Page:Sévigné - Letters to her Daughter and Friends, 1869.djvu/24



24 will forgive me, in consideration of the great interest I take in your affairs.

It is said you have written to the king. Send me a copy of your letter, and give me a little information respecting your mode of life, what sort of things amuse you, and whether the alterations you are making in your house do not contribute a good deal toward it. I have spent the winter in Brittany, where I have planted a great number of trees, and a labyrinth, that will require Ariadne's clew to find the way out of it. I have also purchased some land, to which I have said, as usual, " I shall convert you into a park." I have extended my walks at a trifling expense. My daughter sends you a thousand remembrances. I beg mine to all your family.

LETTER VI.

, June 3, 1668.

I wrote to you the last ; why have you not answered my letter ? I have been expecting to hear from you, and have at length found the Italian proverb true : chi offende non perdona — the offender never pardons.

Madame d'Assigny has informed me that part of a cornice has fallen upon your head, and hurt you considerably. If you were well, and I dared exercise a little wicked wit upon the occasion, I should tell you that they are not trifling ornaments like these that injure the heads of husbands in general ; and that it would be a fortunate circumstance for them if they met with no worse evil than the fall of a cornice. But I will not talk nonsense ; I will first know how you are, and assure you that the same reason which made me languid when you were bled, gives me the headache from your accident. The ties of relationship can not, I think, be carried further than this.

My daughter was on the point of marriage. The affair is broken off, I hardly know why. She kisses your hand ; I do