The interest of the modern world in this remarkable woman is centred mainly in her letters.  Guizot says:  “Mme. de Sevigne is a friend whom we read over and over again, whose emotions we share, to whom we go for an hour’s distraction and delightful chat; we have no desire to chat with Mme. de Grignan (her daughter)—­we gladly leave her to her mother’s exclusive affection, feeling infinitely obliged to her for having existed, inasmuch as her mother wrote letters to her.  Mme. de Sevigne’s letters to her daughter are superior to all her other epistles, charming as they all are; when she writes to M. Pomponne, to M. de Coulanges, to M. de Bussy, the style is less familiar, the heart less open, the soul less stirred; she writes to her daughter as she would speak to her—­it is not a letter, it is an animated and charming conversation, touching upon everything, embellishing everything with an inimitable grace.”

She had married her daughter to the Comte de Grignan, a man of forty, twice married, and with children, homely, but wealthy and aristocratic; writing to her cousin, Bussy-Rabutin, concerning this marriage, she said:  “All these women (the count’s former wives) died expressly to make room for your cousin.”  By marrying her daughter to such a man she encouraged all the questionable proprieties of the time.  Mme. de Sevigne’s affection for that daughter amounted almost to idolatry; it was to her that most of the mother’s letters were written, telling her of her health, what was being done at Vichy, and about her business and for that child the authoress gave up her life at Paris in order to economize and thereby to help Mme. de Grignan in her extravagance, her son-in-law being an expert in spending money.

The intensity of her nature is well reflected in her letter upon the separation from her daughter:  “In vain I seek my darling daughter; I can no longer find her, and every step she takes removes her farther from me.  I went to St. Mary’s, still weeping and dying of grief; it seemed as if my heart and my soul were being wrenched from me and, in truth, what a cruel separation!  I asked leave to be alone; I was taken into Mme. du Housset’s room, and they made me up a fire.  Agnes sat looking at me, without speaking—­that was our bargain.  I stayed there till five o’clock, without ceasing to sob; all my thoughts were mortal wounds to me.  I wrote to M. de Grignan (you can imagine in what key).  Then I went to Mme. de La Fayette’s, and she redoubled my griefs by the interest she took in them; she was alone, ill, and distressed at the death of one of the nuns; she was just as I should have desired, I returned hither at eight; but oh, when I came in! can you conceive what I felt as I mounted these stairs?  That room into which I always used to go, alas!  I found the doors of it open, but I saw everything upturned, disarranged, and your little daughter, who reminded me of mine....  The wakenings of the