Part 23

The visit that madame de Grignan paid her mother, soon after, was an unlucky one. She fell into a bad state of health. The anxiety her mother evinced augmented her illness. It was deemed necessary to separate mother and daughter. [Sidenote: 1677. Ætat. 51.] Corbinelli writes, "It was a cascade of terror; the reverberation was fatal to all three; the circle was mortal." Madame de Grignan returned to Provence. This was a severe blow to madame de Sévigné. Her daughter wrote to her, "I was the disorder of your mind, your health, your house. I am good for nothing to you." To this, and to the reproaches she heard that her solicitude had augmented madame de Grignan's illness, madame de Sévigné replies, "To behold you, then, perish before my eyes was a trifle unworthy of my attention? When you were in good health, did I disquiet myself about the future? did I think of it? But I saw you ill, and of an illness perilous to the young; and, instead of trying to console me by a conduct that would have restored you to your usual health, absence was suggested. I kill you! I am the cause of all your sufferings! When I think of how I concealed my fears, and that the little that escaped me produced such frightful effects, I conclude that I am not allowed to love you; and, since such monstrous and impossible things are asked of me, my only resource is in your recovery." For some years after this madame de Grignan was in a delicate state of health. "Ah!" writes her mother, "how happy I was when I had no fears for your health! Of what had I then to complain, compared to my present inquietude?" However, though still delicate, she revisited Paris in the following month of November--it being considered advantageous for her family affairs,--and remained nearly two years. Her mother had taken a large mansion, the Hôtel de Carnavalet, and they resided under the same roof. There was a numerous family, and chief among them was a brother of M. de Grignan. The chevalier de Grignan enjoyed a great reputation for bravery and military conduct. He was a martyr to rheumatic gout, which often stood in the way of his active service; but he was always favoured by the king, and regarded by every one, as a man of superior abilities, and of a resolute and fearless mind. When six men of quality were selected to attend on the dauphin, under the name of _Menins_, he was named one of them. Two of M. de Grignan's daughters also accompanied them. They were the children of his former marriage with Angélique d'Angennes, sister of the celebrated madame de Montauzier. Cardinal de Retz died in the August of this year. [Sidenote: 1679. Ætat. 53.] "Pity me, my cousin," madame de Sévigné writes to the count de Bussy, "for having lost cardinal de Retz. You know how amiable he was, and worthy the esteem of all who knew him! I was a friend of thirty years' standing, and ever received the tenderest marks of his friendship, which was equally honourable and delightful to me. Eight days' uninterrupted fever carried him off. I am grieved to the bottom of my heart."

At length, in the month of September, madame de Grignan returned to Provence. Her mother writes. "Do not tell me that I have no cause to regret you: I have, indeed, every cause. I know not what you have taken into your head. For myself, I remember only your friendship, your care, your kindness, your caresses. I have lost all these: I regret them; and nothing in the world can efface the recollection, nor console me for my loss." M. de Sévigné was at this time in Britany, and was elected deputy, by the nobles, to attend on the governor. "The title of new comer," writes his mother, "renders him important, and causes him to be mixed up in every thing. I hope he will marry: he will never again be so considerable. He has spent ten years at court and in the camp. The first year of peace he gives to his country. He can never be looked on so favourably as this year." Unfortunately, he deranged all these schemes by falling in love inopportunely; and he lingered in Britany, grasping all the money he could, felling trees, and squandering the proceeds without use or pleasure, while his mother awaited his return anxiously, and bore the blame of his absence, as it was supposed that he was detained by business of hers. The time when he could settle was not come. He was of that disposition which is not unfrequent among men. Gifted with vivacity, wit, and good humour, agreeable and gay, it appeared, as madame de Sévigné said, that he was exactly fitted for the situation at court, which, as lieutenant of the dauphin's company of gendarmes, he naturally filled. But he was discontented: the restraint annoyed him; pleasure palled on him; he was eager to sell out, to bury himself in his province. One reason was that he was not regarded with an eye of favour by the king. Madame de Sévigné herself felt this disfavour, arising from her having been of the party of the fronde, a friend of Fouquet, and, lastly, a jansenist.

