ound dead on the road to Paris, four miles
from Rouen. In his pocket was found a paper, setting forth the reasons
for his death--"The blood that flows in torrents in my country
dictates my resolve; indignation caused me to quit my retreat. As soon
as I heard of the murder of my wife, I determined no longer to remain
on the earth tainted by crime."

MADAME DE SEVIGNE.

The subject of this memoir, as celebrated in her own particular
department of literature as Shakspere or Moliere were in theirs, would
have been very much surprised to find herself occupying a conspicuous
place in the "Lives of Celebrated Women." She made no pretensions to
authorship, and her "Letters," which have been esteemed models of
epistolary composition, are the unpremeditated and unrevised
outpourings of a mind rich in wit and good sense, and a heart filled
with the warmest affections, and were written without the slightest
idea that they would ever be read by any other persons than those to
whom they were addressed.

Maria de Robertin-Chantal, Baroness de Chantal and Bombilly, was
born on the 5th of February, 1626. Her father was the head of a
distinguished and noble family of Burgundy. Of his rough wit and
independence his daughter has preserved a specimen. When Schomberg
was transformed, by Louis XIII., from a minister of finance to a
field-marshal, Chantal wrote to him the following letter:--

"My Lord,

"Rank--black beard--intimacy.

"CHANTAL."--

meaning that he owed his advancement, not to his military exploits,
but to his rank, his having a black beard, like his master, and to his
intimacy with that master.

When Maria was about a year and a half old, the English made a descent
upon the Island of Rhe; and her father placed himself at the head of a
party of gentlemen who volunteered to assist in repelling them, in
which honorable service he lost his life. His widow survived him five
years. She was the daughter of a secretary of state, and her family,
that of De Coulanges, belonged to the class of nobility who owed that
distinction to civil services, and who were known as "nobles of the
robe," to distinguish them from those who could trace their descent
from the heroes of the crusades and the days of chivalry.

It seems to have been expected that the paternal grandmother would
have taken charge of the education of the little orphan. But she was
too much occupied with the affairs of the other world, and with
founding