dishments. "She scattered all around her the seeds of unhappy passions, whereof she took none too much to heed, and magnanimously kept as friends those whom she did not want for lovers. Still young herself, and unaffectedly beautiful, she took her stand in the world on her love for her daughter, and desired no happiness save that of bringing her out and seeing her shine." As she grew into womanhood she acquired all the graces, beauty, and accomplishments of her mother, who called her with pride the fairest daughter of France. Both mother and daughter were the admired of all admirers at the brilliant entertainments at Versailles, where the court poet composed madrigals in honour of this beautiful nymph and shepherdess.

At length the daughter was wooed and won by M. de Grignan, a lieutenant-general commanding in Provence. It was a marriage of true affection, and though it necessitated her daughter's departure from her immediate neighbourhood, yet she put no obstacle in the way of her happiness. To console her maternal affections during their separation, Madame de Sévigné kept up a constant correspondence with her daughter, but only saw her at long and irregular intervals. Hence arose that voluminous correspondence, which contains the richest store of letters that ever emanated from the pen of woman.

In these letters we obtain a minute knowledge of her private life and habits-the books she read, and the most trivial incidents of the society in which she lived, and of which she was the soul. "After dinner," she writes, we went out into the loveliest woods in the world and talked. We remained until nearly six o'clock, conversing on a great variety of subjects, in a manner so genial, so gentle, so agreeable, so flattering both to you and me, that I am overcome by the remembrance.

In this affectionate correspondence between mother and daughter, we have none of the letters of the latter to judge how far she approached her accomplished parent in the composition of her epistles. If we may judge, however, from the criticisms of a partial mother, these were of a high character. Whenever occasion prompts a response, Madame de Sévigné always compliments her daughter on her letters. "You have some ideas and passages that are incomparable." She writes" Sometimes, too, I give a morsel to Madame de Villars; but she is most interested in the endearments which bring tears to her eyes." So lengthened is this maternal correspondence, that it comprises a period of twenty-five years, up to the time of her death in 1696; with the exception of a few gaps, marking the reunions of mother and daughter, it is unremitting.

It must not be supposed that Madame de Sévigné writes always in a gay and sportive mood, or that she partook of the frivolity of the times. On the contrary, she was of a serious disposition, sometimes sad, especially when she resided at her family residence, surrounded by the sombre forests that awakened in the spring-time the voices of birds, or in the autumn impressed her with the grandeur of the grove. In one of these saddened home reveries she writes to a friend,-"As for my life, you know. I spend it with five or six friends, whose society is pleasant to me, and in the performance of a thousand necessary duties-no light affair. But what troubles me is that nothing is accomplished day by day,and life is made up of days, and we grow old and we die. This, I think, is very sad." Before her death she impresses upon her daughter the importance of Christian morality in her career among a dissolute state of society. Thus she has left behind her lasting precepts of religious purity, entertained

at a period in the history of France noted for dissoluteness and licentiousness.

Glancing over the life and times of this Gem of Womanhood, we are impressed with her greatness of character in sustaining a virtuous life amidst scenes of temptation, where other women of a less noble disposition would have fallen. It is true that envious persons have wickedly endeavoured to throw doubts upon her purity, but none have dared to dispute her maternal earnestness in upholding the duties that subsist between mother and daughter. These were of the most important character in training the young women for their future course in life. Amidst a circle of male admirers, who tried all their powers to entice her from the paths of maternal solicitude, she showed that she was superior to their flatteries by her conduct in leading the way in which her daughter should go. Not only was this shadowed forth by her brilliant letters, but in her own progress through life she was an example to follow. It is true that she mingled in the gaieties of society, but her genius tempered the asperities which might have injuriously affected ordinary women. She was above these. And when purity and innocence reigns in the bosom of an affectionate woman, she is superior to the scandal and calumnies of envious people.

CHAPTER VII.

WOMAN'S ENDURING LOVE & FILIAL PIETY.

20. LADY RACHEL RUSSELL: WHOSE HUSBAND WAS BEHEADED ON A FALSE CHARGE OF TREASON IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES II.

22. ELIZABETH OF SIBERIA: DAUGHTER OF AN EXILE,

WHOSE FREEDOM SHE OBTAINED FROM THE EMPEROR OF

RUSSIA.