Here we have the real Madame de Sevigne, whom we love, on whom we rely, who is as earnest as she is amiable and gay, who goes to the very core of things, and who tells the truth of herself as well as of others.  “You ask me, my dear child, whether I continue to be really fond of life.  I confess to you that I find poignant sorrows in it, but I am even more disgusted with death; I feel so wretched at having to end all this thereby, that, if I could turn back again, I would ask for nothing better.  I find myself under an obligation which perplexes me:  I embarked upon life without my consent, and I must go out of it; that overwhelms me.  And how shall I go?  Which way?  By what door?  When will it be?  In what condition?  Shall I suffer a thousand, thousand pains, which will make me die desperate?  Shall I have brain-fever?  Shall I die of an accident?  How shall I be with God?  What shall I have to show Him?  Shall fear, shall necessity bring me back to Him?  Shall I have no sentiment but that of dread?  What can I hope?  Am I worthy of heaven?  Am I worthy of hell?  Nothing is such madness as to leave one’s salvation in uncertainty, but nothing is so natural; and the stupid life I lead is the easiest thing in the world to understand.  I bury myself in these thoughts, and I find death so terrible, that I hate life more because it leads me thereto than because of the thorns with which it is planted.  You will say that I want to live forever then:  not at all; but, if my opinion had been asked, I should have preferred to die in my nurse’s arms; that would have removed me from vexations of spirit, and would have given me Heaven full surely and easily.”

Madame de Sevigne would have very much scandalized those gentlemen of Port-Royal, if she had let them see into the bottom of her heart as she showed it to her daughter.  Pascal used to say, “There are but three sorts of persons:  those who serve God, having found Him; those who employ themselves in seeking Him, not having found Him; and those who live without seeking Him or having found Him.  The first are reasonable and happy; the last are mad and miserable; the intermediate are miserable and reasonable.”  Without ever having sought and found God, in the absolute sense intended by Pascal, Madame de Sevigne kept approaching Him by gentle degrees.  “We are reading a treatise by M. Namon of Port-Royal on continuous prayer; though he is a hundred feet above my head, he nevertheless pleases and charms us.  One is very glad to see that there have been and still are in the world people to whom God communicates His Holy Spirit in such abundance; but, O God! when shall we have some spark, some degree of it?  How sad to find one’s self so far from it, and so near to something else!  O, fie!  Let us not speak of such plight as that:  it calls for sighs, and groans, and humiliations a hundred times a day.”