It is not within the limits of reason to expect women to rival, in literature, the great writers such as Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Bossuet, La Fontaine, Descartes, Pascal--most of whom were but little influenced by femininity; there were those, however, among the s.e.x, who were conspicuous for elevation of thought, dignity in manner and bearing, and brilliancy in conversation--attributes which they have left to posterity in numberless exquisite and charming letters, in interesting and invaluable memoirs, or in consummate psychological and social portraitures incorporated into the form of novels. Among female writers of letters, Mme. de Sevigne wears the laurel wreath; Mme. de La Fayette, with Mlle. de Scudery, is the representative of the novel; Mme. Dacier was the great advocate of the more liberal education of women; and the _Souvenirs_ of Mme. de Caylus made that auth.o.r.ess immortal.

The a.s.sociation of La Rochefoucauld, the Cardinal de Retz, the Chevalier de Mere, Mme. de La Fayette, and Mme. de Sevigne, was responsible for almost everything elevating and of interest produced in the seventeenth century. Of that highly intellectual circle, Mme. de Sevigne was the leading spirit by force of her extraordinary faculty for making friends, her wonderful talent as a writer, her originality and her charming disposition. She gave the tone to letters; M. f.a.guet says that her epistles were all masterpieces of amiable badinage, lively narration, maternal pa.s.sion, true eloquence.

More than that, they are important sources of historical knowledge, inasmuch as they contain much information concerning the politics of the day, and furnish an excellent guide to the etiquette, fashions, tastes, and literature of the writer's period.

Mme. de Sevigne was the most important figure of the time, being to that third prodigiously intellectual epoch of France what Marguerite de Navarre was to the sixteenth century, and the Hotel de Rambouillet to the beginning of the seventeenth century. She represented the style, _esprit_, elegance, and _gout_ of this greatest of French cultural periods. Her life may be considered as having had two distinct phases--one connected with an unhappy marriage and the other the period of a restless widowhood.

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marchioness of Sevigne, was born at Paris, in 1626; at the age of eighteen months she lost her father; at seven years of age, her mother; at eight, her grandmother; at ten, her grandfather on her mother's side; she was thus left with her paternal grandmother, Mme. de Chantal, who had her carefully educated under the best masters, such as Menage and Chapelain (court favorites), from whom she early imbibed a genuine taste for solid reading; from these instructors she learned Spanish, Italian, and Latin.

In 1644, she was married to the Marquis Henri de Sevigne, who was killed six years later in a duel, but who had, in the meantime, succeeded in making a considerable gap in her immense fortune, in spite of the precautions of her uncle, the Abbe of Coulanges.

Henceforward, her interests in life were centred in the education of her two children; to them she wrote letters which have brought her name down to posterity as, possibly, the greatest epistolary writer that the history of literature has ever recorded.

Mme. de Sevigne was but nineteen years old when, after the marriage of Julie d'Angennes, the frequenters of the Hotel de Rambouillet began to disperse, and she was in much demand by the successors of Mme. de Rambouillet. While the women of the reign of Louis XIII.--Mmes.

de Hautefort, de Sable, de Longueville, de Chevreuse, etc.--were exceedingly talented talkers, they were poor writers: but in Mme.

de Sevigne, Mme. de La Fayette, and Mlle. de Scudery both arts were developed to the highest degree.

Mme. de Sevigne was on the best terms with every great writer of her time--Pascal, Racine, La Fontaine, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, La Rochefoucauld. She was a woman of such broad affections that numerous friends and admirers were a necessary part of her existence. Of all the eminent women of the seventeenth century, she had the greatest number of lovers--suitors who frequently became her tormentors.

Menage, her teacher, who threatened to leave her never to see her again, was brought back to her by kind words, such as: "Farewell, friend--of all my friends the best." The Abbe Marigny, that "delicate epicurean, that improviser of fine triolets, ballads, vaudevilles, that enemy of all sadness and sticklers for morality," charmed her, at times, with sentimental ballads, such as the following:

"Si l'amour est un doux servage, Si l'on ne peut trop estimer Les plaisirs ou l'amour engage, Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!

"Mais si l'on se sent enflammer D'un feu dont l'ardeur est extreme, Et qu'on n'ose pas l'exprimer, Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!

"Si dans la fleur de son bel age, Une qui pourrait tout charmer, Vous donne son coeur en partage, Qu'on est sot de ne point aimer!

"Mais s'il faut toujours s'alarmer, Craindre, rougir, devenir bleme, Aussitot qu'on s'entend nommer, Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!

"Pour complaire au plus beau visage Qu'amour puisse jamais former, S'il ne faut rien qu'un doux langage, Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!

