and
bearing, and brilliancy in conversation--attributes which they have
left to posterity in numberless exquisite and charming letters, in
interesting and invaluable memoirs, or in consummate psychological and
social portraitures incorporated into the form of novels. Among female
writers of letters, Mme. de Sevigne wears the laurel wreath; Mme. de
La Fayette, with Mlle. de Scudery, is the representative of the novel;
Mme. Dacier was the great advocate of the more liberal education
of women; and the _Souvenirs_ of Mme. de Caylus made that authoress
immortal.

The association of La Rochefoucauld, the Cardinal de Retz, the
Chevalier de Mere, Mme. de La Fayette, and Mme. de Sevigne, was
responsible for almost everything elevating and of interest produced
in the seventeenth century. Of that highly intellectual circle,
Mme. de Sevigne was the leading spirit by force of her extraordinary
faculty for making friends, her wonderful talent as a writer, her
originality and her charming disposition. She gave the tone to
letters; M. Faguet says that her epistles were all masterpieces of
amiable badinage, lively narration, maternal passion, true eloquence.
More than that, they are important sources of historical knowledge,
inasmuch as they contain much information concerning the politics of
the day, and furnish an excellent guide to the etiquette, fashions,
tastes, and literature of the writer's period.

Mme. de Sevigne was the most important figure of the time, being to
that third prodigiously intellectual epoch of France what Marguerite
de Navarre was to the sixteenth century, and the Hotel de Rambouillet
to the beginning of the seventeenth century. She represented the
style, _esprit_, elegance, and _gout_ of this greatest of French
cultural periods. Her life may be considered as having had two
distinct phases--one connected with an unhappy marriage and the other
the period of a restless widowhood.

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marchioness of Sevigne, was born at Paris,
in 1626; at the age of eighteen months she lost her father; at seven
years of age, her mother; at eight, her grandmother; at ten, her
grandfather on her mother's side; she was thus left with her paternal
grandmother, Mme. de Chantal, who had her carefully educated under
the best masters, such as Menage and Chapelain (court favorites), from
whom she early imbibed a genuine taste for solid reading; from these
instructors she learned Spanish, Italian, and Latin.

In