aime!

[If love is a sweet bondage,
If we cannot esteem too much
The pleasures in which love engages,
How foolish one is not to love!

But if we feel ourselves inflamed
With a passion whose ardor is extreme,
And which we dare not express,
How foolish we are, then, to love!

If in the flower of her youth
There is one who could charm all.
And offers you her heart to share,
How very foolish not to love!

But if we must always be full of alarm--
Fear, blush and become pallid,
As soon as our name is spoken,
How foolish to love!

If to please the most beautiful countenance
That love can ever form,
Only a mellow language is necessary,
How foolish not to love!

But if we see ourselves wasting away,
If the belle is always the same
And cannot be animated,
How very foolish to love!

ENVOY.

If in love, nothing is bitter,
How dreadfully foolish not to love!
If everything is so to the highest degree,
How awfully foolish to love!]

Treville went so far as to say that the figure of Mme. de Sevigne was
beautiful enough to set the world afire. M. du Bled divides her lovers
into three classes: the first was composed of her literary friends;
the second, of those enamored, impassioned suitors, loving her from
good motives or from the opposite, who strove to compensate her for
the unfaithfulness of her husband while alive and for the ennui of her
widowhood; the third class was composed of her Parisian friends, of
whom she had hosts, court habitues who were leaders of society.

Representatives of the second class were the Prince de Conti, the
great Turenne, various counts and marquises, and Bussy-Rabutin, who
was a type of the sensual lover and the more dangerous on account of
the privileges he enjoyed because of his close relationship to Mme. de
Sevigne. His portrait of her is interesting: "I must tell you, madame,
that I do not think there is a person in the world so generally
esteemed as you are. You are the delight of humankind; antiquity
would have erected altars to you, and you would certainly have been a
goddess of something. In our century, when we are not so lavish with
incense, and especially for living merit, we are contented to say that
there is not a woman of your age more virtuous and more amiable than
are you. I know princes of the blood, foreign princes, great lords
with princely manners, great captains, gentlemen, ministers of state,
who would b