Madame De Sevigne.*

And then what pictures of the old past of France ! its court and courtiers , its " grand monarque , " and the petty incidents of every day existence , the habits of thought and fashion current in another generation , in another land , —are we able to bring out , one by one , from the crowded canvas before us . The king himself is there" great in his littleness and little in his greatness ";

, and Versailles , in all its magnificence , and Parisian and French life in all their good and evil—their prodigality and their parsimony , their magnificence and their squalor , their realism and their heartlessness—are admirabl y depicted for us . That Louis XP 7 . had fine natural powers , though most badly educated , no one can fairly deny , we think ; and that he was probabla greater and a

y better ruler , after all , than in the reaction of revolutionary thought we are sometimes willing to concede to-day , we think is also the fact . And yet that p icture of absolute irresponsiblity has something in it both sad and fearful , iuasmuch as you . seem to catch glimpses here and there of an . undercurrent of thought , and dissatisfaction , ancl anger at work which forced fair France , its court and people , into the heartrending throes of an

implacable and godless revolution one day . Louis himself had outlived those " hours of folly and passion , " when poor Louise de la Valliere could charm , or Madame cle Montespan could domineer . The crowd of favourite " sultanas " which had swayed his impetuous , and ill-trained youth had long since given way to the mature iron rule of Madame de Mainton , to whom Louis had been rivately marriedand who

p , once the beautiful wif e of the witty and profligate Scarron , had succeeded in captivating the ageing monarch , and had successfully set up that regime of Jesuit intrigue and hopeless fanaticism which was preparing , though at a distance still , fearful troubles and mournful ignominy for the court and people alike .

St . Simon , inhis wondrous "Memoirs , " has given us an account of thesame epoch , and as we seek to ponder over it , or to draw from his sarcastic epigrams , or Madame cle Sevigne ' s lighter touches , the picture as it stands before us now in all its certainty , clearness , reliability , ancl reality , it is one , we think , which must distress rather than deli ght , depress rather than cheer , alarm rather than edify every thoughtful student of so many vanished

personages , so many vanished scenes . Marie de Babntin Chantal was born in 1626 , the only surviving daughter of an old Burgundian family , once great in the old chateau of Bourbill y , with countless qtiarterings on their coat of arms of Rabutins , and Chantals , and other noble families , and even the royal family of Denmark . In addition to thisthe familhacl the privilege of claiming a canonized sainta certain

, y , Jeanne Madame de Chantal , the friend of Francis de Sales ancl Vincent de Paul . Her son , tho Baron de Chantal , married , it seems , a pretty and pious heiress , Marie de Coulanges , ancl in 1626 was born their second and surviving child , Marie de Chantal , better known in after life as the Marquise de Sevigne . Her father was killed at the island of Rhe , fighting against the English with great gallantry when only thirty-one . His little daughter was then not more

than one year old , and as her gentle mother , who would not re-marry , died herself not long after , the poor little orphan , now an heiress , was sent to her maternal grandfather and grandmother . Thus she grows up , motherless , and brotherless , ancl sisterless—a poor little lonel y " waif" cast on the rough shores of life . The good grandfather and grandmother ere long also in turn passed awayancl were buried in the church of the Minimesin the Place

, , Koyale , Paris , where the heart of her father and the body of mother were interred . . Happily for herself and for us , after some debate in that mischievous institution the " Conseil cle Famille , " Marie de Chantal was confided to the