resolved to go to Grignan, the residence of her
daughter in Provence. Here the greater part of her remaining life was
spent, and the correspondence with her daughter entirely ceases from
this time. Madame de Sevigne died, after a sudden and short illness,
in April, 1696, at the age of seventy.

It may gratify some to know that the letters of Madame de Sevigne were
apparently written in haste, beginning the writing on the second page
of the paper, continuing to the third and fourth, and returning to the
first: she used neither sand nor blotting-paper. Speaking to her
daughter, Madame de S. says, "The princess is always saying that she
is going to write to you; she mends her pens; for her writing is a
great affair, and her letters a sort of embroidery; not done in a
moment. _We_ should never finish, were we to make fine twists and
twirls to our _D's_ and _L's_;" in allusion to the German and Italian
fashion of the day of making ornaments with their pens, called _lacs
d'amour_. The letters were sealed on both sides, and a piece of white
floss silk fastened it entirely round.

Of the English admirers of Madame de Sevigne, the most distinguished
and the most warm in the expression of their admiration are Horace
Walpole and Sir James Mackintosh, men of totally opposite turns of
mind; the former a professed wit, and himself a letter-writer, the
latter a grave lawyer and statesman. We conclude this memoir by giving
the character of Madame de Sevigne as drawn by the latter. "The great
charm of her character seems to me a _natural_ virtue. In what she
does, as well as in what she says, she is unforced and unstudied;
nobody, I think, had so much morality without constraint, and played
so much with amiable feelings without falling into vice. Her
ingenious, lively, social disposition gave the direction to her mental
power. She has so filled my heart with affectionate interest in her as
a living friend, that I can scarcely bring myself to think of her as a
writer, or as having a style; but she has become a celebrated, perhaps
an immortal writer, without expecting it: she is the only classical
writer who never conceived the possibility of acquiring fame. Without
a great force of style, she could not have communicated those
feelings. In what does that talent consist? It seems mainly to consist
in the power of working bold metaphors, and unexpected turns of
expression, out of the most familiar part of conversational
language."