letters which have brought her
name down to posterity as, possibly, the greatest epistolary writer
that the history of literature has ever recorded.

Mme. de Sevigne was but nineteen years old when, after the marriage of
Julie d'Angennes, the frequenters of the Hotel de Rambouillet began
to disperse, and she was in much demand by the successors of Mme. de
Rambouillet. While the women of the reign of Louis XIII.--Mmes.
de Hautefort, de Sable, de Longueville, de Chevreuse, etc.--were
exceedingly talented talkers, they were poor writers: but in Mme.
de Sevigne, Mme. de La Fayette, and Mlle. de Scudery both arts were
developed to the highest degree.

Mme. de Sevigne was on the best terms with every great writer of
her time--Pascal, Racine, La Fontaine, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, La
Rochefoucauld. She was a woman of such broad affections that numerous
friends and admirers were a necessary part of her existence. Of all
the eminent women of the seventeenth century, she had the greatest
number of lovers--suitors who frequently became her tormentors.
Menage, her teacher, who threatened to leave her never to see her
again, was brought back to her by kind words, such as: "Farewell,
friend--of all my friends the best." The Abbe Marigny, that "delicate
epicurean, that improviser of fine triolets, ballads, vaudevilles,
that enemy of all sadness and sticklers for morality," charmed her, at
times, with sentimental ballads, such as the following:

"Si l'amour est un doux servage,
Si l'on ne peut trop estimer
Les plaisirs ou l'amour engage,
Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!

"Mais si l'on se sent enflammer
D'un feu dont l'ardeur est extreme,
Et qu'on n'ose pas l'exprimer,
Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!

"Si dans la fleur de son bel age,
Une qui pourrait tout charmer,
Vous donne son coeur en partage,
Qu'on est sot de ne point aimer!

"Mais s'il faut toujours s'alarmer,
Craindre, rougir, devenir bleme,
Aussitot qu'on s'entend nommer,
Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!

"Pour complaire au plus beau visage
Qu'amour puisse jamais former,
S'il ne faut rien qu'un doux langage,
Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!

"Mais quand on se voit consumer.
Si la belle est toujours de meme,
Sans que rien la puisse animer,
Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!

"L'ENVOI.

"En amour si rien n'est amer,
Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!
Si tout l'est au degre supreme,
Qu'on est sot alors que l'on