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Those pretty sentiments, those delicate gallantries, of Madame de Sevigne to her daughter, how amiable they are; but, somehow or other, I can never fancy them the least motherly.
They are valued for their vivacious and graceful style, the light which they throw upon the thoughts and movements of her time, but especially for their revelation of a wonderfully sweet and gracious personality. Madame de Sévigné died on April 18, 169696. Love for her Daughter My dear child: I have been here but three hours, and already take my pen to talk to you.
The study of history is useful to the historian by teaching him his ignorance of women; and the mass of this ignorance crushes one who is familiar enough with what are called historical sources to realize how few women have ever been known. The woman who is known only through a man is known wrong, and excepting one or two like Mme. de Sevigne, no woman has pictured herself.
Madame de Sevigne would have very much scandalized those gentlemen of Port-Royal, if she had let them see into the bottom of her heart as she showed it to her daughter. Pascal used to say, "There are but three sorts of persons: those who serve God, having found Him; those who employ themselves in seeking Him, not having found Him; and those who live without seeking Him or having found Him.
Lady Mary's forte perhaps in direct following of her great forerunner and part namesake, Marie de Sévigné, though she spoke inadvisedly of her lies in description of places and manners, and in literary criticism.
This last argument seemed so cogent to Madame Evangelista that she superintended Natalie's toilet herself, as much perhaps to watch her daughter as to make her the innocent accomplice of her financial conspiracy. With her hair dressed a la Sevigne and wearing a gown of white tulle adorned with pink ribbons, Natalie seemed to her mother so beautiful as to guarantee victory.
I must end when it pleases God, and I am submissive. 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.
It was easy for a doting mother like Madame de Sévigné to credit everything her son manufactured for her delectation. The dramatic incident of de Sévigné taking letters from Ninon de l'Enclos partly by ingenuity and partly by force, resembled his tale that he had left Ninon and that he did not care for her while all the time they were inseparable.
I do not think so. I see with pain that Madame de Sévigné has not read my letters in the spirit I wrote them. What, I the founder of systems? Truly, she does me too much honor, I have never been serious enough to devise any system. Besides, according to my notion, a system is nothing but a philosophic dream, and therefore does she consider all I have told you as a play of the imagination?
Madame de Sevigne all her life had been the victim of two loves and a passion; she adored society and she loved nature; these were her lesser delights, that gave way before the chief idolatry of her soul, her adoration for her daughter. As she stood by the open window, her charming face, always a mirror of her emotions, was suffused with a glow and a bloom that made it seem young again.
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