fathom all the subtleties of her friends the Port Royalists, and
begged them to "have the kindness, out of pity for her, to
thicken their religion a little as it evaporated in so much
reasoning." As she grows older the tone of seriousness is more
perceptible. "If I could only live two hundred years," she
writes, "it seems to me that I might be an admirable person."
The rationalistic tendencies of Mme. de Grignan give her some
anxiety, and she rallies her often upon the doubtful philosophy
of her PERE DESCARTES. She could not admit a theory which
pretended to prove that her dog Marphise had no soul, and she
insisted that if the Cartesians had any desire to go to heaven,
it was out of curiosity. "Talk to the Cardinal (de Retz) a
little of your MACHINES; machines that love, machines that have a
choice for some one, machines that are jealous, machines that
fear. ALLEZ, ALLEZ, you are jesting! Descartes never intended
to make us believe all that."

In her youth Mme. de Sevigne did not like the country because it
was windy and spoiled her beautiful complexion; perhaps, too,
because it was lonely. But with her happy gift of adaptation she
came to love its tranquillity. She went often to the solitary
old family chateau in Brittany to make economies and to retrieve
the fortune which suffered successively from the reckless
extravagance of her husband and son, and from the expensive
tastes of the Comte de Grignan, who was acting governor of
Provence, and lived in a state much too magnificent for his
resources. Of her life at The Rocks she has left us many
exquisite pictures. "I go out into the pleasant avenues; I have
a footman who follows me; I have books, I change place, I vary
the direction of my promenade; a book of devotion, a book of