Leaving the desert and the church, and once more entering the world, we immediately encounter, amongst women, one, and one only, in the first rank—­Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marchioness of Sevigne, born at Paris on the 5th of February, 1627, five months before Bossuet.  Like a considerable number of women in Italy in the sixteenth century, and in France in the seventeenth, she had received a careful education.  She knew Italian, Latin, and Spanish; she had for masters Menage and Chapelain; and she early imbibed a real taste for solid reading, which she owed to her leaning towards the Jansenists and Port-Royal.  She was left a widow at five and twenty by the death of a very indifferent husband, and she was not disposed to make a second venture.  Before getting killed in a duel, M. de Sevigne had made a considerable gap in the property of his wife, who, however, had brought him more than five hundred thousand livres.  Madame de Sevigne had two children:  she made up her mind to devote herself to their education, to restore their fortune, and to keep her love for them and for her friends.  Of them she had many, often very deeply smitten with her; all remained faithful to her, and, she deserted none of them, though they might be put on trial and condemned like Fouquet, or perfidious and cruel like her cousin M. de Bussy-Rabutin.  The safest and most agreeable of acquaintances, ever ready to take part in the joys as well as the anxieties of those whom she honored with her friendship, without permitting this somewhat superficial sympathy to agitate the depths of her heart, she had during her life but one veritable passion, which she admitted nobody to share with her.  Her daughter, Madame de Grignan, the prettiest girl in France, clever, virtuous, business-like, appears in her mother’s letters fitful, cross-grained, and sometimes rather cold.  Madame de Sevigne is a friend whom we read over and over again, whose emotions we share, to whom we go for an hour’s distraction and delightful chat.  We have no desire to chat with Madame de Grignan; we gladly leave her to her mother’s exclusive affection, feeling infinitely obliged to her, however, for having existed, inasmuch as her mother wrote letters to her.  Madame de Sevigne’s letters to her daughter are superior to all her other letters, charming as they are.  When she writes to M. de Pomponne, to M. de Coulanges, to M. de Bussy, the style is less familiar, the heart less open, the soul less stirred.  She writes to her daughter as she would speak to her; it is not letters, it is an animated and charming conversation, touching upon everything, embellishing everything with an inimitable grace.  She gave her daughter in marriage to Count de Grignan in January, 1669; next year her son-in-law was appointed lieutenant-general of the king in Provence; he was to fill the place there of the Duke of Vendome, too young to discharge his functions as governor.  In the month of January, 1671, M. de Grignan removed his wife to Aix:  he