e
points, has just sent me word that if I did not go to see her she
would come to me."

Madame de Sable betrays in her reply that she winces under this raillery,
and thus provokes a rather severe though polite rejoinder, which, added
to the fact that Madame de Longueville is convalescent, rouses her
courage to the pitch of paying the formidable visit. Mademoiselle de
Rambouillet, made aware through their mutual friend Voiture, that her
sarcasm has cut rather too deep, winds up the matter by writing that very
difficult production a perfectly conciliatory yet dignified apology.
Peculiarities like this always deepen with age, and accordingly, fifteen
years later, we find Madame D'Orleans in her "Princesse de
Paphlagonia"--a romance in which she describes her court, with the little
quarrels and other affairs that agitated it--giving the following amusing
picture, or rather caricature, of the extent to which Madame de Sable
carried her pathological mania, which seems to have been shared by her
friend the Countess de Maure (Mademoiselle d'Attichy). In the romance,
these two ladies appear under the names of Princesse Parthenie and the
Reine de Mionie.

"There was not an hour in the day in which they did not confer
together on the means of avoiding death, and on the art of rendering
themselves immortal. Their conferences did not take place like those
of other people; the fear of breathing an air which was too cold or
top warm, the dread lest the wind should be too dry or too moist--in
short, the imagination that the weather might not be as temperate as
they thought necessary for the preservation of their health, caused
them to write letters from one room to the other. It would be
extremely fortunate if these notes could be found, and formed into a
collection. I am convinced that they would contain rules for the
regimen of life, precautions even as to the proper time for applying
remedies, and also remedies which Hippocrates and Galen, with all
their science, never heard of. Such a collection would be very
useful to the public, and would be highly profitable to the faculties
of Paris and Montpellier. If these letters were discovered, great
advantages of all kinds might be derived from them, for they were
princesses who had nothing mortal about them but the _knowledge_ that
they were mortal. In their writings might be learned all politeness