seven hundred louis; the bigger ones of a thousand or twelve hundred. At first, each person pools twenty, which is a hundred, and the dealer afterwards pools ten. The person who holds the knave is entitled to four louis; they pass; and when they play before the pool is taken, they forfeit sixteen, which teaches them not to play out of turn. Talking is incessantly going on, and there is no end of hearts. How many hearts have you?' 'I have two.' 'I have three.' 'I have one.' 'I have four.' 'He has only three then.' 'He has only four.' And Dangeau is delighted with all this chatter: he sees through the game; he draws his conclusions; he discovers which is the person he wants; truly he is your only man for holding the cards. At six, the carriages are at the door. The king is in one of them with Madame de Montespan; Monsieur and Madame de Thianges, and honest D'Heudicourt in a fool's paradise on the stool. You know how these open carriages are made?-they do not sit face to face, but all looking the same way. The queen occupies another with the princess; and the rest come flocking, as it may happen. There are, then, gondolas on the canal, and music; and at ten they come back, and then there is a play; and twelve strikes, and they go to supper, and thus rolls round the Saturday. If I were to tell you how often you were asked after; how many questions were put to me, without waiting for answers; how often I neglected to answer; how little they cared, or how much less I did, you would see the iniqua corte [the wicked court] before you in all its perfection. However, it never was so pleasant before, and everybody wishes it may last.

Of this, as of many others of the brilliant scenes she depicts, it may certainly be averred, that more attention seems to be paid to the truth than to the moral effect of the picture. But this, we think, after all, proceeds rather from truthfulness being the chief characteristic of her mind, than from any essential want either of the feeling or knowledge of what is perfectly correct and seemly. She has one thing to do—often in one moment-to give her daughter the how, when, and where, of certain occurrences; and she does it right off, in half-a-dozen words, naturally, accurately, and to the very life. How else could all she tells ever have been told? I see nothing,' she says, 'except what I tell you;' and the fear never suggests itself to her, that one who already knows her heart and mind on all subjects, will be apt to misapprehend her, or draw the wrong conclusion. When she has more time, though she never proses, she is quite ready to moralise like her neighbours; and sometimes she does so by a single exclamation, as in the following lively passage, of which we gladly again avail ourselves of Leigh Hunt's exquisite translation:

'PARIS, 29th November 1679.

'I HAVE been to this wedding of Madame de Louvais. How shall I describe it? Magnificence, illuminations, all France,

dresses all gold and brocade, jewels, braziers full of fire and stands full of flowers, confusions of carriages, cries out of doors, flambeaux, pushings back, people knocked up-in short, a whirlwind, a distraction; questions without answers, complaints without knowing what is said, civilities without knowing who is spoken to, feel entangled in trains. From the middle of all this, issue inquiries after your health, which, not being answered as quick as lightning, the inquirers pass on, contented to remain in the state of ignorance and indifference in which they were made. O vanity of vanities!-pretty little De Mouchy has had the small-pox. vanity,' &c.

There are many curious notices of the poisoners scattered through the letters; we shall give a few extracts concerning the monster Brinvilliers, whom one of her confessors pronounced to be a saint, and whose bones were accordingly in great request by the ignorant and superstitious mob who surrounded her scaffold. Madame de Sévigné stood on the bridge of Notre Dame, with a shudder saw her pass to her execution, and writes thus of her to her daughter: 'Nothing is spoken of but the speeches, actions, and gestures of Madame de Brinvilliers. What do you think of her saying, that she was afraid she had forgotten to mention in her confession, that, among others, she had poisoned her own father! The peccadilloes of which she is apprehensive of having been oblivious are really admirable. It seems she loved this St Croix [another poisoner], wished to marry him, and often poisoned her husband with this intention. St Croix, however, not much relishing the notion of marrying a woman quite as wicked as himself, administered a counter-poison to the poor husband; who, having been thus tossed about five or six times, sometimes poisoned, sometimes unpoisoned, is still alive, and now comes forward to solicit a pardon for his dear better-half! .

