ris (in which case they are full of court
news and gossip), or from Les Rochers, the country seat of the Sevignes,
near Vitre, in which case they are full of social satire and curious
details of the provincial life of that time. One very interesting series
describes the habits and regimen of Vichy, which Madame de Sevigne
visited in consequence of a severe attack of rheumatism. The
correspondence thus serves as a minute and detailed history of the
author for the last thirty years of her life, except during her rare
visits to Grignan, in one of which, as has been mentioned, she caught
the illness which proved fatal to her.

It has been said that Madame de Sevigne's letters are very numerous.
Those to her daughter especially were garbled in the earlier editions by
omissions, and by the substitution of phrases which seemed to the 18th
century more suitable than the fresh nature of the originals. The
edition cited gives the extant MSS. faithfully. The enthusiastic
affection lavished by the mother on the daughter naturally commends
itself differently to different persons. It is certain that if it is not
tedious, it is only due to the extraordinary literary art of the writer,
an art which is at once the most artful and the most artless to be
anywhere found. The only other faults of the letters are an occasional
crudity of diction (which, however, is, when rightly taken, perfectly
innocent and even valuable as exemplifying the manners of the time,) and
a decided heartlessness in relating the misfortunes of all those in whom
the writer is not personally interested. Madame de Sevigne has been
blamed for not sympathising more with the oppression of the French
people during her time. This, however, is an unfair charge. In the first
place she simply expresses the current political ideas of her day, and,
in the second place, she goes decidedly beyond those ideas in the
direction of sympathy. Her treatment of some of her own equals leaves
much more to desire. The account of Madame de Brinvilliers'
sufferings--unworthy of much pity as the victim was--is callous to
brutality, and it seems to be sufficient for any one to have ever
offended Madame de Grignan, or to have spoken slightingly of her, to put
him, or her, out of the pale of even ordinary human sympathy. But no
other fault can be found. For vivid social portraiture the book equals
Saint Simon at his best, while it is far more uniformly good. The
letters describing the engagemen