In 1644, she was married to the Marquis Henri de Sévigné, who was killed six years later in a duel, but who had, in the meantime, succeeded in making a considerable gap in her immense fortune, in spite of the precautions of her uncle, the Abbé of Coulanges. Henceforward, her interests in life were centred in the education of her two children; to them she wrote letters which have brought her name down to posterity as, possibly, the greatest epistolary writer that the history of literature has ever recorded. Mme. de Sévigné was but nineteen years old when, after the marriage of Julie d'Angennes, the frequenters of the Hôtel de Rambouillet began to disperse, and she was in much demand by the successors of Mme. de Rambouillet. While the women of the reign of Louis XIII.--Mmes. de Hautefort, de Sablé, de Longueville, de Chevreuse, etc.--were exceedingly talented talkers, they were poor writers: but in Mme. de Sévigné, Mme. de La Fayette, and Mlle. de Scudéry both arts were developed to the highest degree. Mme. de Sévigné 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. Ménage, 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 Abbé 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 extrême, Et qu'on n'ose pas l'exprimer, Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime! "Si dans la fleur de son bel âge, 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 blême, Aussitôt 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 même, 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 degré suprême, 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!