[Sidenote: 1680. Ætat. 54.]

During this year madame de Sévigné again, as she said, for the last time, to wind up all accounts, visited Britany. Her letters become more agreeable than ever; her affection for her daughter even increasing: her advice about her grandchildren[74]; her annoyance with regard to her son; is the interior portion of the story to which we are admitted. The news of the court is mentioned, and the progress of madame de Maintenon's favour, so puzzling to the courtiers; and, lastly, the picture of the provincial court of the duke and duchess de Chaulnes, who had the government of Britany. She describes their guards, their suite of provincial nobles, with their wives and daughters; and a little discontent creeps out, as it sometimes does, with regard to the court, that she had never risen above a private station. "I have seen you in Provence," she writes to her daughter, "surrounded by as many ladies, and M. de Grignan followed by as many men, of quality, and receive, at Lambesc, with as much dignity, as M. de Chaulnes can here. I reflected that you held your court there; I come to pay mine here: thus has Providence ordered." She enjoyed, however, the dinners, suppers, and festivals of the duke, who made much of her; and her anecdotes are full of vivacity. Her eyes never rest: they see all: sometimes a grace, sometimes a folly; now a _bon mot_, now a stupidity, salutes her eyes or ears: it is all transmitted to her daughter; and we, at this distance of time and place, enjoy the accounts, which, being true to human nature, often seem as fresh and _à propos_ as if they had occurred yesterday. And then she quits all, and writes, "I am at length in the quiet of my woods, and in that state of abstinence and silence for which I longed." And she plunges into the depths of jansenism, and discusses the knotty subject of the grace of God.[75]

On her return to the capital, she was made perfectly happy by the arrival of her daughter, in better health than she had been for a long time, and who remained in Paris for several years. Her son, also, whose youthful follies had cost her many a pang, made an advantageous marriage. [Sidenote: 1684. Ætat. 58.] She writes to the count de Bussy, "After much trouble, I at last marry my poor boy. One must never despair of good luck. I feared that my son could no longer hope for a good match, after so many storms and wrecks, without employment or opening for fortune; and, while I was engaged in these sorrowful thoughts, Providence brought about a marriage, so advantageous that I could not have desired a better when my son's hopes were highest. It is thus that we walk blindly, taking for bad that which is good, and for good that which is bad, and always in utter ignorance." M. de Sévigné married Jeanne-Marguerite de Brehaut de Mauron, an amiable and virtuous woman, whose gentleness, and common sense, and turn for piety, joined to a caressing and playful disposition, suited admirably both mother and son. In the autumn of this year she visited the new married pair at the Rochers. It was a sad blow to her to quit Paris, where her daughter was residing. Motives of economy, or, rather, the juster motive of paying her debts, enforced this exile, which was hard to bear. We read her letters for the variety of amusement and instruction we find in them; and, as we read, we are struck by the change of tone that creeps over them. From the period of this long visit of eight years, which madame de Grignan paid to Paris, we find the most perfect and unreserved friendship subsisting between mother and daughter. Their ages agree better: the one, now forty, understands the other, who is sixty, better than the young woman of twenty did her of forty. Other interests, also, had risen for madame de Grignan in her children. Her anxiety for her son's advancement was fully shared by madame de Sévigné. A more sober, perhaps a less amusing, but certainly a far more interesting (if we may make this distinction), tone pervades the later letters. Her daughter, before, was the affection that weaned her from the world; now it mingled with higher and better thoughts. The Rochers were more peaceful than ever. Her son had not good health: his wife was cheerful only at intervals: she was delicate; she never went out: by nine in the evening her strength was exhausted, and she retired, leaving madame de Sévigné to her letters. She was gentle and kind withal; attentive, without putting herself forward; so that her mother-in-law never felt that there was another mistress in the house, though all her comforts were attended to sedulously.

