"What calls far more for our admiration than for our regret, is the spectacle of a brave woman facing death--of which she had no doubt from the first days of her illness--with astounding firmness and submission. This person, so tender and so weak towards all whom she loved, showed nothing but courage and piety when she believed that her hour had come; and, impressed by the use she managed to make of that good store in the last moments of her life, we could not but remark of what utility and of what importance it is to have the mind stocked with the good matter and holy reading for which Mme. de Sévigné had a liking--not to say a wonderful hunger." In order to give an idea of the place that Mme. de Sévigné holds in the opinion of the average Frenchman, we quote the final words of M. Vallery-Radot: "To take a place among the greatest writers, without ever having written a book or even having thought of writing one--this is what seems impossible, and yet this is what happened to Mme. de Sévigné. Her contemporaries knew her as a woman distinguished for her _esprit_, frank, playful and sprightly humor, irreproachable conduct, loyalty to her friends, and as an idolizer of her daughter; no one suspected that she would partake of the glory of our classical authors--and she, less than any one. She had immortalized herself, without wishing or knowing it, by an intimate correspondence which is, to-day, universally regarded as one of the most precious treasures and one of the most original monuments to French literature. To deceive the _ennui_ of absence, she wrote to her daughter all that she had in her heart and that came to her mind--what she did, wished to do, saw and learned, news of court, city, Brittany, army, everything--sadly or gayly, according to the subject, always with the most keen, ardent, delicate, and touching sentiments of tenderness and sympathy. She amuses, instructs, interests, moves to tears or laughter. All that passes within or before her, passes within and before us. If she depicts an object, we see it; if she relates an event, we are present at its occurrence; if she makes a character talk, we hear his words, see his gestures, and distinguish his accent. All is true, real, living: this is more than talent--it is enchantment. Generations pass away in turn; a single one, or, rather, a group escapes the general oblivion--the group of friends of Mme. de Sévigné."