(which was the palrny day of portraits in words) objected to
her divers deviations from strictly regular beauty, such as
eyes of different colours and sizes, a “square-ended” nose
and a somewhat heavy jaw. Her beautiful hair and complexion,
however, were admitted even by these censors, as well as the
extraordinary spirit and liveliness of her expression. Her
long minority, under so careful a guardian as Coulanges, had
also raised her fortune to the amount of 100,000 crowns a
large sum for the time, and one which with her birth and beauty
might have allowed her to expect a brilliant marriage. There
had been some talk of her cousin Bussy, but fortunately for her
this came to nothing. She married Henri, marquis de Sévigné,
a Breton gentleman of good family, allied to the oldest houses
of that province, but of no great estate. The marriage took
place on August 4, 1644, and the pair went almost immediately
to Sévigné's manor-house of Les Rochers, near Vitré, a place
which Madame de Sévigné was in future years to immortalize.
It was an unfortified chateau of no great size, but picturesque,
with the peaked turrets common in French architecture, and
surrounded by a park and grounds. The abundance of trees
gave it the repute of being damp and somewhat gloomy. Fond,
however, as Madame de Sévigné was of society, it may be suspected
that the happiest days of her brief married life were
spent there. For there at any rate her husband had less opportunity
than in Paris of neglecting her, and of wasting her money
and his own. Very little good is said of Henri de Sévigné by
any of his contemporaries. He was one of the innumerable
lovers of Ninon de l'Enclos, and made himself even more conspicuous
with a certain Madame de Gondran, known in the
nickname slang of the time as “ La Belle Lolo.” He was wildly
extravagant. That his wife loved him and that he did not love
her was generally admitted. At last his vices came home to
him. He quarrelled with the Chevalier d'Albret about Madame
de Gondran, fought with him and was mortally wounded on the
4th of February 1651; he died two days afterwards. There
is no reasonable doubt that his wife regretted him a great deal
more than he deserved. Though only six and twenty, and more
beautiful than ever, she never married again despite frequent
offers, and no aspersion was ever thrown, save in one instance,
on her fame. For the rest of her life she gave herself up to her
children. These were two in number, and they divided their
mother's affections by no means equally. The eldest was a
daughter, Françoise Marguerite, who was born on the 10th of
October 1646, whether at Les Rochers or in Paris is not certain.
The second, a son, Charles, was born at Les Rochers in the
spring of 1648. To him Madame de Sévigné was an indulgent,
a. generous (though not altogether just) a.nd in a way an affectionate
mother. Her daughter, the future Madame de Grignan,
she worshipped with an almost insane affection, which only
its charming literary results and the delightful qualities which
accompanied it in the worshipper, though not in the worshipped,
save from being ludicrous if not revolting.
After her husband's death Madame de Sévigné passed the greater part of the year r6 SI in retirement at Les Rochers, but she returned to Paris in November of that year. For nearly ten years little of importance occurred in her life, which was passed at Paris in a house she occupied in the Place Royale (not as yet in the famous Hotel Carnavalet), at Les Rochers, at Livry or at her own estate of Bourbilly in the Maconnais. She had, however, in 1658, a quarrel with her cousin Bussy. Notwithstanding Bussy's various delinquencies the cousins had always been friends; and the most amusing and characteristic part of Madame de Sévigné's correspondence, before the date of her daughter's marriage, is addressed to him. She had a strong belief in family ties; she recognized in Bussy a kindred spirit, and she excused his faults as Rabutinades and Rabutinages. But a misunderstanding about money brought about a quarrel, which in its turn had a long sequel, and results not unimportant in literature. Bussy and his cousin had jointly come in for a considerable legacy, and he asked her for a loan. If this was not positively refused, there was a difficulty made about it, and Bussy was offended. A year later, at the esoapade of Roissy (see Bussv), according to his own account, he improvised (according to probability he had long before written it) the famous portrait of Madame de Sévigné which appears in his notorious Histoire amoureuse, and is a triumph of malice. Circulated at first in manuscript and afterwards in print, this caused Madame de Sévigné the deepest pain a.nd indignation, and the quarrel between the cousins was not fully made up for years, though after Bussy's disgrace and imprisonment in 1666 the correspondence was renewed. What might have been, and to some extent was, a much more serious matter occurred in 1661 at the downfall of the Superintendent Fouquet. It was announced on indubitable authority that communications from her had been found in the coffer where Fouquet kept his love letters. She protested that the notes in question were of friendship merely, and Bussy (one of the not very numerous good actions of his life) obtained from Le Tellier, who as minister had examined the letters, a corroboration of the protest. But these letters were never published, and there have always been those who held that Madame de Sévigné regarded Fouquet with at least a very warm kind of friendship. It is certain that her letters to Pomponne describing his trial are among her masterpieces of unaffected, vivid and sympathetic narration.
During these earlier years Madame de Sévigné had a great affection for the establishment of Port Royal, which was not without its effect on her literary work. That work, however, dates in its bulk and really important part almost entirely from the last thirty years of her life. Her letters before the marriage of her daughter, though by themselves they would suffice to give her a very high rank among letter-writers, would not do more than fill one moderate-sized volume. Those after that marriage fill nearly ten large volumes in the latest and best edition. We do not hear very much of Mademoiselle de Sévigné's early youth. For a short time, at a rather uncertain date, she was placed at school with the nuns of Sainte-Marie at Nantes. But for the most part her mother brought her up herself, assisted by the Abbé de la Mousse, a faithful friend, and for a time one of her most constant companions. La. Mousse was a great Cartesian, and he made Mademoiselle de Sévigné also a devotee of the bold soldier of Touraine. But she was bent on more mundane triumphs than philosophy had to oier. Her beauty is all the more incontestable that she was by no means generally liked. Bussy, a critical and not too benevolent judge, called her “ la plus jolie fille de France, ” and it seems to be agreed that she resembled her mother, with the advantage of more regular features. She was introduced at court early, and as she danced well she figured frequently in the ballets which were the chief amusement of the court of Louis XIV. in its early days. If, however, she was more regularly beautiful than her mother she had little or nothing of her attraction, and like many other beauties who have entered society with similar expectations she did not immediately find a husband. Various projected alliances fell through for one reason or another, and it was not till the end of 1668 that her destiny was settled. On January 29 in the next year she married Francois d'Adhémar, comte de Grignan, a Provençal, of one of the noblest families of France, and a man of amiable and honourable character, but neither young, nor handsome, nor in reality rich. He had been twice married and his great estates were heavily encumbered. Neither did the large dowry (300,000 livres) which Mada.me de Sévigné, somewhat unfairly to her son, bestowed upon her daughter, suffice to clear encumbrances, which were constantly increased in the sequel by the extravagance of Madame de Grignan as well as of her husband.
Charles de Sévigné was by this time twenty years old. He never appears to have resented his mother's preference of his sister; but, though thoroughly amiable, he was not (at any rate in his youth) a model character. Nothing is known of his education, but just before his sister's marriage he volunteered for a rather harebrained expedition to Crete against the Turks, and served with credit. Then his mother bought him the commission of guidon (a kind of sub-cornet) in the Gendarmes Dauphin, in which regiment he served for some years. But though he always