"The Brinvilliers affair continues to run its course. One of the stories is, that she made some pies of young pigeons, in which she mixed poison. After eating of the pies, several people died— not anybody she particularly wished to kill; she was merely trying experiments, to assure herself that her poisons were effectual. The Chevalier de Guet, who had been at one of these pretty repasts, died of it some time ago. The other day, she inquired if he were dead; they told her no. Indeed," she said with an indifferent air; "he must have a hard life.” M. de la Rochefoucault swears to the truth of this.

66

'At last all is over, and Brinvilliers is in the air. After her execution, her poor little body was thrown into a great fire, and her ashes scattered to the four winds. Yes, she is now part of the air we breathe; and by the blending together of subtile principles, the poisoning mania may, one of these days, seize and very much astonish some of us! Her life has been even more frightful than we had imagined. Ten times she tried to poison her

father before she accomplished it; her brothers, one of her children, herself-but this last only for the purpose of trying a counter-poison; and all this mixed up with a great deal of love and endearing confidence. Medea was nothing to her. At six o'clock she was brought in a cart, naked to the shift, and with a rope round her neck, to make the amende honorable at Notre Dame, and went on from thence in the same cart. From the bridge I saw her, lying back in the straw in her shift; a confessor on one side, and the executioner at the other. The sight made me shudder. Never was so great a crowd seen, and never before was Paris so moved and so attentive.

'One little word more of Brinvilliers. She has died as she lived that is to say, resolutely. She entered the room in which they were to put her to the rack, and seeing three pails of water there, said: "It must be to bathe me you have prepared all this; you cannot suppose that any one of my size could possibly drink it all." She listened to the sentence which had that morning been given against her without betraying either weakness or fear, and towards the end begged it might be read over again, saying, that the cart had so shaken her, she could not at once attend to anything else. Desgrais-by whose means she had been taken-rode on horseback before the cart: as they went along, she asked her confessor to put the executioner in front of her, "in order," she said, "that I may be spared the sight of that detestable Desgrais, who caught me !" The confessor reproved her for this sentiment. Ah, my God!" she cried, "I ask pardon: let them torment me with his horrid sight." She mounted the scaffold by the ladder with bare feet; and during a whole quarter of an hour, the executioner went on adjusting, trimming, and setting her to rights. This caused a great murmur, and was a great cruelty. Next morning, a search was made for her bones-the people believing that she was a saint. Of her two confessors, one insisted that she ought to avow everything, and the other not. She laughed at this diversity of opinion, and said: "You see I can, in conscience, do which ever pleases me." It has not pleased her to avow anything. Penantier, who was suspected, will come out whiter than snow. The public is not content. Think of the misfortune! This creature has refused to say one word of what is wanted, and has told what nobody was asking: for example, she said that M. Fhad sent Glasu, the poison-apothecary, into Italy, to seek for a certain herb, from which poison is made. What a dreadful allegation; and what a pretext to ruin this unfortunate man! Much more is said, but this is enough for to-day.'

These few quotations must suffice; we should like to have doubled them; but were they multiplied a hundredfold, they would still form but an insignificant portion of the nine volumes of letters, the greater part of which are from her hand, and most of them as lively and natural as the specimens now given. The chief part of the correspondence is addressed to her daughter; but when living

with her at Grignan, or when the daughter comes to her, still the nimble pen is never at rest. Constant letters then pass between her and Madame de la Fayette, M. de Coulanges, or any other of her friends who may happen to be at a distance; so that in all these years, we are pleasantly kept au courant of all the best Parisian news and gossip. With her keen and ardent feelings, she has always plenty of anxiety to undergo; often frets unreasonably at supposed ills that may have befallen the idolised daughter; even occasionally, though in a good-humoured way, ventures to arraign Providence for cross accidents,' or for having decreed that they should live at a distance from each other; and says: one must be mad to continue to love life,' while loving it heartily all the time. But whether things are going well or ill with her, and whether at Paris, Livry, Brittany, or Provence, she has the same admirable animal spirits, the same clear, lively mind and social heart; is the delight and pride of her friends; ever deeply interested in all that concerns them, and equally ready to weep or to rejoice with them, with all the energy of her healthy, vigorous, and affectionate

nature.

