Mme. de Sevigne talks upon paper, of the trifling affairs of
every-day life, adding here and there a sparkling anecdote, a bit
of gossip, a delicate characterization, a trenchant criticism, a
dash of wit, a touch of feeling, or a profound thought. All this
is lighted up by her passionate love of her daughter, and in this
light we read the many-sided life of her time for twenty-five
years. Mme. de La Fayette takes the world more seriously, and
replaces the playful fancy of her friend by a richer vein of
imagination and sentiment. She sketches for us the court of
which Madame (title given to the wife of the king's brother) is
the central figure--the unfortunate Princes Henrietta whom she
loved so tenderly, and who died so tragically in her arms. She
writes novels too; not profound studies of life, but fine and
exquisite pictures of that side of the century which appealed
most to her poetic sensibility. We follow the leading characters
of the age through the ten-volume romances of Mlle. de Scudery,
which have mostly long since fallen into oblivion. Doubtless the
portraits are a trifle rose-colored, but they accord, in the
main, with more veracious history. The Grande Mademoiselle
describes herself and her friends, with the curious naivete of a
spoiled child who thinks its smallest experiences of interest to
all the world. Mme. de Maintenon gives us another picture, more
serious, more thoughtful, but illuminated with flashes of
wonderful insight.

Most of these women wrote simply to amuse themselves and their
friends. It was only another mode of their versatile expression.
With rare exceptions, they were not authors consciously or by
intention. They wrote spontaneously, and often with reckless
disregard of grammar and orthography. But the people who move