"Mais quand on se voit consumer.

Si la belle est toujours de meme, Sans que rien la puisse animer, Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!

"L'ENVOI.

"En amour si rien n'est amer, Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!

Si tout l'est au degre supreme, Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!"

[If love is a sweet bondage, If we cannot esteem too much The pleasures in which love engages, How foolish one is not to love!

But if we feel ourselves inflamed With a pa.s.sion whose ardor is extreme, And which we dare not express, How foolish we are, then, to love!

If in the flower of her youth There is one who could charm all.

And offers you her heart to share, How very foolish not to love!

But if we must always be full of alarm-- Fear, blush and become pallid, As soon as our name is spoken, How foolish to love!

If to please the most beautiful countenance That love can ever form, Only a mellow language is necessary, How foolish not to love!

But if we see ourselves wasting away, If the belle is always the same And cannot be animated, How very foolish to love!

ENVOY.

If in love, nothing is bitter, How dreadfully foolish not to love!

If everything is so to the highest degree, How awfully foolish to love!]

Treville went so far as to say that the figure of Mme. de Sevigne was beautiful enough to set the world afire. M. du Bled divides her lovers into three cla.s.ses: the first was composed of her literary friends; the second, of those enamored, impa.s.sioned suitors, loving her from good motives or from the opposite, who strove to compensate her for the unfaithfulness of her husband while alive and for the ennui of her widowhood; the third cla.s.s was composed of her Parisian friends, of whom she had hosts, court habitues who were leaders of society.

Representatives of the second cla.s.s were the Prince de Conti, the great Turenne, various counts and marquises, and Bussy-Rabutin, who was a type of the sensual lover and the more dangerous on account of the privileges he enjoyed because of his close relationship to Mme. de Sevigne. His portrait of her is interesting: "I must tell you, madame, that I do not think there is a person in the world so generally esteemed as you are. You are the delight of humankind; antiquity would have erected altars to you, and you would certainly have been a G.o.ddess of something. In our century, when we are not so lavish with incense, and especially for living merit, we are contented to say that there is not a woman of your age more virtuous and more amiable than are you. I know princes of the blood, foreign princes, great lords with princely manners, great captains, gentlemen, ministers of state, who would be off and away for you, if you would permit them. Can you ask any more?"

Such eulogies came not only from men like the perfidious and cruel cousin, but from her friends everywhere. The finest of these is the one by her friend Mme. de La Fayette, contained in one of the epistolary portraits so much in vogue at that time, and which were turned out, _par excellence_, in the salon of Mlle. de Luxembourg: "Know, madame,--if by chance you do not already know it,--that your mind adorns and embellishes your person so well that there is not another one on earth so charming as you when you are animated in a conversation in which all constraint is banished. Your soul is great, n.o.ble, ready to dispense with treasures, and incapable of lowering itself to the care of ama.s.sing them. You are sensible to glory and ambition, and to pleasures you are less so; yet you appear to be born for the latter, and they made for you; your person augments pleasures, and pleasures increase your beauty when they surround you. Joy is the veritable state of your soul, and chagrin is more unlike to you than to anyone. You are the most civil and obliging person that ever lived, and by a free and calm air--which is in all your actions--the simplest compliments of seemliness appear, in your mouth, as protestations of friendship."

The originality which gained Mme. de Sevigne so many friends lay princ.i.p.ally in her force, wealth of resource, intensity, sincerity, and frankness. M. Scherer said she possessed "surprises for us, infinite energy, inexhaustible variety--everything that eternally revives interest."

The interest of the modern world in this remarkable woman is centred mainly in her letters. Guizot says: "Mme. de Sevigne is a friend whom we read over and over again, whose emotions we share, to whom we go for an hour's distraction and delightful chat; we have no desire to chat with Mme. de Grignan (her daughter)--we gladly leave her to her mother's exclusive affection, feeling infinitely obliged to her for having existed, inasmuch as her mother wrote letters to her. Mme.

de Sevigne's letters to her daughter are superior to all her other epistles, charming as they all are; when she writes to M. Pomponne, to M. de Coulanges, to M. de Bussy, the style is less familiar, the heart less open, the soul less stirred; she writes to her daughter as she would speak to her--it is not a letter, it is an animated and charming conversation, touching upon everything, embellishing everything with an inimitable grace."

