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However, Mme. de Sévigné's letters leave us wholly in the dark as to when this intimacy began. Sainte-Beuve holds that it was about 1665, and makes a strong argument for his view of the matter. D'Haussonville believes that this remarkable union was the result of long acquaintance and slowly ripening friendship, the acquaintance having begun in the years following Mme. de La Fayette's marriage, that is, between 1655 and 1665. He sums up the matter as follows: "Une chose est certaine: c'est que La Rochefoucauld s'est emparé peu
How close and lasting was this friendship is seen on almost every page of Mme. de Sévigné's correspondence. Indeed, so often does the name of Mme. de La Fayette occur in Mme. de Sévigné's letters to her daughter, that the latter may well have been jealous of her mother's friend. The companionship of Mme. de Sévigné was, after the death of La Rochefoucauld, the chief comfort of Mme. de La Fayette in her ill-health and seclusion; and it was from the sick-chamber of her friend that Mme. de Sévigné's letters would seem to have been written in those latter years. In 1693, soon after the death of Mme. de La Fayette, Mme. de Sévigné writes as follows of her dead friend: "Je me trouvois trop heureuse d'être aimée d'elle depuis un temps très-considérable; jamais nous n'avions eu le moindre nuage dans notre amitié. La longue habitude ne m'avoit point accoutumée
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