THE IMMORTAL LETTERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 916, 1 March 1957, Page 12

THE IMMORTAL LETTERS

LETTERS FROM MADAME DE SEVIGNE, translated by Violet Hammersley; Secker and Warburg, English price 30/-. MARIE DE REBUTIN CHANTAL MARQUISE DE SEVIGNE (16261696) was descended from a noble Burgundian family, and was a_ granddaughter of Jeanne de Chantal (who had six children, became a nun, founded the Visitation Order, and died when our Mademoiselle de Chantal was 15). She became Madame de Sévigné. Her husband was killed in a duel when she was 26, leaving her with two young children, a girl and a boy. It was to the daughter, wife of the Governor of Provence, that most of the famous letters were written. While they were separated by the leagues between Brittany and Provence Madame de Sévigné love became a kind of adoration, and to attract the attention and engage the affection of this rather cold and selfish daughter were penned these miracles of tact apd sympathy, of style and grace, these marvels of observation and apt narration. It must be conceded that only a rare series of coincidences could have found such a writer-born in the age of Corneille and Racine (whom she knew), close friend of the Duc de la Roche- foucauld (of the "Maxims’’), welcome at the Court of Louis XIV, and liked by the King. She read Virgil in the original "in all the majesty of the text,". and knew Spanish and Italian, and to her natural talent was added the alembic of her devotion to her daughter ° from which were distilled the immortal 1600 letters. In this selection there are 272 examples, of which the greater number, astonishing as it may seem, are translated into English for the first time. There are lengthy excisions from a number of them for reasons of space and to present a balanced selection. A translation of these masterpieces is a matter of exceeding difficulty. The lively goodhumoured racy French style is damped and an idiomatic rendering (as this is) is too free. It has been well said that a Dubliner could manage it best. One has nevertheless every cause to be profoundly grateful for half a loaf from a translator who admires and understands thoroughlv her subject.

F. J.

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