was a Provencal, he was fond of his province, his castle of Grignan, and his wife.  Madame de Sevigne found herself condemned to separation from the daughter whom she loved exclusively.  “In vain I seek my darling daughter; I can no longer find her, and every step she takes removes her farther from me.  I went to St. Mary’s, still weeping and still dying of grief; it seemed as if my heart and my soul were being wrenched from me; and, in truth, what a cruel separation!  I asked leave to be alone:  I was taken into Madame du Housset’s room, and they made me up a fire.  Agnes sat looking at me without speaking:  that was our bargain.  I staid there till five o’clock, without ceasing to sob:  all my thoughts were mortal, wounds to me.  I wrote to M. de Grignan, you can imagine in what key.  Then I went to Madame de La Fayette’s, who redoubled my griefs by the interest she took in them.  She was alone, ill and distressed at the death of one of the nuns; she was just as I could have desired.  I returned hither at eight; but when I came in, O! can you conceive what I felt as I mounted these stairs?  That room into which I used always to go, alas!  I found the doors of it open, but I saw everything disfurnished, everything disarranged, and your little daughter, who reminded me of mine.  The wakenings of the night were dreadful; I think of you continuously:  it is what devotees call an habitual thought, such as one should have of God, if one did one’s duty.  Nothing gives me any distraction.  I see that carriage, which is forever going on and will never come near me.  I am forever on the highways; it seems as if I were afraid sometimes that the carriage will upset with me.  The rains there have been for the last three days reduce me to despair; the Rhone causes me strange alarm.  I have a map before my eyes, I know all the places where you sleep.  This evening you are at Nevers; on Sunday you will be at Lyons, where you will receive this letter.  I have received only two of yours; perhaps the third will come; that is the only comfort I desire:  as for others, I seek for none.”  During five and twenty years Madame de Sevign~ could never become accustomed to her daughter’s absence.  She set out for the Rochers, near Vitry, a family estate of M. de Sevigne’s.  Her friend the Duke of Chaulnes was governor of Brittany.  “You shall now have news of our states as your penalty for being a Breton.  M. de Chaulnes arrived on Sunday evening, to the sound of everything that can make any in Vitry.  On Monday morning he sent me a letter; I wrote back to say that I would go and dine with him.  There are two dining-tables in the same room; fourteen covers at each table.  Monsieur presides at one, Madame at the other.  The good cheer is prodigious; joints are carried away quite untouched, and as for the pyramids of fruit, the doors require to be heightened.  Our fathers did not foresee this sort of machine, indeed they did not even foresee that a door required