Love and amitié: Madame de Sévigné's letters

Since the late eighteenth century, Mme de Sévigné's primary claim to fame has been her motherly love for Mme de Grignan. It is that love combined with her gift as épistolière that propelled her into the "canon" of French literature. In this essay, I analyze a less known aspect of her letters, her friendship with her daughter's brother-in-law, the Chevalier de Grignan, whom she admired for his courage, modesty, seriousness, generosity, and loyalty to his family. Notwithstanding the pessimism of the discourse on the friendship in her time, I argue that her friendship with the Chevalier, a friendship based on the moral and intellectual qualities of the partner, comes close to the ancient ideal of friendship.