We pause too long over these minutia. We turn over madame de Sévigné's pages: an expression, a detail strikes us; we are impelled to put it down; but the memoir grows too long, and we must curtail. She returned to Paris in August, 1685, and enjoyed for three years more the society of her daughter. [Sidenote: 1687. Ætat. 61.] During this period she lost her uncle, the abbé de Coulanges. "You know that I was under infinite obligations to him," she, writes to count de Bussy: "I owed him the agreeableness and repose of my life; and you owed to him the gladness that I brought to your society: without him we had never laughed together. You owe to him my gaiety, my good humour, my vivacity; the gift I had of understanding you; the ability of comprehending what you had said, and of guessing what you were going to say. In a word, the good abbé, by drawing me from the gulf in which M. de Sévigné had left me, rendered me what I was, what you knew me, and worthy of your esteem and friendship. I draw the curtain before the wrong you did me: it was great, but must be forgotten; and I must tell you that I have felt deeply the loss of this dear source of the peace of my whole life. He lived with honour, and died as a Christian. God give us the same grace! It was at the end of August that I wept him bitterly. I should never have left him, had he lived as long as myself."

[Sidenote: 1688. Ætat. 62.]

The subsequent separation of mother and daughter renewed the correspondence. This division lasted only a year and a half, when madame de Sévigné repaired to Grignan, which she did not quit again. The letters written during these few months are very numerous and long. The growing charms and talents of Pauline de Grignan; the _début_ of the young marquis de Grignan, who began his career at sixteen in the siege of Philipsburg; and the deep interest felt by both, is the first subject. The arrival of James II. in France, and the court news, which had the novelty of the English royal family being established at St. Germain, fills many of the letters. The account of the acting of Esther[76], which enlivened the royal pleasures; and her naïve delight at having been spoken to by the king is one of her most agreeable passages. Added to this pleasure was that of M. de Grignan receiving the order of the saint esprit. Soon after she repaired to Britany, where her time was spent partly at Rennes, with the duchess de Chaulnes, partly at the Rochers. Her absence from Paris was felt bitterly by her friends: her motive, the payment of her debts, was, however, appreciated and applauded; and she was at once mortified and gratified by the offer of a loan of money to facilitate her return. Madame de la Fayette wrote to make her the proposition; but the money was to come from her kind friend the duchess de Chaulnes. The proposal was made with some _brusquerie_: "You must not, my dear, at any price whatever, pass the winter in Britany. You are old; the Rochers are thickly wooded; catarrhs and colds will destroy you; you will get weary; your mind will become sad and lose its tone: this is certain; and all the business in the world is nothing in comparison. Do not speak of money nor of debts, I am to put an end to all that;" and then follows a proposition for her to take up her abode at the Hôtel de Chaulnes, and of the loan of a thousand crowns. "No arguments," the letter continues, "no words, no useless correspondence. You must come. I will not even read what you may write. In a word, you consent, or renounce the affection of your dearest friends. We do not choose that a friend shall grow old and die through her own fault." This tone of command gave pleasure to madame de Sévigné, though she at once refused to lay herself under the obligation. But there was a sting in the letter which she passed over; madame de Grignan discovered it, and her mother allowed that she felt it; and writes, "You were, then, struck by madame de la Fayette's expression, mingled with so much kindness. Although I never allow myself to forget this truth, I confess I was quite surprised, for as yet I feel no decay to remind me: however, I often reflect and calculate, and find the conditions on which we enjoy life very hard. It seems to me that I was dragged, in spite of myself, to the fatal term when one must suffer old age. I see it,--am there. I should, at least, like to go no further in the road of decrepitude, pain, loss of memory, and disfigurement, which are at hand to injure me. I hear a voice that says, even against your will you must go on; or, if you refuse, you must die; which is another necessity from which nature shrinks. Such is the fate of those who go a little too far. But a return to the will of God, and the universal law by which we are condemned, brings one to reason, and renders one patient."

