The Women of the French Salons [40]
her into despair. "I have an imagination so lively that uncertainty makes me die," she writes. If a shadow of grief touches her idol, her sympathies are overflowing. "You weep, my very dear child; it is an affair for you; it is not the same thing for me, it is my temperament."
But though this love pulses and throbs behind all her letters, it does not make up the substance of them. To amuse her daughter she gathers all the gossip of the court, all the news of her friends; she keeps her au courant with the most trifling as well as the most important events. Now she entertains her with a witty description of a scene at Versailles, a tragical adventure, a gracious word about Mme. Scarron, "who sups with me every evening," a tender message from Mme. de La Fayette; now it is a serious reflection upon the death of Turenne, a vivid picture of her own life, a bit of philosophy, a spicy anecdote about a dying man who takes forty cups of tea every morning, and is cured. A few touches lay bare a character or sketch a vivid scene. It is this infinite variety of detail that gives such historic value to her letters. In a correspondence so intimate she has no interest to conciliate, no ends to gain. She is simply a mirror in which the world about her is reflected.
But the most interesting thing we read in her letters is the life and nature of the woman herself. She has a taste for society and for seclusion, for gaiety and for thought, for friendship and for books. For the moment each one seems dominant. "I am always of the opinion of the one heard last," she says, laughing at her own impressibility. It is an amiable admission, but she has very fine and rational ideas of her own, notwithstanding. In books, for which she had always a passion, she found unfailing consolation. Corneille and La Fontaine were her favorite traveling companions. "I am well satisfied to be a substance that thinks and reads," she says, finding her good uncle a trifle dull for a compagnon de voyage. Her tastes were catholic. She read Astree with delight, loved Petrarch, Ariosto, and Montaigne; Rabelais made her "die of laughter," she found Plutarch admirable, enjoyed Tacitus as keenly as did Mme. Roland a century later, read Josephus and Lucian, dipped into the history of the crusades and of the iconoclasts, of the holy fathers and of the saints. She preferred the history of France to that of Rome because she had "neither relatives nor friends in the latter place." She finds the music of Lulli celestial and the preaching of Bourdaloue divine. Racine she did not quite appreciate. In his youth, she said he wrote tragedies for Champmesle and not for posterity. Later she modified her opinion, but Corneille held always the first place in her affection. She had a great love for books on morals, read and reread the essays of Nicole, which she found a perpetual resource against the ills of life -- even rain and bad weather. St. Augustine she reads with pleasure, and she is charmed with Bossuet and Pascal; but she is not very devout, though she often tries to be. There is a serious naivete in all her efforts in this direction. She seems to have always one eye upon the world while she prays, and she mourns over her own lack of devotion. "I wish my heart were for God as it is for you," she writes to her daughter. "I am neither of God nor of the devil," she says again; "that state troubles me though, between ourselves, I find it the most natural in the world." Her reason quickly pierces to the heart of superstition; sometimes she cannot help a touch of sarcasm. "I fear that this trappe, which wishes to pass humanity, may become a lunatic asylum," she says. She believes little in saints and processions. Over the high altar of her chapel she writes SOLI DEO HONOR ET GLORIA. "It is the way to make no one jealous," she remarks.
She was rather inclined toward Jansenism, but she could not fathom all the subtleties of her friends the Port Royalists, and begged them to "have the kindness, out of pity for her, to thicken their religion a little
But though this love pulses and throbs behind all her letters, it does not make up the substance of them. To amuse her daughter she gathers all the gossip of the court, all the news of her friends; she keeps her au courant with the most trifling as well as the most important events. Now she entertains her with a witty description of a scene at Versailles, a tragical adventure, a gracious word about Mme. Scarron, "who sups with me every evening," a tender message from Mme. de La Fayette; now it is a serious reflection upon the death of Turenne, a vivid picture of her own life, a bit of philosophy, a spicy anecdote about a dying man who takes forty cups of tea every morning, and is cured. A few touches lay bare a character or sketch a vivid scene. It is this infinite variety of detail that gives such historic value to her letters. In a correspondence so intimate she has no interest to conciliate, no ends to gain. She is simply a mirror in which the world about her is reflected.
But the most interesting thing we read in her letters is the life and nature of the woman herself. She has a taste for society and for seclusion, for gaiety and for thought, for friendship and for books. For the moment each one seems dominant. "I am always of the opinion of the one heard last," she says, laughing at her own impressibility. It is an amiable admission, but she has very fine and rational ideas of her own, notwithstanding. In books, for which she had always a passion, she found unfailing consolation. Corneille and La Fontaine were her favorite traveling companions. "I am well satisfied to be a substance that thinks and reads," she says, finding her good uncle a trifle dull for a compagnon de voyage. Her tastes were catholic. She read Astree with delight, loved Petrarch, Ariosto, and Montaigne; Rabelais made her "die of laughter," she found Plutarch admirable, enjoyed Tacitus as keenly as did Mme. Roland a century later, read Josephus and Lucian, dipped into the history of the crusades and of the iconoclasts, of the holy fathers and of the saints. She preferred the history of France to that of Rome because she had "neither relatives nor friends in the latter place." She finds the music of Lulli celestial and the preaching of Bourdaloue divine. Racine she did not quite appreciate. In his youth, she said he wrote tragedies for Champmesle and not for posterity. Later she modified her opinion, but Corneille held always the first place in her affection. She had a great love for books on morals, read and reread the essays of Nicole, which she found a perpetual resource against the ills of life -- even rain and bad weather. St. Augustine she reads with pleasure, and she is charmed with Bossuet and Pascal; but she is not very devout, though she often tries to be. There is a serious naivete in all her efforts in this direction. She seems to have always one eye upon the world while she prays, and she mourns over her own lack of devotion. "I wish my heart were for God as it is for you," she writes to her daughter. "I am neither of God nor of the devil," she says again; "that state troubles me though, between ourselves, I find it the most natural in the world." Her reason quickly pierces to the heart of superstition; sometimes she cannot help a touch of sarcasm. "I fear that this trappe, which wishes to pass humanity, may become a lunatic asylum," she says. She believes little in saints and processions. Over the high altar of her chapel she writes SOLI DEO HONOR ET GLORIA. "It is the way to make no one jealous," she remarks.
She was rather inclined toward Jansenism, but she could not fathom all the subtleties of her friends the Port Royalists, and begged them to "have the kindness, out of pity for her, to thicken their religion a little