ellauri115.html on line 838: His attachment to his friends, says a biographer, was that of a dog to a master. When Mme. de Sablière, who gave the improvident fabulist a home for twenty years, was asked what she had saved from a financial disaster, she replied, “I only kept my dog and cat, and La Fontaine.”
ellauri118.html on line 830: With La Princesse de Clèves, Mme. de La Fayette created a new kind of fiction,—"substituting," says Saintsbury, "for mere romance of adventure on the one hand, and stilted heroic work on the other, fiction in which the display of character is held of chief account."
ellauri118.html on line 832: The early education of Mme. de La Fayette—for by this name we can best speak of her—was the special care of her father, "un père en qui le mérite égaloit la tendresse." Later, she was put under Ménage à Trois, and possibly Raped.
ellauri118.html on line 838: This union was an important event in the life of Mme. de La Fayette, for it marks the beginning of her residence at Paris, and of her friendship with Mme. de Sévigné, who was a kinswoman of the Chevalier.
ellauri118.html on line 840: How close and lasting was this friendship is seen on almost every page of Mme. de Sévigné's correspondence. Indeed, so often does the name of Mme. de La Fayette occur in Mme. de Sévigné's letters to her daughter, that the latter may well have been jealous of her mother's friend. The companionship of Mme. de Sévigné was, after the death of La Rochefoucauld, the chief comfort of Mme. de La Fayette in her ill-health and seclusion; and it was from the sick-chamber of her friend that Mme. de Sévigné's letters would seem to have been written in those latter years. In 1693, soon after the death of Mme. de La Fayette, Mme. de Sévigné writes as follows of her dead friend: "Je me trouvois trop heureuse d'être aimée d'elle depuis un temps très-considérable; jamais nous n'avions eu le moindre nuage dans notre amitié.
ellauri118.html on line 844: The relation was equally sincere on the part of Mme. de La Fayette, though she was by nature more self-contained and reserved. But this reserve gives way to the strength of her feelings when in 1691, tormented by ill-health and knowing that her end is not far off, she writes to Mme. de Sévigné: "Croyez, ma très-chère, que vous êtes la personne du monde que j'ai le plus véritablement aimée."
ellauri118.html on line 858: La Rochefoucauld had been embittered by disappointed ambition, ill health, and the loss of his favorite son; and his opinion of humanity in general and of women in particular was none too lofty, to say the least. Perhaps Mme. de La Fayette´s greatest service in this respect was in toning down the severity of the immortal Maxims.
ellauri118.html on line 860: Certain critics have endeavored to trace the character of Mme. de La Fayette in that of the Princess of Clèves, of M. de La Rochefoucauld in that of M. de Nemours; but too strict an autobiographical interpretation destroys the charm of the story.
ellauri118.html on line 862: Mme. de La Fayette died in 1693. During her last years ill health and sorrow had forced upon her an almost absolute seclusion, and she died forgotten by all except a few faithful friends. The place of her burial is unknown.
ellauri210.html on line 115: Mutta sinä sanot, Mme. Yvettellä ei ole vain yhtä roolia, jonka hän toistaa. Hän näyttelee yhtä taitavasti kaikkia mahdollisia rooleja: pyhimyksiä ja syntisiä, keilaajia, hyveellisiä, rikollisia ja naiiveja. Se on totta, ja se on todiste äärimmäisen rikkaasta ja mukautuvasta henkisestä elämästä. Mutta en epätoivoisi jäljittää hänen nuorten vuosiensa kokemuksia ja konflikteja koko hänen taiteensa ohjelmistoon. Olisi houkuttelevaa jatkaa täällä, mutta jokin pidättelee minua. Tiedän, että ei-toivotut analyysit herättävät epäilyksiä, enkä halua tehdä mitään, mikä saattaisi häiritä suhteemme muodostavaa sydämellistä myötätuntoa.
ellauri321.html on line 110: The success of his book and his efforts to improve the agricultural conditions of Normandy made Crèvecoeur a welcome guest in France. He spent some pleasant months in French literary society, into which he was probably introduced by Mme. de Houdetot, one of the many heroines of Rousseau's “Confessions.” To this lady, an old friend of his father, he also owed his introduction to Franklin.* He returned to America at the end of 1783.
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