loved, much praised, and much sought, we have
sufficient evidence among the writers of her own time. She was
familiarly spoken of as the tenth Muse, and she counted among her
personal friends the greatest men and women of the century. Leibnitz
sought her correspondence. The Abbe de Pure, who was not friendly to the
precieuses and made the first severe attack upon them, thus writes of
her: "One may call Mlle. de Scudery the muse of our age and the prodigy
of her sex. It is not only her goodness and her sweetness, but her
intellect shines with so much modesty, her sentiments are expressed with
so much reserve, she speaks with so much discretion, and all that she
says is so fit and reasonable, that one cannot help both admiring and
loving her. Comparing what one sees of her, and what one owes to her
personally, with what she writes, one prefers, without hesitation, her
conversation to her works. Although she has a wonderful mind, her heart
outweighs it. It is in the heart of this illustrious woman that one
finds true and pure generosity, an immovable constancy, a sincere and
solid friendship."

The loyalty of her character was conspicuously shown in her brave
devotion to the interests of the Conde family, through all the reverses
of the Fronde. In one of her darkest moments Mme. de Longueville
received the last volume of the "Grand Cyrus," which was dedicated to
her, and immediately sent her own portrait encircled with diamonds, as
the only thing she had left worthy of this friend who, without sharing
ardently her political prejudices, had never deserted her waning
fortunes. The same rare quality was seen in her unwavering friendship
for Fouquet, during his long disgrace and imprisonment. Mme. de Sevigne,
whose satire was so pitiless toward affectation of any sort, writes to
her in terms of exaggerated tenderness.

"In a hundred thousand words, I could tell you but one truth, which
reduces itself to assuring you, Mademoiselle, that I shall love you and
adore you all my life; it is only this word that can express the idea
I have of your extraordinary merit. I am happy to have some part in the
friendship and esteem of such a person. As constancy is a perfection,
I say to myself that you will not change for me; and I dare to pride
myself that I shall never be sufficiently abandoned of God not to be
always yours... I take to my son your conversations. I wish him to be
charmed with them, after being charmed myself."

Mlle.