In the earlier stages of this intimacy, Mme. de La Fayette was a
little sensitive as to how the world might regard it, as may be
seen in a note to Mme. de Sable, in which she asks her to explain
it to the young Comte de Saint-Paul, a son of Mme. de Longueville.

"I beg of you to speak of the matter in such a way as to put out
of his head the idea that it is anything serious," she writes.
"I am not sufficiently sure what you think of it yourself to feel
certain that you will say the right thing, and it may be
necessary to begin by convincing my embassador. However, I must
trust to your tact, which is superior to ordinary rules. Only
convince him. I dislike mortally that people of his age should
imagine that I have affairs of gallantry. It seems to them that
every one older than themselves is a hundred, and they are
astonished that such should be regarded of any account. Besides,
he would believe these things of M. de La Rochefoucauld more
readily than of any one else. In fine, I do not want him to
think anything about it except that the gentleman is one of my
friends."

The picture we have of La Rochefoucauld from the pen of Mme. de
Sevigne has small resemblance to the ideal that one forms of the
cynical author of the Maxims. He had come out of the storms of
the Fronde a sad and disappointed man. The fires of his nature
seem to have burned out with the passions of his youth, if they
had ever burned with great intensity. "I have seen love nowhere
except in romances," he says, and even his devotion to Mme. de
Longueville savors more of the ambitious courtier than of the
lover. His nature was one that recoiled from all violent