ine gives this account of
the friendship that ensued--an account not less instructive than
interesting: "His admiration, his worship, which sought no return,
gained him admittance to her house, where he was regarded as one of
the family, and became a necessary appendage. Madame de Sevigne, at
first charmed by his wit, afterward touched by his disinterested
attachment, concluded by making him the confidant of her most secret
emotions. Every heart that beats warmly beneath its own bosom seeks
to hear itself repeated in that of another. Corbinelli became the
echo of Madame de Sevigne's mind, soul, and existence. He
participated in her adoration of her daughter. At Paris, he visited
her every day: he sometimes followed her to Livry; and, when absent,
corresponded with her frequently.

"The dominion which his friend exercised over him was so gentle, that
he experienced no feeling of slavery while submitting 'implicitly to
the rule of her tastes. So absolute was her empire, that, when she
became a devotee, he became a mystic: he followed her, as the
satellite accompanies the planet, from the worldly gayeties of her
youth, even to the foot of the altar, and the ascetic self-denial of
Port-Royal. He survived her, as though he had survived himself, and
lived to the extraordinary age of one hundred and four years,
animated to unusual life by his gentle and amiable feelings. Such was
Madame de Sevigne's principal friend. If his name were erased from
her letters, the monument would be mutilated." La Rochefoucauld,
whose reputation the indignant eloquence of Cousin has so damaged,
was the object of an admiring friendship, of which he was not worthy,
from Madame de Sevigne and Madame de la Fayette. But of all the
friends to whom the ardent, imaginative, faithful heart of Madame de
Sevigne attached itself, no one, after her husband and her daughter,
held so commanding a place as Fouquet, the unfortunate minister of
Louis XIV. Fouquet must have had rare traits, besides his
acknowledged greatness of mind, to have won such a pure and
unconquerable affection. Cast down from power, disgraced, closely
imprisoned for fifteen years in the fortress of Pignerol, scoffed at
by those who had fawned on him in his prosperity, and forgotten by
nearly all whom he had befriended, never did Madame de Sevigne forget
him, or cease, for one day, her efforts to alleviate his condition--
cheering him with letters, and toiling to secure his liberation.
D'A