of the Hotel de Rambouillet. Mme. De
Sevigne, who had fine dramatic talent, acted here in little comedies.
She heard Boileau read his satires and Racine his tragedies. She met the
witty Chevalier de Chatillon, who asked eight days to make an impromptu,
and Pomponne, who wrote to his father that the great world he found
in this salon did not prevent him from appearing in a gray habit. In a
letter from the country house of Mme. Duplessis, at Fresnes, to the same
Pomponne, then ambassador to Sweden, Mme. de Sevigne says: "I have M.
d'Andilly at my left, that is, on the side of my heart; I have Mme.
de La Fayette at my right; Mme. Duplessis before me, daubing little
pictures; Mme. De Motteville a little further off, who dreams
profoundly; our uncle de Cessac, whom I fear because I do not know him
very well."

It is this life of charming informality; this society of lettered
tastes, of wit, of talent, of distinction, that she transfers to her
own salon. Its continuity is often broken by her long absences in the
country or in Provence, but her irresistible magnetism quickly draws the
world around her, on her return. In addition to her intimate friends
and to men of letters like Racine, Boileau, Benserade, one meets
representatives of the most distinguished of the old families of France.
Conde, Richelieu, Colberg, Louvois, and Sully are a few among the great
names, of which the list might be indefinitely extended. We have many
interesting glimpses of the Grande Mademoiselle, the "adorable" Duchesse
de Chaulnes, the Duc and Duchesse de Rohan, who were "Germans in the
art of savoir-vivre," the Abbess de Fontevrault, so celebrated for her
esprit and her virtue, and a host of others too numerous to mention. The
sculptured portals and time-stained walls of the Hotel de Carnavalet are
still alive with the memories of these brilliant reunions and the famous
people who shone there two hundred years ago.

Among those who exercised the most important influence upon the life
of Mme. de Sevigne was Corbinelli, the wise counselor, who, with a
soul untouched by the storms of adversity through which he had passed,
devoted his life to letters and the interests of his friends. No one had
a finer appreciation of her gifts and her character. Her compared her
letters to those of Cicero, but he always sought to temper her ardor,
and to turn her thoughts toward an elevated Christian philosophy.
"In him," said Mme. de Sevigne, "I defend one who do