s
and her literary fame. A century later, through a collateral branch
of the family, the glory of the name was revived by the distinguished
general so dear to the American heart. It was in the less tangible realm
of the intellect that Mme. de La Fayette was destined to an unlooked-for
immortality.

But in spite of these interests, the sense of loneliness and desolation
is always present. Her few letters give us occasional flashes of the old
spirit, but the burden of them is inexpressibly sad. Her sympathies and
associations led her toward a mild form of Jansenism, and as the evening
shadows darkened, her thoughts turned to fresh speculations upon the
destiny of the soul. She went with Mme. de Coulanges to visit Mme. de
La Sabliere, who was expiating the errors and follies of her life in
austere penitence at the Incurables. The devotion of this once gay and
brilliant woman, who had been so deeply tinged with the philosophy of
Descartes, touched her profoundly, and suggested a source of consolation
which she had never found. She sought the counsels of her confessor, who
did not spare her, and though she was never sustained by the ardor and
exaltation of the religieuse, her last days were not without peace and
a tranquil hope. To the end she remained a gracious, thoughtful,
self-poised, calmly-judging woman whose illusions never blinded her to
the simple facts of existence, though sometimes throwing over them a
transparent veil woven from the tender colors of her own heart. Above
the weariness and resignation of her last words written to Mme. de
Sevigne sounds the refrain of a life that counts among its crowning
gifts and graces a genius for friendship.

"Alas, ma belle, all I have to tell you of my health is very bad; in a
word, I have repose neither night nor day, neither in body nor in mind.
I am no more a person either by one or the other. I perish visibly.
I must end when it pleases God, and I am submissive. BELIEVE ME, MY
DEAREST, YOU ARE THE PERSON IN THE WORLD WHOM I HAVE MOST TRULY LOVED."

Mme. de La Fayette represents better than any other woman the social
and literary life of the last half of the seventeenth century. Mme. de
Sevigne had an individual genius that might have made itself equally
felt in any other period. Mme. de Maintenon, whom Roederer regards as
the true successor of Mme. de Rambouillet, was narrowed by personal
ambition, and by the limitations of her early life. Born in a prison,
reared in p