The Women of the French Salons [44]
Her own were as much sought in her time, but she had no profound affection to consecrate them and no children to collect them, so that only a few have been preserved. There is a curious vein of philosophy in one she wrote to her husband, when the pleasures of life began to fade. "As for myself, I care little for the world; I find it no longer suited to my age; I have no engagements, thank God, to retain me there. I have seen all there is to see. I have only an old face to present to it, nothing new to show nor to discover there. Ah! What avails it to recommence every day the visits, to trouble one's self always about things that do not concern us? . . . . My dear sir, we must think of something more solid." She disappears from the scene shortly after the death of Mme. De Sevigne. Long years of silence and seclusion, and another generation heard one day that she had lived and that she was dead.
The friends of Mme. de Sevigne slip away one after another; La Rochefoucauld, De Retz, Mme. de La Fayette are gone. "Alas!" she writes, "how this death goes running about and striking on all sides." The thought troubles her. "I am embarked in life without my consent," she says; "I must go out of it--that overwhelms me. And how shall I go? Whence: By what door? When will it be? In what disposition: How shall I be with God? What have I to present to him? What can I hope?--Am I worthy of paradise? Am I worthy of hell? What an alternative! What a complication! I would like better to have died in the arms of my nurse."
The end came to her in the one spot where she would most have wished it. She died while on a visit to her daughter in Provence. Strength and resignation came with the moment, and she faced with calmness and courage the final mystery. To the last she retained her wit, her vivacity, and that eternal youth of the spirit which is one of the rarest of God's gifts to man. "There are no more friends left to me," said Mme. de Coulanges; and later she wrote to Mme. de Grignan, "The grief of seeing her no longer is always fresh to me. I miss too many things at the Hotel de Carnavalet."
The curtain falls upon this little world which the magical pen of Mme. de Sevigne has made us know so well. The familiar faces retreat into the darkness, to be seen no more. But the picture lives, and the woman who has outlined it so clearly, and colored it so vividly and so tenderly, smiles upon us still, out of the shadows of the past, crowned with the white radiance of immortal genius and immortal love.
CHAPTER VII. MADAME DE LA FAYETTE Her Friendship with Mme. de Sevigne--Her Education--Her Devotion to the Princess Henrietta--Her Salon--La Rochefoucauld --Talent as a Diplomatist--Comparison with Mme. de Maintenon Her Literary Work--Sadness of her Last Days--Woman in Literature
"Believe me, my dearest, you are the person in the world whom I have most truly loved," wrote Mme. de La Fayette to Mme. de Sevigne a short time before her death. This friendship of more than forty years, which Mme. de Sevigne said had never suffered the least cloud, was a living tribute to the mind and heart of both women. It may also be cited for the benefit of the cynically disposed who declare that feminine friendships are simply "pretty bows of ribbon" and nothing more. These women were fundamentally unlike, but they supplemented each other. The character of Mme. de La Fayette was of firmer and more serious texture. She had greater precision of thought, more delicacy of sentiment, and affections not less deep. But her temperament was less sunny, her genius less impulsive, her wit less sparkling, and her manner less demonstrative. "She has never been without that divine reason which was her dominant trait," wrote her friend. No praise pleased her so much as to be told that her judgment was superior to her intellect, and that she loved truth in all things. "She would not have accorded the least favor to any one, if she had not been convinced it was merited," said Segrais; "this is why she was sometimes called hard,
The friends of Mme. de Sevigne slip away one after another; La Rochefoucauld, De Retz, Mme. de La Fayette are gone. "Alas!" she writes, "how this death goes running about and striking on all sides." The thought troubles her. "I am embarked in life without my consent," she says; "I must go out of it--that overwhelms me. And how shall I go? Whence: By what door? When will it be? In what disposition: How shall I be with God? What have I to present to him? What can I hope?--Am I worthy of paradise? Am I worthy of hell? What an alternative! What a complication! I would like better to have died in the arms of my nurse."
The end came to her in the one spot where she would most have wished it. She died while on a visit to her daughter in Provence. Strength and resignation came with the moment, and she faced with calmness and courage the final mystery. To the last she retained her wit, her vivacity, and that eternal youth of the spirit which is one of the rarest of God's gifts to man. "There are no more friends left to me," said Mme. de Coulanges; and later she wrote to Mme. de Grignan, "The grief of seeing her no longer is always fresh to me. I miss too many things at the Hotel de Carnavalet."
The curtain falls upon this little world which the magical pen of Mme. de Sevigne has made us know so well. The familiar faces retreat into the darkness, to be seen no more. But the picture lives, and the woman who has outlined it so clearly, and colored it so vividly and so tenderly, smiles upon us still, out of the shadows of the past, crowned with the white radiance of immortal genius and immortal love.
CHAPTER VII. MADAME DE LA FAYETTE Her Friendship with Mme. de Sevigne--Her Education--Her Devotion to the Princess Henrietta--Her Salon--La Rochefoucauld --Talent as a Diplomatist--Comparison with Mme. de Maintenon Her Literary Work--Sadness of her Last Days--Woman in Literature
"Believe me, my dearest, you are the person in the world whom I have most truly loved," wrote Mme. de La Fayette to Mme. de Sevigne a short time before her death. This friendship of more than forty years, which Mme. de Sevigne said had never suffered the least cloud, was a living tribute to the mind and heart of both women. It may also be cited for the benefit of the cynically disposed who declare that feminine friendships are simply "pretty bows of ribbon" and nothing more. These women were fundamentally unlike, but they supplemented each other. The character of Mme. de La Fayette was of firmer and more serious texture. She had greater precision of thought, more delicacy of sentiment, and affections not less deep. But her temperament was less sunny, her genius less impulsive, her wit less sparkling, and her manner less demonstrative. "She has never been without that divine reason which was her dominant trait," wrote her friend. No praise pleased her so much as to be told that her judgment was superior to her intellect, and that she loved truth in all things. "She would not have accorded the least favor to any one, if she had not been convinced it was merited," said Segrais; "this is why she was sometimes called hard,