at all
the privation; every one seems to me so attached to pleasures which
depend entirely upon others, that I find my disposition a gift of the
fairies.

"I do not know but Mme de Coulanges has already sent you word of our
after-dinner conversations at Gourville's about people who have taste
above or below their intelligence. Mme. Scarron and the Abbe Tetu were
there; we lost ourselves in subtleties until we no longer understood
anything. If the air of Provence, which subtilizes things still more,
magnifies for you our visions, you will be in the clouds. You have taste
below your intelligence; so has M. de La Rochefoucauld; and myself also,
but not so much as you two. VOILA an example which will guide you."

She disliked writing letters, and usually limited herself to a few plain
facts, often in her late years to a simple bulletin of her health. This
negligence was the subject of many passages-at-arms between herself and
Mme. de Sevigne. "If I had a lover who wished my letters every morning,
I would break with him," she writes. "Do not measure our friendship by
our letters. I shall love you as much in writing you only a page in a
month, as you me in writing ten in eight days." Again she replies to
some reproach: "Make up your mind, ma belle, to see me sustain, all my
life, with the whole force of my eloquence, that I love you still more
than you love me. I will make Corbinelli agree with me in a quarter of
an hour; your distrust is your sole defect, and the only thing in you
that can displease me."

But in spite of a certain apparent indolence, and her constant ill
health, there were many threads that connected with the outside world
the pleasant room in which Mme. de La Fayette spent so many days of
suffering. "She finds herself rich in friends from all sides and all
conditions," writes Mme. de Sevigne; "she has a hundred arms; she
reaches everywhere. Her children appreciate all this, and thank her
every day for possessing a spirit so engaging." She goes to Versailles,
on one of her best days, to thank the king for a pension, and receives
so many kind words that it "suggests more favors to come." He orders
a carriage and accompanies her with other ladies through the park,
directing his conversation to her, and seeming greatly pleased with
her judicious praise. She spends a few days at Chantilly, where she is
invited to all the fetes, and regrets that Mme. de Sevigne could not be
with her in that charming spot, whi