with Pepys. Read
descriptions of court life and personal passages.

3. _Madame de Sevigne_--Story of her life and that of her daughter. Her
education and relation to the great world. Style. Readings from her
letters.

4. _The Fashion of Memoir-Writing_--People who wrote memoirs:
Mademoiselle de Montpensier. Marquis de Dangeau. De la Porte (the King's
_valet de chambre_). Duclos (Memoires secrets). De la Rochefoucauld.
Brief biographies of these people.

BOOKS TO CONSULT--Duc de Saint-Simon: Memoirs. 3 vols. (Translated.)
Letters of Madame de Sevigne. (Translated.) Emil Bourgeois: France under
Louis XIV. G. F. Bradley: Great Days at Versailles. Imbert de
Saint-Amand: The Court of Louis XIV.

Notice the striking change at this time from former dull and tedious
historical writing to the brilliant and fascinating personal sketches
of people and events. Read descriptions of the King and the court from
Saint-Simon and Saint-Amand. The engravers whom Louis brought from the
Low Countries made portraits of many of the society people of the time;
show reproductions, and describe the dress of the period.

CHAPTER XVII

FORESTRY

The study of this subject is a novel one for women's clubs, but it is of
great interest. Women who desire an intelligent view of their own
country should certainly take it up and understand what is being done
to-day and what is planned for the future. Books to be read are: A First
Book of Forestry, by F. Roth; A Primer of Forestry, by Gifford Pinchot;
and The Forest and Practical Forestry, the Department of Agriculture.

I--INTRODUCTORY

All uncivilized nations ruthlessly cut off their forests for fuel and
timber, both ignorant and indifferent to the result of the destruction.
Where there are no trees, the water-supply dies away, the soil then
becomes infertile, and the population is threatened with famine. China
is practically denuded of trees, after unknown centuries of waste. India
has numberless hillsides and plains once wooded, now bare and parched;
and so of many other Oriental countries.

II--THE BEGINNINGS OF FORESTRY

Early in the sixteenth century there was a certain realization of the
danger of neglect of trees; Sully, the great minister of France,
suggested that some restrictions should be laid on cutting, and some
study of forestry made by the government. Germany also followed the same
course, and England, which began to feel the shortage of timber
severely, practis