But Mme. de La Fayette herself is the magnet that quietly draws together this fascinating world. In her youth she had much life and vivacity, perhaps a spice of discreet coquetry, but at this period she was serious, and her fresh beauty had given place to the assured and captivating grace of maturity. She had a face that might have been severe in its strength but for the sensibility expressed in the slight droop of the head to one side, the tender curve of the full lips, and the variable light of the dark, thoughtful eyes. In her last years, when her stately figure had grown attenuated, and her face was pallid with long suffering, the underlying force of her character was more distinctly defined in the clear and noble outlines of her features. Her nature was full of subtle shades. Over her reserved strength, her calm judgment, her wise penetration played the delicate light of a lively imagination, the shifting tints of a tender sensibility. Her sympathy found ready expression in tears, and she could not even bear the emotion of saying good-by to Mme. de Sevigne when she was going away to Provence. But her accents were always tempered, and her manners had the gracious and tranquil ease of a woman superior to circumstances. Her extreme frankness lent her at times a certain sharpness, and she deals many light blows at the small vanities and affectations that come under her notice. "Mon Dieu," said the frivolous Mme. de Marans to her one day, "I must have my hair cut." "Mon Dieu," replied Mme. de La Fayette simply, "do not have it done; that is becoming only to young persons." Gourville said she was imperious and over-bearing, scolding those she loved best, as well as those she did not love. But this valet-de-chambre of La Rochefoucauld, who amassed a fortune and became a man of some note, was jealous of her influence over his former master, and his opinions should be taken with reservation. Her delicate satire may have been sometimes a formidable weapon, but it was directed only against follies, and rarely, if ever, used unkindly. She was a woman for intimacies, and it is to those who knew her best that we must look for a just estimate of her qualities. "You would love her as soon as you had time to be with her, and to become familiar with her esprit and her wisdom," wrote Mme. de Sevigne to her daughter, who was disposed to be critical; "the better one knows her, the more one is attached to her."
One must also take into consideration her bad health. People thought her selfish or indifferent when she was only sad and suffering. For more than twenty years she was ill, consumed by a slow fever which permitted her to go out only at intervals. La Rochefoucauld had the gout, and they consoled each other. Mme. de Sevigne thought it better not to have the genius of a Pascal, than to have so many ailments. "Mme. De La Fayette is always languishing, M. de La Rochefoucauld always lame," she writes; "we have conversations so sad that it seems as if there were nothing more to do but to bury us; the garden of Mme. de La Fayette is the prettiest spot in the world, everything blooming, everything perfumed; we pass there many evenings, for the poor woman does not dare go out in a carriage." "Her health is never good," she writes again, "nevertheless she sends you word that she should not like death better; AU CONTRAIRE." There are times when she can no longer "think, or speak, or answer, or listen; she is tired of saying good morning and good evening." Then she goes away to Meudon for a few days, leaving La Rochefoucauld "incredibly sad."
She speaks for herself in a letter from the country house which Gourville has placed at her disposal.
"I am at Saint Maur; I have left all my affairs and all my husbands; I have my children and the fine weather; that suffices.
I take the waters of Forges; I look after my health, I see no one. I do not mind at all the privation; every one seems to me so attached to pleasures which depend entirely upon others, that I find my disposition a gift of the fairies.
"I do not know but Mme de Coulanges has already sent you word of our after-dinner conversations at Gourville's about people who have taste above or below their intelligence. Mme. Scarron and the Abbe Tetu were there; we lost ourselves in subtleties until we no longer understood anything. If the air of Provence, which subtilizes things still more, magnifies for you our visions, you will be in the clouds. You have taste below your intelligence; so has M. de La Rochefoucauld; and myself also, but not so much as you two. VOILA an example which will guide you."
She disliked writing letters, and usually limited herself to a few plain facts, often in her late years to a simple bulletin of her health. This negligence was the subject of many passages-at- arms between herself and Mme. de Sevigne. "If I had a lover who wished my letters every morning, I would break with him," she writes. "Do not measure our friendship by our letters. I shall love you as much in writing you only a page in a month, as you me in writing ten in eight days." Again she replies to some reproach: "Make up your mind, ma belle, to see me sustain, all my life, with the whole force of my eloquence, that I love you still more than you love me. I will make Corbinelli agree with me in a quarter of an hour; your distrust is your sole defect, and the only thing in you that can displease me."
