Marie de Jars, Demoiselle de Gournay, was born at Paris in 1566. She was of a noble and ancient family; her father, at his death, left what in those days was a handsome fortune; but Mademoiselle de Gournay, his widow, had an unfortunate mania for building, which devoured it. When she took her place beside her husband in his grave, she left little but mortgages behind her. Judging from the portraits prefixed to her works, Marie de Jars must in her youth have possessed some personal attractions, in spite of her detractors: her figure was of middle height, her face rather round than oval, but with a pleasing expression, and adorned with a pair of large black eyes and a pretty little mouth. Her own account of herself, in a copy of verses, addressed to her friend Mademoiselle de Ragny, is, that she was of a very lively and obliging disposition. That she was obliging and kind-hearted, many circumstances of her life could prove; but for liveliness, we are inclined to think that she flattered herself: nothing can be further removed from liveliness than her works--they are pompously serious. Her father died when she was very young, leaving five children: two elder and two younger than Marie. The eldest daughter married; the son entered the army; and Marie, the eldest of the remaining three, seems to have been left pretty much to follow her own devices. From her earliest years she had a passion for reading, and showed a wonderful sagacity in the choice of books: her favorites were Amyot, Ronsard, and Montaigne; to these authors she afterward added Racan. She was so faithfully exclusive in her taste, that she never cared to read any others. It was in 1580 that Montaigne published the two first volumes of his Essays. Marie de Jars was scarcely fourteen when they fell accidentally in her way, and her admiration amounted to enthusiasm: she sent a friend to tell Montaigne, who was then in Paris, how much she admired him, and the esteem in which she held his book. This proceeding from so young a person, who was moreover "fort demoiselle," flattered Montaigne very sensibly. He went the very next day to pay a visit to Mademoiselle de Gournay: her conversation and enthusiasm won the heart of the philosopher. In their first interview Montaigne offered her the affection of a father for a daughter and Mademoiselle de Gournay proudly assumed the title of the adopted daughter of Montaigne; and in a letter addressed to him, which is still to be seen, she says, "that she feels as proud of that title as she should be to be called the mother of the Muses themselves." This friendship never failed or diminished; it was the best thing Marie ever achieved in this life, and is her chief claim on the sympathy and interest of posterity. But Marie de Jars became possessed by the demon of wishing to become a distinguished woman on her own account. To accomplish this, she set to work to learn Greek and Latin, and though she brought more zeal than method to her studies, she