As madame de Sévigné was resolved to give up her Parisian life, for the admirable motive of paying her debts before she died, she felt that the only compensation she could receive was residing at Grignan. Madame de la Fayette, on hearing of her intention of going thither, writes, "Your friends are content that you should go to Provence, since you will not return to Paris. The climate is better; you will have society, even when madame de Grignan is away; there is a good mansion, plenty of inhabitants; in short, it is being alive to live there; and I applaud your son for consenting to lose you, for your own sake." [Sidenote: 1690. Ætat. 64.] On the 3d of October, therefore, she set off; and friendship, as she says, rendering so long a journey easy, she arrived on the 24th; when madame de Grignan received her with open arms, and with such joy, affection, and gratitude, "that," she says, "I found I had not come soon enough nor far enough." From this time the correspondence with her daughter entirely ceases. The letters that remain to her other friends scarcely fill up the gap. She visited Paris once again with her daughter; but her time was chiefly spent at Grignan. [Sidenote: 1694. Ætat. 68.] She witnessed the establishment of her grandchildren. The marriage of the young marquis de Grignan was, of course, a deeply interesting subject; nor was she less pleased when Pauline, whom she had served so well in her advice to her mother, married, at the close of the following year, the marquis de Simiane. [Sidenote: 1695. Ætat. 69.] Early in the spring of 1696 madame de Grignan was attacked by a dangerous and lingering illness. Her mother attended on her with tenderness and zeal; but she felt her strength fail her. She wrote to her friends, that, if her daughter did not soon recover, she must sink under her fatigues,--words proved too fatally true. [Sidenote: 1696. Ætat. 70.] After a sudden and short illness, she died, in April of the same year, at the age of seventy. The blow of her death was severely felt by her friends,--a gap was made in their lives, never to be filled up.

In describing her character, her malicious cousin, count de Bussy, darkens many traits, which, in their natural colouring, only rendered her the more agreeable. He blames her for being carried away by a love of the agreeable rather than the solid; but he allows, at the same time, that there was not a cleverer woman in France; that her manners were vivacious and diverting, though she was a little too sprightly for a woman of quality. Madame de la Fayette addressed a portrait to her, as was the fashion of those times. Madame de Sévigné was three-and-thirty when it was written. It is, of course, laudatory: it speaks of the charms of her society, when all constraint was banished from the conversation; and says that the brilliancy of her wit imparted so bright a tinge to her cheek, and sparkle to her eye, that, while others pleased the ears, she dazzled the eyes of her listeners; so that she surpassed, for the moment, the most perfect beauty. The portrait speaks of the affectionate emotions of her heart, and of her love of all that was pleasing and agreeable. "Joy is the natural atmosphere of your soul," it says; "and annoyance is more displeasing to you than to any other." It mentions her obliging disposition, and the grace with which she obliged; her admirable conduct, her frankness, her sweetness.

Of course fault has been found with her. In the first place, Voltaire says, after praising her letters, "It is a pity that she was absolutely devoid of taste; that she did not do Racine justice; and that she puts Mascaron's funeral oration on Turenne on a par with the _chef-d'œuvre_ of Fléchier." We need not say much concerning the first of these accusations. It may be thought that madame de Sévigné showed good taste in her criticisms on Racine. The truth was that, accustomed to Corneille in her youth, she adhered to his party, and was faithful to tastes associated with her happiest days. Of the second, we must mention that she heard Mascaron's oration delivered: and the effect of delivery is often to dazzle, and to inspire a false judgment. She wrote to her daughter on the spur of the moment; and her opinion had no pretensions to a criticism meant for posterity. Afterwards, when she read Fléchier's oration at leisure, she did not hesitate to prefer it. She is a little inclined to a false and flowery style in her choice of books; but her letters exonerate her from the charge of too vehement an admiration for such, or they would not he, as they are, models for grace, ease, and nature.

