which Lady Mary Wortley Montague speaks of her and her writings, was probably owing, in part, to a consciousness of the great superiority in this respect of the character of Madame de Sévigné to her own.

Madame de Sévigné not only kept herself aloof from the almost universal licentiousness of her time, but steadily refused all offers of marriage, and devoted herself with exemplary assiduity to the education of her two children, a son and daughter. The latter is the person to whom the greater part of the letters are addressed. The same authorities which represent the mother as the handsomest woman in France, describe the daughter as the handsomest young lady, (la plus jolie fille.) She was married at eighteen to the Count de Grignan, a nobleman of high consideration and apparently excellent character, who was called on soon after to act as governor of Provence. His lady naturally accompanied him, and the separation that took place in consequence between the mother and daughter, was the immediate cause of the correspondence, which has given them both, and particularly the former, so extensive a celebrity. After a few detached letters of an earlier date, the principal series commences with the departure of Madame de Grignan for Provence, and is kept up at very short intervals, excepting when the parties were occasionally together, sometimes for years in succession,- through the whole life of Madame de Sévigné; who, at the age of seventy, died at her daughter's residence, of small pox, brought on by excessive care and fatigue in attending upon this beloved child through a severe and protracted illness of several months: thus, finally sacrificing her life to the strong maternal love to which she had already sacrificed her fortune, and which had been the absorbing passion and principal source of happiness of all her riper years. This deeply affecting catastrophe crowns with a sort of

poetical consistency, the beautiful and touching romance of real life, which it brings to a close.

The letters, considered merely as a sketch of the private adventures of the parties, revolve round the circle of incidents, which made up, at that time, the history of every family of the same class. The son's achievements in the wars, the marriage of the daughter, her health and the birth of her children, her husband's affairs, which became embarrassed from the necessity of keeping up an immense household as governor of Provence, without any adequate allowance from the King to cover the expense; the establishment of her daughter's children, - together with the adventures of other more remote branches of the family, compose the outline of the plot, which is of course simple enough. The characters of the corresponding parties, and their immediate connections, are also, with the exception of Madame de Sévigné herself, rather common place. The son, who was placed at great expense to his mother in the army, seems to have made little or no figure, and retired early to a life of inactivity. The daughter, Madame de Grignan, in the few of her letters which are preserved, says nothing to justify the unbounded admiration with which she is constantly spoken of by her mother and the whole family circle. Count de Bussy is an original, but of an unpleasant kind; and is never entertaining, excepting when he makes himself ridiculous, which happens rather often. The Coulanges are mere votaries of fashion, and so of the rest. But the test of genius, as need hardly be said, is, propriè communia dicere, -to produce great effects with common materials, to tell the story of life, as it really passes, in a lively, original, and entertaining way. The brilliant imagination and magical pen of Madame de Sévigné threw an air of novelty over all these every-day characters and incidents, and we follow the development

of their fortunes with an interest that never flags through the whole twelve volumes.

At the present day, however, these letters, though highly agreeable as a picture of domestic life in France at the period when they were written, are, from the extraordinary importance of that period, still more valuable, as a record of contemporary events and characters. It may be amusing to the reader to cast a glance, - of course exceedingly rapid and cursory,-over some of the scenes that are successively brought before the eye in traversing this long and well-stored gallery.

The collection opens with two or three letters to Ménage, a sort of pedant, who then enjoyed the reputation of a wit. He had some share in the education of Madame de Sévigné, and seems to have availed himself of the occasion to fall in love with her. He is quietly taught to keep his distance, and, taking the hint, soon retires into silence, and we hear no more of him.

The next personage that occupies the stage is the eccentric cousin, Bussy-Rabutin, now in the full flow of youthful impertinence and self-sufficiency, sowing his wild oats with a profuse hand in all quarters. The great Turenne, who combined with transcendent military talents, an almost childish simplicity of character, could, nevertheless, at times say a good thing, and one day informed the King that Bussy was the best officer in the army at a song. The King pretty soon had occasion to know by experience the extent of Bussy's talent in this way, the latter having in one of his ballads introduced the following highly complimentary epigram upon Louis XIV. and Madame de la Valliere, who, it appears, had a rather wide mouth:

'Que Deodatus* est heureux

De baiser ce bec amoureux
Que d'une oreille à l'autre va
Halleluia !'

* Deodatus, (Dieu-donné,) was one of the names of Louis XIV.

'What a fortunate man is our gracious sovereign in being permitted to salute a mouth that stretches so invitingly from ear to ear!' The epigram, which is, after all none of the best, cost poor Bussy pretty dear. Louis, though not very intolerant in similar cases, thought this a little too bad, or was, perhaps, set on by the lady, who was probably not much gratified by seeing the longitude of her mouth so nicely calculated, and sent Bussy to the Bastile. After doing penance there for a few months, he was permitted to retire to his estates, where he remained an exile from the Court for the rest of his life. He appears, from time to time, through the whole course of the letters, affecting much philosophy and resignation, but always engaged in some new effort to recover the King's favor. It is not very easy, however, for a singed moth to get back his wings. All these efforts successively failed, and Bussy died at an advanced age, as he had lived, in exile. Madame de Sévigné never entirely forgave him for his wanton and malignant attack upon her in the portrait. She receives his apologies, though conceived in the most fulsome strain of flattery and devotion, for a time with bitterness; and though at length apparently softened, maintains a constrained and formal tone in her correspondence with him to the last.

The personage next in order is one of higher political importance, the celebrated Superintendent Fouquet, the Wolsey of France. His history is well known. The immense fortune, which he had amassed in the exercise of his office, and the ostentatious display which he made of it, were the real causes of his ruin. He had assumed for his arms a squirrel, pursued by a snake, which was the device of Colbert, with the motto, Quò non ascendam ? This was emblazoned in every form upon the walls and furniture of his splendid residence at Vauxle-Vicomte. The picture was prophetic of his fortune. The wily

enemy was too successful in the pursuit of his indiscreet prey. Colbert, a statesman much superior in conduct to Fouquet, and the Secretary of State, Le Tellier, afterward Marquis de Louvois, roused the jealousy of the King by representations of the inordinate wealth of the Superintendent. Shortly after an entertainment which he had given to the King and Court at Vaux, and which had exceeded in magnificence any thing of the kind ever known in France, he was arrested, and his papers were seized. Among these was unfortunately found the draft of some plot against Cardinal Mazarin, formed many years before during the ministry of Louis XIV., when the different members of the royal family were at war with each other, and when it was rather difficult for any one to say what the government was, or who was in possession of it. This project, which had never been acted on, had lain forgotten among the papers of Fouquet, and was now made the pretext of his ruin. After having been kept in confinement three years, he was tried for his life by a special commission, as the author of the paper alluded to. The Court made the strongest efforts to procure a sentence of death, but could only obtain one of perpetual banishment, which the King commuted into the severer one of imprisonment for life. The fate of Fouquet, who seems to have been a vain, ambitious, and corrupt man, now excites little sympathy; but the means employed to bring it about were not very creditable to the character of Louis. The Superintendent had made himself a general favorite by his profuse. liberality, and his patronage of the arts, in consequence of which, and of the manifest injustice of the proceedings against him, his case called forth at the time much commiseration among the better part of society. Turenne, in particular, took a strong interest in his favor. One day, when some one was commending in his