She had married her daughter to the Comte de Grignan, a man of forty, twice married, and with children, homely, but wealthy and aristocratic; writing to her cousin, Bussy-Rabutin, concerning this marriage, she said: "All these women (the count's former wives) died expressly to make room for your cousin." By marrying her daughter to such a man she encouraged all the questionable proprieties of the time. Mme. de Sevigne's affection for that daughter amounted almost to idolatry; it was to her that most of the mother's letters were written, telling her of her health, what was being done at Vichy, and about her business and for that child the auth.o.r.ess gave up her life at Paris in order to economize and thereby to help Mme. de Grignan in her extravagance, her son-in-law being an expert in spending money.

The intensity of her nature is well reflected in her letter upon the separation from her daughter: "In vain I seek my darling daughter; I can no longer find her, and every step she takes removes her farther from me. I went to St. Mary's, still weeping and dying of grief; it seemed as if my heart and my soul were being wrenched from me and, in truth, what a cruel separation! I asked leave to be alone; I was taken into Mme. du Housset's room, and they made me up a fire. Agnes sat looking at me, without speaking--that was our bargain. I stayed there till five o'clock, without ceasing to sob; all my thoughts were mortal wounds to me. I wrote to M. de Grignan (you can imagine in what key).

Then I went to Mme. de La Fayette's, and she redoubled my griefs by the interest she took in them; she was alone, ill, and distressed at the death of one of the nuns; she was just as I should have desired, I returned hither at eight; but oh, when I came in! can you conceive what I felt as I mounted these stairs? That room into which I always used to go, alas! I found the doors of it open, but I saw everything upturned, disarranged, and your little daughter, who reminded me of mine.... The wakenings of the night were dreadful. I think of you continuously--it is what devotees call habitual thought, such as one should have of G.o.d, if one did one's duty. Nothing gives me diversion; I see that carriage which is forever going on and will never come near me. I am forever on the highways; it seems as if I were sometimes afraid that the carriage will upset with me; the rains there for the last three days, drove me to despair. The Rhone causes me strange alarm. I have a map before my eyes--I know all the places where you sleep. This evening you are at Nevers; on Sunday you will be at Lyons where you will receive this letter. I have received only two of yours--perhaps the third will come; that is the only comfort I desire; as for others, I seek none."

The letters of Mme. de Sevigne contain a great number of sayings applicable to habits and conduct, and these have had their part in shaping the customs and in depicting the time. To be modest and moderate, friendly, and conciliatory, to be content with one's lot and to bow to circ.u.mstances, to be sincere, to cultivate good sense and good grace--these counsels have been and still are, according to French opinion, the basis of French character: and Mme. de Sevigne's own popularity and success attest their wisdom.

She had not the gift of seeing things vividly and reproducing them in living form; her talent was a rarer one--it induced the reader to form a mental picture of the scene described, so vivid as to be under the illusion of being present in reality; and this is done with so much grace, charm, happy ease and naturalness, that to read her letters means to love the writer. What mother or friend would not fall a willing victim to the charm of a woman who could write the following letter?

"You ask me, my dear child, whether I continue to be really fond of life; I confess to you that I find poignant sorrows in it, but I am even more disgusted with death; I feel so wretched at having to end all thereby, that, if I could turn back again, I would ask for nothing better, I find myself under an obligation which perplexes me; I embark upon life without my consent, and so must I go out of it; that overwhelms me. And how shall I go? Which way? By what door? When will it be? In what condition? Shall I suffer a thousand, thousand pains which will make me die desperate? Shall I have brain fever? Shall I die of an accident? How shall I be with G.o.d? What shall I have to show Him? Shall fear, shall necessity bring me back to Him? Shall I have sentiment except that of dread? What can I hope? Am I worthy of heaven? Am I worthy of h.e.l.l? Nothing is such madness as to leave one's salvation in uncertainty, but nothing is so natural. The stupid life I lead is the easiest thing in the world to understand; I bury myself in these thoughts and I find death so terrible that I hate life more because it leads me thereto, than because of the thorns with which it is planted. You will say that I want to live forever, then; not at all; but, if my opinion had been asked, I would have preferred to die in my nurse's arms; that would have removed me from the vexations of spirit and would have given me heaven full surely and easily."

Mme. de Sevigne never bored her readers with her own reflections. She differed from her contemporaries, who seemed to be dead to nature's beauty, in her striking descriptions of nature. A close observer, she knew how to describe a landscape; animating and enlivening it, and making it talk, she inspired the reader with love of it.

"I am going to be alone and I am very glad. Provided they do not take away from me the charming country, the sh.o.r.e of the Allier, the woods, streams, and meadows, the sheep and goats, the peasant girls who dance the _bourree_ in the fields, I consent to say adieu; the country alone will cure me.... I have come here to end the beautiful days and to say adieu to the foliage--it is still on the trees, it has only changed color; instead of being green, it is golden, and of so many golden tints that it makes a brocade of rich and magnificent gold, which we are likely to find more beautiful than the green, if only it were not for the changing part."