Another accusation brought against her is, that she was a little malicious in her mode of speaking of persons. It is strange how people can find dark spots in the sun: for, as that luminary is indeed conspicuous for its universal light, and not for its partial darkness, so madame de Sévigné's letters are remarkable for their absence of ill-nature; and, when we reflect with what unreserve and pouring out of the heart they were written, we admire the more the gentle and kindly tone that pervades the whole. "There is a person here," she writes to her daughter, of her uncle, the abbé de Coulanges, "who is so afraid of misdirecting his letters after they are written, that he folds them and puts the addresses before he writes them." The spirit of hyper-criticism alone could discover ill-nature in the quick sense for the ludicrous that the mention of this most innocuous piece of caution displays. In a few of her letters we find her record with pleasure some ill-natured treatment of a certain lady; but this lady had calumniated madame de Grignan, and so drawn on herself the mother's heaviest displeasure.

The last fault brought against her is her being dazzled by greatness:--her saying to her cousin, Bussy, after Louis XIV. had danced with her, "We must allow that he is a great king," which, as a frondeuse, she was at that time bound to deny: but he _was_ a great king, and posterity may therefore forgive her. She made no sacrifices to greatness, and was guilty of no truckling. She allows she should have liked a court life. She traces her exclusion from it to her alliance with the fronde, her friendship for Fouquet, and her jansenist opinions; but she never repines; and this is the more praiseworthy, with regard to her jansenism, since she only adhered to it from entertaining the opinions which received that name, not from party spirit; and had not, therefore, the support and sympathy of the party. She revered the virtues of their leaders; but there was nothing either bigotted or controversial in her admiration or piety.

The only reproach that madame de Sévigné at all deserves is her approval of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the stain and disgrace of Louis XIV.'s reign, which banished from his country his best and most industrious subjects. We blame Philip III. for extirpating the Moriscos from Spain; but they, at least, were of a different race, and a gulf of separation subsisted between them and the Spaniards. The huguenots were the undoubted and native subjects of the kingdom: the times, also, were more enlightened and refined; and our contempt is the more raised when we find Louis the dupe of two ministers. Le Tellier and Louvois, who were influenced by their hatred of Colbert, one of the greatest and most enlightened ministers of France. We cannot but believe that the French revolution had worn a different aspect had the huguenots remained in France, and, as a consequence, the population had been held in less ignorance and barbarism. We cannot believe that madame de Sévigné really approved the atrocities that ensued. As a good jansenist, she was bound to detest forced conversions. Much of her praise, no doubt, was foisted in from fear that her letters might be opened at the post and read by officials; and it may be remembered, that M. de Grignan had evinced a suspicion that her jansenism had impeded the advancement of his family, as it certainly had of her own. She was at a distance, too, from the scene of action: still she says too much; and cannot be excused, except on the plea that she knew not what she did.[77]

The question has been asked, "In what does madame de Sévigné's merit consist? Did she show herself above her age?" La Harpe says, in his panegyric, "Even those who love this extraordinary woman do not sufficiently estimate the superiority of her understanding. I find in her every species of talent: argumentative or frivolous, witty or sublime, she adopts every tone with wonderful facility." To the question, however, of whether she was superior to her age, we answer, at once, no; but she was equal to the best and highest portion of it. We pass in review before us the greatest men of that day--the most profound thinkers, the most virtuous,--Pascal, Rochefoucauld, Racine, Boileau. Her opinions and sentiments were as liberal and enlightened as theirs; and that is surely sufficient praise for a woman absolutely without pretensions; and who, while she bares the innermost depths of her mind to her daughter, had no thought of dressing and educating that mind for posterity.

The race of madame de Sévigné is extinct. Her son continued childless. The marquis de Grignan died also without offspring. He died young, of the small-pox; and his broken-hearted mother soon followed him to the tomb. Pauline, marquise de Simiane, left children, who became allied to the family of Créqui; but that, also, is now extinct.