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"I have sometimes fancied, but I believe it is only my fancy," said Lady Delacour, "that this young lady," turning to Belinda, "is not unlike your Mad. de Grignan. I have seen a picture of her at Strawberry-hill." Mad. de Pomenars acknowledged that there was a resemblance, but added, that it was flattery in the extreme to Mad. de Grignan to say so.
Madame de Grignan had likewise found a wife for her son, whom the king had made a colonel at a very early age; and a husband for her daughter, little Pauline, now Madame de Simiane.
But Madame de Sévigné, to whom her son had confessed his folly in giving up the letters, perhaps fearing to be embroiled in a disgraceful duel over an actress, made him blush at his cruel sacrifice of a woman who loved him, and made him understand that even in dishonesty there were certain rules of honesty to be observed. She worked upon his mind until he felt that he had committed a dishonorable act, and when he had reached that point, it was easy to get the letters away from Ninon partly by artifice, partly by force. Madame de Sévigné tells the story in a letter to her daughter, Madame de Grignan: "Elle (Ninon) voulut l'autre jour lui faire donner des lettres de la comedienne (Champmêlé); il les lui donna; elle en était jalouse; elle voulait les donner
The king, on the other hand, was at one time attracted by the charms of Madame de Frontenac, against whom, however, no aspersion is cast. The Comte de Grignan, son-in-law of Madame de Sevigne, was an unsuccessful competitor with Frontenac for the government of Canada. Frontenac was fifty-two years old when he landed at Quebec.
My son-in-law, M. de Grignan, actually avows he is in daily terror lest I should give him a father-in-law!" All three ladies laughed gayly at this absurdity; the subject of Madame de Sevigne's remarrying had come to be a venerable joke now.
It was this that Madame de Sevigne so prettily paints, enigmatically, in her letters to Madame de Grignan, in which she sometimes talks of these Court movements; for Madame de Maintenon had been in Paris in the society of Madame de Sevigne, of Madame de Coulange, of Madame de La Fayette, and had begun to make them feel her importance.
I was very intimate with the young Marquis de Grignan, her grandson. This woman, by her natural graces, the sweetness of her wit, communicated these qualities to those who had them not; she was besides extremely good, and knew thoroughly many things without ever wishing to appear as though she knew anything. Father Seraphin preached during Lent this year at the Court.
Mme. de Sévigné's affection for that daughter amounted almost to idolatry; it was to her that most of the mother's letters were written, telling her of her health, what was being done at Vichy, and about her business and for that child the authoress gave up her life at Paris in order to economize and thereby to help Mme. de Grignan in her extravagance, her son-in-law being an expert in spending money.
Madame de Grignan, the proud, haughty daughter of the house of de Sévigné, did not scruple to array herself on the side of Mademoiselle de l'Enclos with Madame de Coulanges, another bright star among the noble and respectable families of France. "Women have the privilege of being weak," says Madame de Sévigné, "and they make use of that privilege without scruple."
Her son-in-law, M. de Grignan, wrote to her uncle, M. de Coulanges: "What calls far more for our admiration than for our regret, is the spectacle of a brave woman facing death—of which she had no doubt from the first days of her illness—with astounding firmness and submission.
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