Page:Sévigné - Letters to her Daughter and Friends, 1869.djvu/19

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LETTERS OF MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ


FROM 1655 TO 1669.


ADDRESSED TO THE COUNT DE BUSSY.[1]


· · · · ·


LETTER I.
In the Country, June 26, 1655.

I had no doubt that you would take some opportunity of bidding me adieu, either at my own house or from the camp at Landrecy. As I am not a woman of ceremony, I am content with the latter ; and have not even thought of being angry, that you failed in coming to me before you set out.

I have not stirred from this desert, since your departure; and, to speak frankly, I am not much afflicted to find that you are with the army. I should be an unworthy cousin of so

  1. The Count Bussy de Rabutin, first cousin to the father of Madame de Sevigne, was, on account of his relationship, always on terms of intimacy with her. He was a famous wit and satirist, as his Letters and Memoirs show, but not of principles or character to excite love or esteem in the soul of such a woman as Madame de Sevigne. However, they were cousins, and though she refused his suit, she seems to have felt a deep interest in his welfare. She corresponded with him occasionally till her death, but her letters to him have less interest than those she wrote to others, especially to her daughter. We give a few of her first and best letters to Count de Bussy, as preliminary to the real work of her heart and mind, her correspondence with Madame de Grignan,