|
|
Letters
Contents:
Show Summary
Hide Summary
General SummaryMARIE DE RABUTIN-CHANTAL was born in 1626, of a noble French family. She married at eighteen the marquis de Sévigné and at twenty-five became a widow, her worthless husband having been killed in a duel. Though rich and beautiful and the recipient of many offers, the marquise never married again. She devoted herself for the rest of her life — she lived to be seventy — to her two children, to the care of her estate in Brittany, to her social activities in Paris, and to her correspondence. Her Letters, in the complete French edition, extend to as many as fourteen volumes. They furnish a picture of seventeenth-century France unsurpassed for vividness and interest. Madame de Sévigné knew everybody worth knowing from Louis XIV downward; the most famous people of the time courted her for her charm, ready wit, and solid understanding. Condé and Turenne, great generals; Mazarin and Colbert, great statesmen; Corneille, Racine, Molière, great dramatists; Bossuet, Massillon, Bourdaloue, great preachers; Descartes, the great philosopher; Pascal, the great moralist; La Fontaine; La Rochefoucauld — all these and many others scarcely less famous flourished during the lifetime of Madame de Sévigné. She mentions them all in her correspondence and numbered many of them among her intimate friends. The Letters here quoted, in whole or in part, were written from Paris between 1670–1676.
CHAPTER VI
A French Letter Writer of the Seventeenth
Century1
27. A Marriage Prohibited1
What is called falling from the clouds, happened last night at
the Tuileries; but I must go farther back. You have already
shared in the joy, the transport, the ecstasies, of the princess
and her happy lover.2 It was just as I told you; the affair was
made public on Monday. Tuesday was passed in talking,
astonishment, and compliments. Wednesday Mademoiselle
made a deed of gift to M. de Lauzun, investing him with certain
titles, names, and dignities necessary to be inserted in the marriage
contract, which was drawn up that day. She gave him,
then, till she could give him something better, four duchies:
the first was the county of Eu, which entitles him to rank as
first peer of France; the duchy of Montpensier, which title he
bore all that day; the duchy of Saint-Fargeau, and the duchy
of Châtellerault, — the whole valued at twenty-two millions of
livres. The contract was then drawn up, and he took the name
of Montpensier. Thursday morning, which was yesterday,
Mademoiselle was in expectation of the king’s signing the contract
as he had said he would do; but about seven o’clock in
the evening the queen, Monsieur,3 and several old dotards that
were about him had so persuaded his Majesty that his reputation
would suffer in this affair, that, sending for Mademoiselle and
M. de Lauzun, he announced to them before the prince,4 that
he forbade them to think any further of this marriage. M. de
Lauzun received the prohibition with all the respect, submission,
firmness, and, at the same time, despair that could be expected
in so great a reverse of fortune. As for Mademoiselle, she gave
loose to her feelings and burst into tears, cries, lamentations,
and the most violent expressions of grief; she keeps her bed all
day long and takes nothing within her lips but a little broth.
What a fine dream is here! what a glorious subject for a tragedy
or romance, but especially for talking and reasoning eternally!
This is what we do day and night, morning and evening, without
end and without intermission; we hope you will do likewise.
1 , edited by E. P. Anderson. Chicago,
1891. A. C. McClurg and Company.
1 Madame de Sévigné, , pp. 39–40.
2 In a previous letter (Dec. 15, 1670) Madame de Sévigné had told of the engagement
of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, granddaughter of Henry IV, niece of Louis
XIII, and the king’s cousin-german, to M. de Lauzun.
3 Philippe, duc d’Orléans, brother of Louis XIV. He was a rejected suitor of
Mademoiselle.
4 Louis de Bourbon, prince de Condé, a great noble and general.
Contents:
Chicago: E. P. Anderson, ed., "A Marriage Prohibited," Letters in Readings in Modern European History, ed. Webster, Hutton (Boston: D.C. Heath, 1926), 46–47. Original Sources, accessed November 24, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=AMTICS8GVTEFVDJ.
MLA: . "A Marriage Prohibited." Letters, edited by E. P. Anderson, in Readings in Modern European History, edited by Webster, Hutton, Boston, D.C. Heath, 1926, pp. 46–47. Original Sources. 24 Nov. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=AMTICS8GVTEFVDJ.
Harvard: (ed.), 'A Marriage Prohibited' in Letters. cited in 1926, Readings in Modern European History, ed. , D.C. Heath, Boston, pp.46–47. Original Sources, retrieved 24 November 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=AMTICS8GVTEFVDJ.
|