第34章 CHAPTER VII. (1)

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, though she was really tender." As an evidence of her candor, he thinks it worth while to record that "she did not even conceal her age, but told freely in what year and place she was born." But she combined to an eminent degree sweetness with strength, sensibility with reason, and it was the blending of such diverse qualities that gave so rare a flavor to her character. In this, too, lies the secret of the vast capacity for friendship which was one of her most salient points. It is through the records which these friendships have left, through the literary work that formed the solace of so many hours of sadness and suffering, and through the letters of Mme. de Sevigne, that we are able to trace the classic outlines of this fine and complex nature, so noble, so poetic, so sweet, and yet so strong.

Mme. de La Fayette was eight years younger than Mme. de Sevigne, and died three years earlier; hence they traversed together the brilliant world of the second half of the century of which they are among the most illustrious representatives. The young Marie-

Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne had inherited a taste for letters and was carefully instructed by her father, who was a field- marshal and the governor of Havre, where he died when she was only fifteen. She had not passed the first flush of youth when her mother contracted a second marriage with the Chevalier Renaud de Sevigne, whose name figures among the frondeurs as the ardent friend of Cardinal de Retz, and later among the devout Port Royalists. It is a fact of more interest to us that he was an uncle of the Marquis de Sevigne, and the best result of the marriage to the young girl, who was not at all pleased and whose fortunes it clouded a little, was to bring her into close relations with the woman to whom we owe the most intimate details of her life.

The rare natural gifts of Mlle. De La Vergne were not left without due cultivation. Rapin and Menage taught her Latin.

"That tiresome Menage," as she lightly called him, did not fail, according to his custom, to lose his susceptible heart to the remarkable pupil who, after three months of study, translated Virgil and Horace better than her masters. He put this amiable weakness on record in many Latin and Italian verses, in which he addresses her as Laverna, a name more musical than flattering, if one recalls its Latin significance. She received an education of another sort, in the salon of her mother, a woman of much intelligence, as well as a good deal of vanity, who posed a little as a patroness of letters, gathering about her a circle of beaux esprits, and in other ways signaling the taste which was a heritage from her Provencal ancestry. On can readily imagine the rapidity with which the young girl developed in such an atmosphere. The abbe Costar, "most gallant of pedants and most pedantic of gallants," who had an equal taste for literature and good dinners, calls her "the incomparable," sends her his books, corresponds with her, and expresses his delight at finding her "so beautiful, so spirituelle, so full of reason." The poet Scarron speaks of her as "toute lumineuse, toute precieuse."

The circle she met in the salon of her godmother, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, had no less influence in determining her future fortunes. With her rare reputation for beauty and esprit, as well as learning, she took her place early in this brilliant and distinguished society in which she was to play so graceful and honored a part. She was sought and admired not only by the men of letters who were so cordially welcomed by the favorite niece of Richelieu, but by the gay world that habitually assembled at the Petit Luxembourg. It was here that she perfected the tone of natural elegance which always distinguished her and made her conspicuous even at court, where she passed so many years of her life.

She was not far from twenty-one when she became the wife of the Comte de La Fayette, of whom little is known save that he died early, leaving her with two sons. He is the most shadowy of figures, and whether he made her life happy or sad does not definitely appear, though there is a vague impression that he left something to be desired in the way of devotion. A certain interest attaches to him as the brother of the beautiful Louise de La Fayette, maid of honor to Anne of Austria, who fled from the compromising infatuation of Louis XIII, to hide her youth and fascinations in the cloister, under the black robe and the cherished name of Mere Angelique de Chaillot.