Marie de Rabutin-Chantal was born on the 5th February, 1626. The family of Rabutin was a distinguished one of Burgundy, and Chantal was its elder branch. Her paternal grandmother, Jeanne-Françoise Fremiot, now canonized, was a foundress of a religious institution, called the Sisters of Visitation; which was the cause of a sort of hereditary alliance between her grand-daughter and the sisters of St. Mary, whose houses she was in the habit of visiting in Paris, and during her various journeys. Mademoiselle de Rabutin lost her father in her early infancy. When she was only a year and a half old, the English made a descent upon the isle of Rhé, for the purpose of succouring Rochelle. M. de Chantal put himself at the head of a troop of gentlemen volunteers, and went out to oppose them. The artillery of the enemy's fleet was turned upon them. and M. de Chantal, together with the greater part of his followers, were left dead on the field. It has been 1597. said that he fell by the hand of Cromwell himself. [Sidenote: 1697. July 22.] The baron de Chantal was a French noble of the old feudal times; when a cavalier regarded his arms and military services as his greatest glory, and as the origin of his rank and privileges. His daughter has preserved a curious specimen of his independence in his mode of treating great men, and of the impressive concision of his letter writing. When Schomberg was made marshal of France, he wrote to him-- "Monseigneur, "Rank--black beard--intimacy. "Chantal." By which few words he conveys his opinion that Schomberg owed his advancement, not to his valour nor military exploits, but to his rank, his having a black beard, like Louis XIII., and his intimacy with that monarch. The mother of mademoiselle de Rabutin was Marie de Coulanges, who was of the class of nobility distinguished in France as of the robe; that is, as being ennobled through their having filled high civil situations of chancellor, judge, &c. She died in 1636, when her daughter was only ten years of age, and the orphan fell under the care of her maternal grandfather, M. de Coulanges (her grandmother, the saint, being too much occupied by her religious duties to attend to her grandchild's welfare and education): he, also, dying the same year, her guardianship devolved on her uncle, Christophe de Coulanges, abbé de Livry. Henceforth he was a father to her.