"I have business with the abbé: I am with my dear workmen; and life passes so quickly, and, consequently, we approach our end so fast, that I wonder how one can feel worldly affairs so deeply. My woods inspire me with these reflections. My people have such ridiculous care of me, that they guard me in the evening, completely armed, while the only enemy they find is a squirrel." These twilight walks had a sorrowful conclusion. [Sidenote: 1676. Ætat. 50.] In January she was suddenly laid prostrate by rheumatism: it was the first illness she ever had--the first intimation she had received, she says, that she was not immortal. Her son was with her: they were better friends than ever. "There is no air of maternity," she writes, "in our intercourse: he is excellent company, and he finds me the same." On this disaster, his tenderness and attentions were warm and sedulous. "Your brother," she writes, "has been an inexpressible consolation to me." She at first made light of her attack, in her letters, though she was obliged to acknowledge that she could not move her right side, and was forced to write the few lines she was able to trace with her left hand; and soon she lost even the power of using this. In the then state of medicine, her cure, of course, was long and painful. This illness deranged many of madame de Sévigné's plans. On her return to Paris, she was ordered to take medicinal baths, to complete her cure. She went to Vichi, where her health mended, and then returned to Paris, where she expected a speedy visit from her daughter. Her letters during this period are very diverting. She throws an interest over every detail. The one that describes her visit at Versailles, on her return, gives us a lively and picturesque account of the etiquette and amusements of the court.[73]