Mme. de Sevigne was on the best terms with every great writer of her time—­Pascal, Racine, La Fontaine, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, La Rochefoucauld.  She was a woman of such broad affections that numerous friends and admirers were a necessary part of her existence.  Of all the eminent women of the seventeenth century, she had the greatest number of lovers—­suitors who frequently became her tormentors.  Menage, her teacher, who threatened to leave her never to see her again, was brought back to her by kind words, such as:  “Farewell, friend—­of all my friends the best.”  The Abbe Marigny, that “delicate epicurean, that improviser of fine triolets, ballads, vaudevilles, that enemy of all sadness and sticklers for morality,” charmed her, at times, with sentimental ballads, such as the following: 

  “Si l’amour est un doux servage,
  Si l’on ne peut trop estimer
  Les plaisirs ou l’amour engage,
  Qu’on est sot de ne pas aimer!

  “Mais si l’on se sent enflammer
  D’un feu dont l’ardeur est extreme,
  Et qu’on n’ose pas l’exprimer,
  Qu’on est sot alors que l’on aime!

  “Si dans la fleur de son bel age,
  Une qui pourrait tout charmer,
  Vous donne son coeur en partage,
  Qu’on est sot de ne point aimer!

  “Mais s’il faut toujours s’alarmer,
  Craindre, rougir, devenir bleme,
  Aussitot qu’on s’entend nommer,
  Qu’on est sot alors que l’on aime!

  “Pour complaire au plus beau visage
  Qu’amour puisse jamais former,
  S’il ne faut rien qu’un doux langage,
  Qu’on est sot de ne pas aimer!

  “Mais quand on se voit consumer. 
  Si la belle est toujours de meme,
  Sans que rien la puisse animer,
  Qu’on est sot alors que l’on aime!

“L’ENVOI.

  “En amour si rien n’est amer,
  Qu’on est sot de ne pas aimer! 
  Si tout l’est au degre supreme,
  Qu’on est sot alors que l’on aime!

[If love is a sweet bondage, If we cannot esteem too much The pleasures in which love engages, How foolish one is not to love!

  But if we feel ourselves inflamed
  With a passion whose ardor is extreme,
  And which we dare not express,
  How foolish we are, then, to love!

  If in the flower of her youth
  There is one who could charm all. 
  And offers you her heart to share,
  How very foolish not to love!

  But if we must always be full of alarm—­
  Fear, blush and become pallid,
  As soon as our name is spoken,
  How foolish to love!

  If to please the most beautiful countenance
  That love can ever form,
  Only a mellow language is necessary,
  How foolish not to love!

  But if we see ourselves wasting away,
  If the belle is always the same
  And cannot be animated,
  How very foolish to love!

ENVOY.

  If in love, nothing is bitter,
  How dreadfully foolish not to love! 
  If everything is so to the highest degree,
  How awfully foolish to love!]