Page:Sévigné - Letters to her Daughter and Friends, 1869.djvu/14

 8 library and his encouragement, if not personal instruction, in her literary pursuits. She was taught Latin, Italian, and Spanish ; her instructors were Ménage and Ohapelain, and other professors of polite literature. The result is before the world — that the woman's mind is as susceptible of cultivation as that of the man's, and that she is made happier, better, more lovely, and more capable of doing good by a liberal and careful cultivation of her intellectual powers.

In person and manners Mademoiselle de Rabutin is represented as very attractive, if not positively beautiful. M. Ph. A Grouville, her French biographer, thus describes her:

" An exact portrait of her person would savor of romance, and would be out of place; we may, however, represent the young Rabutin to our imagination as a truly handsome woman, with more character of countenance than beauty ; with features more expressive than commanding; an easy figure, a stature rather tall than short, a redundancy of fine light hair, excellent health, a fine color, a brilliant complexion, eyes, the vivacity of which gave additional animation to her language and agility to her movements, a pleasing voice, as much knowledge of music as existed in those days, and of dancing, in which she excelled for the times. This is the idea that her portraits, her friends, or herself give of her. And certainly her nose, tending a little toward the square, which she herself ridicules, could not spoil her whole appearance as much as the age of eighteen embellished it, when, in 1644, she married Henry, Marquis de Sévigné, of an ancient family of Brittany. To this appendage of merit and charms she added a dower of a hundred thousand crowns, which, at that period, were not of less value than seven hundred thousand francs."

The Marquis de Sévigné was also rich, moreover he was young, handsome, and gay. Her good uncle doubtless believed he had secured the happiness of his niece by this connection; but the sequel proved otherwise. The marquis soon showed himself to be weak, vain, extravagant, and, finally, a profligate. Though he always admitted the charms and merits of his wife, yet, after a year or two, he began to neglect her for unworthy associates. The siren of that age, Ninon de l'Enclos, drew him to her side, and for that wanton the happiness of his home was sacrificed.

Bussy de Rabutin, cousin of Madame de Sévigné's father, an