In her later years, she was occasionally afflicted with rheumatism, but she had a good constitution, and all her life enjoyed excellent health. It was probably owing to this blessing, that she preserved her good looks to a very late period. Bussy speaks of her as 'fresh and fair' at forty-six years of age; Mademoiselle de Scudery, of her being still handsome' at fifty-two; and her cousin, De Coulanges, often lovingly calls her 'La Mère Beauté.' She bore her declining years with patience and cheerfulness. Like all persons of lively imagination, she had moments of apprehension about the ravages that time must make; as when she writes to her daughter in her middle age: For my part, I see the way time flies with horror, bringing in its train dreadful old age, infirmities, and last of all death; such must be the reflections of a person of my age;' but she immediately adds: Pray to God for me, my daughter, that he may enable me to draw the conclusion Christianity inculcates on us all.' And when the fatal certainty that she had grown old is forced upon her-a contingency she had either forgotten, or, thanks to her green heart and still lively intellect, remembered in no painful sense-though for a moment she is thrown down, and, like Job, inclined to reason rather than submit, it is only for a moment. The passage to which we allude has been quoted against her. We give it, as characteristic of the perfectly natural flow of her ideas :

'So you were struck, as I was, with Madame de la Fayette's expression, blended with so much kindness.' [The expression was: "You are old now.'] "Though I do not altogether forget this truth, yet I own I was startled by it, not feeling any infirmity that reminds me of my old age. I often reflect that the conditions of life are hard enough. It seems that we are dragged on against our will to the period when old age must be endured. I see it;

I have come to it; and I would fain, if I could help it, not go any further-not advance a single step more on the road of pains, sorrows, losses of memory, and disfigurements; yet I hear a voice say: "You must go on in spite of yourself, or if you will not go on, you must die"-another extremity from which nature recoils. Such is the lot, however, of all who advance beyond middle life. What is their resource? To think of the will of God, and of the universal law, and so restore reason to its place, and be patient. Be you patient, also, my dear child, and do not let your affection soften into such tears as reason must condemn.' This was written in 1689, when she was in her sixty-third year. Seven years afterwards, and without experiencing any great increase of the natural infirmities, to which she seems here to look forward with some dread, she caught malignant small-pox -that terrible scourge of mankind in those times-and died at her daughter's house, the Château de Grignan, in 1696, at the age of seventy; surrounded by her descendants, and tenderly waited on and nursed by Mademoiselle de Marseillac, the daughter of Rochefoucault.

The beloved Madame de Grignan only survived her nine years. She is said to have died of a broken heart soon after the death of her only son, a handsome, brave, young officer, who is spoken of by his grandmother as 'caring little for his books, but not on that account the less kissed and caressed,' whose destiny, she says, it is to be perfectly beloved, and who, rather to our surprise, we find studying good-breeding at the feet of Ninon de l'Enclos--a very doubtful advantage, which was thus enjoyed by no fewer than three generations of Madame de Sévigné's family: her husband, son, and grandson.

She had

Besides Blanche Ademar, whose childhood was sweetly passed beside the loving grandmother, and who, as we before mentioned, became a nun, Madame de Grignan left only one child, that charming Pauline, of whom we hear so much that is interesting and pleasant in the latter years of Madame de Sévigné. something of her grandmother's looks and bright wit; but was more like her mother in gravity of disposition. She married Louis de Simiane, Marquis d'Esparron, who was in some way connected with the English family of the Hays; and some of the descendants of this marriage are still living, though we have long lost the dear names of Rabutin, Sévigné, and Grignan.

We rather agree with the Abbé Vauxelle, in having no very great affection for 'la plus jolie fille de France,' Madame de Grignan. All honour to her beauty, wit, and surpassing talents; but the philosophic coldness with which she occasionally answers her mother's over-anxious affection, jars painfully on our feelings. No doubt, the mother's love was somewhat sinful and inordinate; she herself knew it; often felt compunction for the excess; prayed to be forgiven for her idolatry; and finding herself too weak to sacrifice it, was at least humble in the indulgence. But the daughter's