who is spoken to, feet entangled in trains. From the midst of all this, issue inquiries after your hea

, perhaps hurt, by a friend's frankly writ

ave been dragged, against my will, to the fatal period when old age must be endured; I see it; I have come to it; and I would fain, if I could help it, not go any farther; not advance a step more in the road of infirmities, of pains, of losses of memory, of disfigurements ready to do me outrage; and I hear a voice which says, "You must go on in spite of yourself; or, if you will not go

s that the day was the anniver

iday, Feb

usand years

ter of Louis has died. Madame de Sévigné was now sixty-

a dominion; who was the centre of so many orbs. What affairs had he not to manage! what designs, what projects, what secrets! what interests to unravel, what wars to undertake, what intrigues, what noble games at chess to play and to direct! Ah! my G

e of Bou

same he preached last year, but revised and altered with the assistance of some of his friends, that it might be wholly inimitable

ed as possessing talent enough to have governed a provi

day, April

ever, did not happen at the king's table, but at some of the other twenty-five) was always uppermost with him. Gourville mentioned it to the prince [Condé, the great Condé, the king's host], who went directly to Vatel's apartment, and said to him, "Every thing is extremely well conducted, Vatel; nothing could be more admirable than his Majesty's supper." "Your highness's goodness," replied he, "overwhelms me; I am sensible that there was a deficiency of roast meat at two tables." "Not at all," said the prince; "do not perplex yourself, and all will go well." Midnight came; the fireworks did not succeed; they were covered with a thick cloud; they cost sixteen thousand francs. At four o'clock in the morning Vatel went round and found everybody asleep; he met one of the under-purveyors, who was just come in with only two loads of fish. "What!" said he, "is this all?" "Yes, sir," said the man, not

our own. We felt th

s the extent to which Madame de Sévigné allows herself to go in sympathy. Her heart never bleeds very free

wish to see, this lively woman thus touches, with a sincerity as

use I fear God, and have at the bottom a principle of religion; then, on the other hand, I am not properly God's, because his law appears hard and irksome to me, and I cannot bring myself to acts of self-denial; so that altogether I am one of those called lukewarm Christians, the great number of which does not in the

involuntarily beco

e my memory is more to be praised than my judgment. I said, with all the ease in the world, that "ingratitude begets reproach, as acknowledgment begets new favors." Pray, where did this come from? Have I rea

ended for your brother." This young fellow had, we suspect, been first earning his mother's

indeed, a prude this woman was not. She had the strong ?sthetic stomach of her time. It is queer to have Rabelais rubbing cheek and jowl with Nicole ("We are going to begin a moral treatise of Nicole's")

to "Tartuffe," with more

of it; she cast her eyes to the ground, and with a very demure air, "Yes, indeed, madam," said she, "I am the greatest liar in the world; I am very much obl

en by name in the letters. Here he

s are never tra

n Madame de Sévigné's behalf, for the insipidity of the foregoing "maxim" of hers, by giving he

igation that there is no way of being

out grief, and long

nce; you must be, if you would appear

ll comfort readers who may have experienced th

t to you from himself. Some of them I can make shift to guess the meaning of; but there are othe

years; she may have been reading Pascal's "Thoughts,"-Pascal had been dead ten years, and the "Thoughts" had been published; or she may have been listening to one of those sifting, hea

at disposition? Am I to suffer a thousand pains and torments that will make me die in a state of despair? Shall I lose my senses? Am I to die by some sudden accident? How shall I stand with God? What shall I have to offer to him? Will fear and necessity make my peace with him? Shall I have no other sentiment but that of fear? What have I to hope? Am I worthy of heaven? Or have I deserved the torments of hell? Dreadful alternative! Alarming uncertainty! Can there be greater madness than to place our eternal salvation in uncertainty? Yet what is more natural,

by Madame de Sévigné, at the ve

that Pelisson abused the pri

in the following narrative a state of society not unlike that descr

the danger that threatened him, but his horse proved unmanageable. To make short of it, the coach-and-six turned them both topsy-turvy; but at the same time the coach, too, was completely overturned. In an instant the horse and the man, instead of amusing themselves with having their limbs broken, rose almost miraculously; the man remounted, and galloped away, and is gallop

e expected in the dry? The writer makes no comment-draws no moral. "Adieu, my dear, delightful child. I cannot express

have only not seen fully all that she is. And that they would not see short of reading her letters entire. Horace Walpole aspired to do in English for his own time something

the devotion of her talent, an English analogue to Madame de Sévigné. But these comparisons, and all comparison