THE ROCKS, Sunday, Sept. 15, 1680.
What infinite obligations does my heart owe you, and how happy have
you made it, by permitting me to hope for your presence this winter!
I have read over and over again the delightful letter I so fondly and
impatiently expected. I said to myself, “Yes, this is the voice of my
child, who assures me she shall come to Paris soon after All-Saints.”
Oh, how great the joy to have such comfortable assurance in my
possession!
You surprise me at the profound secrecy that our lovely saint observes
of her noble and pious intentions to Madame du Janet. It is so natural
to talk of what we ardently wish, of what the heart is full of, that
it is doing penance beforehand to keep silence on such occasions; but
such is her disposition; she speaks on this subject only to her holy
father alone, as it is he alone who is to determine the duration of a
residence which she would be sorry to have protracted. By depriving
herself of the pleasure of communicating her intentions, she finds them
more strongly confirmed in her breast.
I can not at this distance discover what is become of the crowd that
so lately swarmed in your castle. I left you, I thought, in the midst
of a fair; but since I now find you reposing on your little bed, you
must certainly have found means to escape from the throng. Montgobert
has not written to me, and you mention your health very slightly; you
ought to have informed me whether the medicines you are taking have the
desired effect, and whether this thinness upon thinness is likely to
reduce you to your former state. It is a sad misfortune that what does
you service in one way, should injure you in another; it throws a damp
upon the satisfaction we should otherwise feel.
We are at present among a set of persons with whom we make great use of
both our reason and reasoning. You know, my child, what a good hearer
I am, _thanks to God and you_, as they say in this country; I have
lost, by dint of listening to you, the gross ignorance I possessed on
many subjects; this is a pleasure I now feel the advantage of. We have
had here a party or two at ombre and reversis, and the next day _altra
scena_ (a change of scene). M. de Montmoron came, you know he has a
great deal of wit; Father Damaie, who does not live quite a hundred
miles from this place; my son, who you know is perfect master of
disputation, and Corbinelli’s letters, making four, and I am audience
for them; they entertain me exceedingly. M. de Montmoron perfectly
understands your philosophy, and controverts it stoutly. My son
maintains the cause of _your father_; as also Damaie; and Corbinelli,
in his letters, takes the same side; but they are not all more than
a match for Montmoron. He insists that we can have no ideas but what
are imparted through the medium of the senses. My son contends that
we think independently of our senses; for instance, _we think that
we think_:[208] this is in general the subject of our disputations,
which have been carried on with great spirit, and have delighted me
extremely. Could you, my child, have made a party in this conversation,
by your letter, as Corbinelli has done, you would have strengthened a
little our Sévigné. And now I mention him, I must acquaint you that
he is still very far from being well, though he thinks himself out of
danger, as indeed I do also; but he is tired of doctors as well as you;
he has taken more medicines than were necessary; they have acted upon
his blood, and heated it to such a degree that every day some of those
horrible eruptions appear which are so very disagreeable both to those
who suffer and those who see them; thus the poor fellow is happy to
have a little respite, that he may repose himself.
[208] We are agreeably surprised to see at this era, in the
heart of Brittany, a gentleman who so ably refuted the system
of _innate ideas_, and already exhibiting the theory of Locke.
For though the English philosopher was in Paris in 1675, I do
not think his opinions were ever promulgated there, or that they
were even at that time published. But Hobbes, and particularly
Gassendi, had raised objections to the meditations of Descartes,
of which the principles had sprung up in able heads.
But what deceives Madame de Sévigné here, is the word to _think_,
ill understood, and applied to many secondary operations of
the understanding. Its too general signification disguises its
origin. Descartes himself was mistaken by not submitting this
word sufficiently to the analysis which he himself invented.
Yesterday I observed, with admiration, how very easy it is to console
ourselves for the want of play by a better avocation; and how patient
we are while we are squandering our money in farthings, as I said the
other day at Rennes. But without imitating you, for I hate a bad copy
of a good original, I shall tell you that my age and experience make
me wish not to have always such demands upon me, and that I could now
and then put a little wit into my poor head; indeed it is what I am
every day endeavoring to do when in my closet or my wood. You will not
perhaps be displeased to know the person who has engaged us in play
of late. It is a tolerably pretty woman from Vitré, who has been here
three nights, and during her stay we have hardly had the cards out of
our hands, she is so passionately fond of them. How much better does
Mademoiselle de Grignan spend her time, happy creature! In reading
your letters over more carefully, I find she speaks without reserve of
her intentions to Madame du Janet, and that is the only conversation
she had with M. de Grignan that she conceals from her; but still I can
not help wondering that she should mention the one without the other.
It must be no small satisfaction to her to have the conversation of
so prudent and good a person. I reverence more than ever the wise
dispensations of Providence when I reflect how it turns the steps you
are about to take to my advantage; and I already begin to enjoy, in
imagination, the pleasure I am to receive.
I ask a thousand pardons: I have met with a little book of
madrigals,[209] containing the prettiest things in the world. I must
endeavor to bring them into favor with you this winter. It is a
pleasure to have a bad memory; we are reading Sarasin again, and I am
as much delighted with him as at first; this is the case also with
_Les Petites Lettres_; we find something new in these, and we add
others according to our fancy: your brother has an excellent knack
at furnishing these amusements. I had a mind to dip again into the
Prejudices,[210] I think them admirable: but what crowns the whole, my
dearest child, is, that these things all lead directly to you. Oh, how
sweet the consolation, to think that we shall meet once more! Alas, a
whole year has passed in continual adieus; mortifying occupation! I
can not look upon the past with so much tranquillity as you do. It is
to me a source of the bitterest uneasiness, at least it has been so
till I read the pleasing assurance of your return; now I forgive it
in consideration of the future, which offers itself to my imagination
fraught with hopes that make amends for all.
[209] By La Sablière.
[210] A work of M. Nicole’s, entitled, _Préjugés légitimes contre
les Calvinistes_ (Well-founded Prejudices against the Calvinists).