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should go to Provence , since you will not return toParis . The climate is better ; you will have society,even when madame de Grignan is away ; there is agood mansion, plenty of inhabitants; in short, it isbeing alive to live there ; and I applaud your son for1690. consenting to lose you, for your own sake.” On the3d of October, therefore, she set off; and friendship,64 ' as she says, rendering so long a journey easy, shearrived on the 24th; when madame de Grignan receivedher with open arms, and with such joy, affection, andgratitude, “ that,” she says, “ I found I had notcome soon enough nor far enough.” From this timethe correspondence with her daughter entirely ceases.The letters that remain to her other friends scarcely fillup the gap. She visited Palis once again with herdaughter; but her time was chiefly spent at Grignan.

1694. She witnessed the establishment of her grandchildren.iEtat. qq le marriage of the young marquis de Grignan was, of

68 ‘ course, a deeply interesting subject; nor was she lesspleased when Pauline, whom she had served so well in

1695. her advice to her mother, married, at the close of theiEtat. following year, the marquis de Simiane. Early in the■ 69 ' spring of 1696 madame de Grignan was attacked by a

dangerous and lingering illness. Her mother attended onherwith tenderness and zeal; but she felt her strength failher. She wrote to her friends, that, if her daughter didnot soon recover, she must sink under her fatigues, —words that proved too fatally true. After a sudden andiEtat s b° rt illness, she died, in April of the same year, at the70. age of seventy. The blow of her death tvas severelyfelt by her friends, — a gap was made in their lives,never to be filled up.

In describing her character, her malicious cousin, countde Bussy, darkens many traits, which, in their naturalcolouring, only rendered her the more agreeable. Heblames her for being carried away by a love of theagreeable rather than the solid; but he allows, at thesame time, that there was not a cleverer woman inFrance ; that her manners were vivacious and divert-