Having thus lost a confidence which alone rendered life supportable to me, I cannot dream of taking the journey so much talked of; for there would be no propriety in traveling sixty leagues at this season, in order to burden you with a person so uninteresting to you, that after years of a passion without parallel you cannot help thinking that the greatest pleasure would consist in passing life without her. I return then into my solitude, to examine the faults which cause me so much unhappiness, and unless I can correct them, I should have less joy than confusion in seeing you. I kiss your hands very humbly.
How this affair was adjusted does not appear, but as they remained devoted friends through life, unable to live apart, or pass a day happily without seeing each other, it evidently did not end in a serious alienation. It suggests, however, a delicacy and an exaltation of feeling which we are apt to accord only to love, and which go far toward disproving the verdict of Mongaigne, that "the soul of a woman is not firm enough for so durable a tie as friendship."
We like to dwell upon these inner phases of a famous and powerful coterie, not only because they bring before us so vividly the living, moving, thinking, loving women who composed it, letting us into their intimate life with its quiet shadings, its fantastic humors, and its wayward caprices, but because they lead us to the fountain head of a new form of literary expression. We have seen that the formal letters of Balzac were among the early entertainments of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and that Voiture had a witty or sentimental note for every occasion. Mlle. de Scudery held a ready pen, and was in the habit of noting down in her letters to absent friends the conversation, which ran over a great variety of topics, from the gossip of the moment to the gravest questions. There was no morning journal with its columns of daily news, no magazine with its sketches of contemporary life, and these private letters were passed from one to another to be read and discussed. The craze for clever letters spread.
Conversations literally overflowed upon paper. A romantic adventure, a bit of scandal, a drawing room incident, or a personal pique, was a fruitful theme. Everybody aimed to excel in an art which brought a certain prestige. These letters, most of which had their brief day, were often gathered into little volumes. Many have long since disappeared, or found burial in the dust of old libraries from which they are occasionally exhumed to throw fresh light upon some forgotten nook and by way of an age whose habits and manners, virtues and follies, they so faithfully record. A few, charged with the vitality of genius, retain their freshness and live among the enduring monuments of the society that gave them birth. The finest outcome of this prevailing taste was Mme. de Sevigne, who still reigns as the queen of graceful letter writers. Although her maturity belongs to a later period, she was familiar with the Rambouillet circle in her youth, and inherited its best spirit.
The charm of this literature is its spontaneity. It has no ulterior aim, but delights in simple expression. These people write because they like to write. They are original because they sketch from life. There is something naive and fresh in their vivid pictures. They give us all the accessories. They tell us how they lived, how they dressed, how they thought, how they acted. They talk of their plans, their loves, and their private piques, with the same ingenuous frankness. They condense for us their worldly philosophy, their sentiments, and their experience.
The style of these letters is sometimes heavy and stilted, the wit is often strained and far-fetched, but many of them are written with an easy grace and a lightness of touch as fascinating as inimitable.
The marriage of Julie d'Angennes, in 1645, deprived the Hotel de Rambouillet of one of its chief attractions. It was only through the earnest wish of her family that, after a delay of thirteen years, she yielded at last to the persevering suit of the Marquis, afterwards the Duc de Montausier, and became his wife.
She was then thirty-eight, and he three years younger. The famous "Guirlande de Julie," which he dedicated and presented to her, still exists, as the unique memorial of his patient and enduring love. This beautiful volume, richly bound, decorated with a flower exquisitely painted on each of the twenty-nine leaves and accompanied by a madrigal written by the Marquis himself or by some of the poets who frequented her house, was a remarkable tribute to the graces of the woman whose praises were so delicately sung. The faithful lover, who was a Protestant, gave a crowning proof of his devotion, in changing his religion.
So much adoration could hardly fail to touch the most capricious and obdurate of hearts.
We cannot dismiss this woman, whom Cousin regards as the most accomplished type of the society she adorned, without a word more. Though her ambition was gratified by the honors that fell upon her husband, who after holding many high positions was finally entrusted with the education of the Dauphin; and though her own appointment of dame d'honneur to the Queen gave her an envied place at court, we trace with regret the close of her brilliant career. As has been already indicated, she added to much esprit a character of great sweetness, and manners facile, gracious, even caressing. With less elevation, less independence, and less firmness than her mother, she had more of the sympathetic quality, the frank unreserve, that wins the heart. No one had so many adorers; no one scattered so many hopeless passions; no one so gently tempered these into friendships. She knew always how to say the fitting word, to charm away the clouds of ill humor, to conciliate opposing interests. But this spirit of complaisance which, however charming it may be, is never many degrees removed from the spirit of the courtier, proved to be the misfortune of her later life.
