PREFACE. No series of the French Classics would be complete if it did not include a selection from Madame de Sévigné's correspondence. Of the 'sémillante Marquise's' literary merits everything has been said that can be said. Her originality, her brilliancy, the extraordinary versatility of her powers, are topics which need no further commendation after the reviews and strictures of La Harpe, Charles Nodier, M. Sainte-Beuve, and M. Villemain. But, in addition to her gifts as an accomplished writer, she claims also a prominent place amongst the most important historians of the seventeenth century. The collection of her Letters forms a gallery of portraits equal in merit and superior in impartiality to the Memoirs of SaintSimon; and as we follow her in her excursions from the Hôtel Carnavalet to Livry, and from Bourbilly to Les Rochers, we feel that we become thoroughly acquainted with the distinguished personages who played a part during the agitated period which extended from the beginning of the wars of La Fronde to the death of Cardinal Mazarin. In preparing for the Clarendon Press this new volume, I have had the great advantage of being able to take as my guide the admirable edition which M. Mesnard is publishing in Messrs. Hachette's series 'Les Grands Écrivains de la France. And if the reader would form some idea of the obligations we are under to these gentlemen, let him take the 1 In twelve volumes 8vo. Two additional volumes are taken up by a Glossary, for which we are indebted to M. E. Sommer, and which cbtained last year a prize at the Académie Française. |