Living from 1626 to 1696, Mme. de Sevigne was en rapport with the
best life of the great century of French letters. She was the
granddaughter of the mystical Mme. de Chantal, who was too much
occupied with her convents and her devotions to give much
attention to the little Marie, left an orphan at the age of six
years. The child did not inherit much of her grandmother's
spirit of reverence, and at a later period was wont to indulge in
many harmless pleasantries about her pious ancestress and "our
grandfather, St. Francois de Sales." Deprived so early of the
care of a mother, she was brought up by an uncle, the good Abbe
de Coulanges--the "Bien-Bon"--whose life was devoted to her
interests. Though born in the Place Royale, that long-faded
center of so much that was brilliant and fascinating two
centuries ago, much of her youth was passed in the family chateau
at Livry, where she was carefully educated in a far more solid
fashion than was usual among the women of her time. She had an
early introduction to the Hotel de Rambouillet, and readily
caught its intellectual tastes, though she always retained a
certain bold freedom of speech and manners, quite opposed to its
spirit.

Her instructors were Chapelain and Menage, both honored habitues
of that famous salon. The first was a dull poet, a profound
scholar, somewhat of a pedant, and notoriously careless in his
dress--le vieux Chapelain, his irreverent pupil used to call
him. When he died of apoplexy, years afterwards, she wrote to
her daughter: "He confesses by pressing the hand; he is like a
statue in his chair. So God confounds the pride of
philosophers." But he taught her Latin, Spanish, and Italian,