Her grandmother was the well-known
Sainte Chantal, the pupil of St. Francois de Sales, and her first
cousin, as has been mentioned, was Bussy Rabutin. Her father and mother
both died when she was very young, and an uncle, not more than twenty
years older than herself, the Abbe de Coulanges, took charge of her,
remaining, for the greater part of her life, her chief friend and
counsellor. She soon became a great beauty, and something of a scholar,
though not of a blue-stocking. Menage and Chapelain had, among others,
much to do with her education, and she was a member of the celebrated
_coterie_ of the Hotel Rambouillet, though her satirical humour saved
her from being a _precieuse_. At the age of eighteen she married the
Marquis de Sevigne, of a good and wealthy Breton family. Her husband
was, however, a selfish profligate, who wasted her substance with Ninon
de l'Enclos, and such-like persons,--though Ninon herself, to do her
justice, never plundered her lovers,--and did not pretend the slightest
return for the affection she gave him. He was killed in a duel in 1651,
leaving her with two children, a daughter, Francoise Marguerite, and a
son Charles. After a few years of seclusion she returned to the world,
being then in the full possession of her beauty, and only twenty-eight
years old. She continued for more than forty years to form part of the
best society of the capital, without suffering the least stain on her
reputation. The selfish vanity of the superintendent Fouquet made him
keep certain of her letters; but though they were discovered in a casket
which was fatal to many of his friends of both sexes, Madame de Sevigne
came scathless out of the ordeal. In 1669 her daughter, then twenty-two
years old, married the Count de Grignan, a Provencal gentleman of the
noblest birth, of great estate, rank, and fortune, but already twice a
widower, past middle age, plain, and of somewhat embarrassed means,
considering the great expenses which, as Governor of Provence, he had to
meet. He was, however, a man of good sense and probity, and his wife
seems to have been sincerely attached to him. The great bulk of Madame
de Sevigne's voluminous correspondence was addressed to her daughter,
for whom she had an almost frantic fondness; Charles de Sevigne, though
apparently far the more lovable of the two, having but an inferior share
of his mother's affection. The letters to Madame de Grignan are for the
most part dated either from Pa