If the style of her letters did not make her the greatest prose writer of her time, it certainly ent.i.tled her to rank as one of the most original. The prose of the seventeenth century lacked "easy suppleness in lively movement, and imagination in the expression"--two qualities which Mme. de Sevigne possessed in a high degree. The slow and grave development, the just and harmonious equilibrium, the amplitude, are in her supplanted by a quick, alert, and free _saillie_; the detail and marvellous exactness are enriched by color, abundance of imagery, and metaphors. M. f.a.guet says she is to prose what La Fontaine is to poetry.

The literary style of Mme. de Sevigne is not learned, studied, nor labored. In an epoch in which the language was already formed, she did what Montaigne did a century before, when, we may almost a.s.sert, he had to create the French language. Her most striking expressions are her own--newly coined, not taken from the vocabulary in usage. Her style cannot be duplicated, and for this reason she has few imitators.

Her letters show that they were improvised--her pen doing, alone, the work over which she seemed to have no control when communicating with her daughter; to the latter she said: "I write prose with a facility that will kill you."

Mme. de Sevigne was possibly not a beautiful woman, but she was a charming one; broad in the scope of her affections, she found the making of friends no difficult task. M. Vallery-Radot leaves the following picture of her: "A blonde, with exuberant health, a transparent complexion, blue eyes, so frank, so limpid, a nose somewhat square, a mouth ready to smile, shoulders that seem to lend splendor to her pearl necklace. Her gayety and goodness are so in evidence that there is about her a kind of atmosphere of good humor."

M. du Bled most admirably sums up her character and writings in the following: "She is the person who most resembles her writings--that is, those that are found; for alas! many (the most confidential, the most interesting, I think) are lost forever: in them she is reflected as she reflects French society in them. Endowed--morally and physically--with a robust health, she is expansive, loyal, confiding, impressionable, loving gayety in full abundance as much as she does the smile of the refined, as eager for the prattle of the court as for solid reading, smitten with n.o.biliary pride, a captive of the prejudices, superst.i.tions and tastes of her caste (or of even her coterie), with her pen hardly tender for her neighbor--her daughter and intimates excepted. A manager and a woman of imagination, a Frondist at the bottom of her soul, and somewhat of a Jansenist--not enough, however, not to cry out that Louis XIV. will obscure the glory of his predecessors because he had just danced with her--faithful to her friends (Retz, Fouquet, Pomponne) in disgrace and detesting their persecutors, seeking the favor of court for her children. In the salons, she is celebrated for her _esprit_--and this at an age when one seldom thinks about reputation, when one is like the princess who replied to a question on the state of her soul, 'At twenty one has no soul;' and she possesses the qualities that are so essential to style--natural _eclat_, originality of expression, grace, color, amplitude without pomposity and abundance without prolixity; moreover, she invents nothing, but, knowing how to observe and to express in perfection everything she had seen and felt, she is a witness and painter of her century: also, she loves nature--a sentiment very rare in the seventeenth century."

Mme. de Sevigne was endowed with the best qualities of the French race--good will and friendliness, which influence one to judge others favorably and to desire their esteem; of a very impressionable nature, she was gifted with a natural eloquence which enabled her to express her various emotions in a light or gay vein which often bordered on irony. Affectionate and appreciative and tender and kind to everyone in general, toward those whom she loved she was generous to a fault and unswerving in her fidelity.

Her last years were spent in the midst of her family. She died in 1696, of smallpox, thanking G.o.d that she was the first to go, after having trembled for the life of her daughter, whom she had nursed back to health after a long and dangerous illness. Her son-in-law, M. de Grignan, wrote to her uncle, M. de Coulanges:

"What calls far more for our admiration than for our regret, is the spectacle of a brave woman facing death--of which she had no doubt from the first days of her illness--with astounding firmness and submission. This person, so tender and so weak towards all whom she loved, showed nothing but courage and piety when she believed that her hour had come; and, impressed by the use she managed to make of that good store in the last moments of her life, we could not but remark of what utility and of what importance it is to have the mind stocked with the good matter and holy reading for which Mme. de Sevigne had a liking--not to say a wonderful hunger."

In order to give an idea of the place that Mme. de Sevigne holds in the opinion of the average Frenchman, we quote the final words of M.

Vallery-Radot:

"To take a place among the greatest writers, without ever having written a book or even having thought of writing one--this is what seems impossible, and yet this is what happened to Mme. de Sevigne.