Volume 1 — From The Month. MADAME SWETCHINE AND HER SALON.

The salons of Paris form a distinctive feature of French society. Nowhere else is the same thing exactly to be found. Frenchwomen have a peculiar gift for conversation, due in a great measure to their graceful language, with its delicate shades of expression. We are prone to smile at French sentimentality, or to apply their own word verbiage, prefacing it with unmeaning. But when the epithet does truly fit, it is because the real thing has been abused, not because it does not exist. Conversation in France is cultivated as an art, just the same as epistolary style: both form an important branch of female education. When the soil is bad, the attempt at culture only betrays more clearly native poverty; in other words, a mind of little thought or taste becomes ridiculous in straining after the expression of what it can neither conceive nor feel. But when a well-informed and cultivated intelligence blossoms into keen appreciation of the beautiful, no language so delicately as French conveys minute shades of thought and feeling. 'Tis not repetition, then, but variety; and when such an instrument is handled with feminine tact, perfection in its kind is achieved.

No wonder that salons are exclusively French from the days of Julie de Rambouillet down to Madame Récamier. No wonder at the influence exercised by a woman who really has a salon. Few, very few, arrive at this result. Thousands may receive; hundreds glitter in the gay world of fashion, renowned for beauty, wit, good dressing, or good parties; two or three at most in a century are the presiding spirits of their social circles, and that is what constitutes having a salon. No one quality alone will do it; a combination is required; not always the same, but one or two together, whichsoever, attracting sympathy and producing influence. Influence—the effect, not the quality itself—can never be absent.

Strangers settling in Paris have had their salon; but we do not know that they could transport it with them to any other atmosphere. Beside Madame Récamier—whose rare beauty, joined to her goodness and her tact, helped to form her salon—two other women in our day, or just before it, have been the leading stars of their circles. Others, no doubt, there are; but the names of these three have escaped beyond Paris. Strange to say, two are foreigners, and both of these Russians. Except, however, as regards country and influence, no comparison can of course be established between the Princess Lieven and Madame Swetchine. One sought and gained a political object; the other accepted circumstances, and found them fame.

Madame Swetchine was already thirty-four years of age when she arrived in Paris. She had no beauty, and no pretensions to wit; indeed, her timidity was such that her expressions were always obscure when she began to speak; and it was only by degrees, as she went on, that she gathered confidence, and then her language flowed with ease, betraying, rather than fully revealing, the deep current of thought beneath. Still her advantages were many. As regards outward circumstances, she possessed good birth and high position; her manners were such as the early culture of a polished court bestows; she was accustomed to wield a large fortune, and to hold a prominent place in the social world. These were advantages that might be fairly set against the absence of beauty, wondrous as is that charm: beside, her person was not unpleasing. Though {457} small, she was graceful in her motions; despite little blue eyes, rather irregular, and a nose of Calmuck form, her face wore a soft kindly expression that attracted sympathy. Her complexion was remarkably fresh and clear.

But Madame Swetchine possessed innate qualities of heart and mind of the rarest description, that only unfolded themselves gradually the more closely she could be observed. Unlike mankind in general, the better she was known, the more was she beloved and admired. Her intelligence of richly-varied powers had been carefully cultivated; what she acquired in youth, with the aid of masters, had been since matured by her own unceasing study, and by reading of the most widely-discursive character. Not only was she familiar with ancient and modern literatures, perusing them in their originals, but she also conversed fluently in all the languages of Europe. Her imagination, enthusiastic and wild almost, as belongs to the north, successfully sought for outpourings, both in music and painting. By a strange combination, no natural quality of mind was more remarkable in Madame Swetchine than her good sense: the only feature that shone above it was her eminent gift of piety.

But virtues, and particularly religious virtues, proceed from the heart quite as much as from the intelligence; often, indeed, far more especially. Madame Swetchine possessed the warmest feelings, a nature both loving and expansive. As daughter, wife, and friend she evinced rare devotion; but the sentiment and thought that most filled heart and mind was undoubtedly her love for God.

What a rich assemblage of qualities is here! how strange that they should go to make up a Parisian woman of fashion! Such, however, in its most usual acceptation, Madame Swetchine never was: she never mingled in the light brilliant world; but she did form the centre of attraction to a large circle she had her salon.

General Swetchine, deeply wounded by the emperor, who lent too ready credence to unfounded reports whispered against so faithful a subject, would not stoop to justify himself, but quitted Russia in disgust, accompanied by his wife. When they reached Paris, in the spring of 1816, Louis XVIII. was on the throne of France. Madame Swetchine found now restored to their high positions those friends of her youth whom as exiles she had known and loved at St. Petersburg. Her place was naturally amongst them; new intimacies were soon added to the old. The Duchesse de Duras, authoress of Ourika, and friend of Madame de Staël, gained a strong hold on her affections. Yet it did not seem at first as if Madame Swetchine were destined to so much influence in French society. Modesty made her reserved. Madame de Staël had been invited to meet her at a small dinner-party; and Madame Swetchine, though seated opposite, was intimidated, and allowed the meal to pass over without speaking or scarcely raising her eyes. Afterward Madame de Staël came up and said, "I had been told that you desired my acquaintance; was I misinformed?" "By no means," was the reply; "but it is customary for royalty to speak first." Such was the homage she paid to genius.

At first it had seemed uncertain how long General and Madame Swetchine might remain absent from Russia; but after the lapse of a few years they took up their definite residence in Paris. Their hotel, Rue St. Dominique, was hired on a long lease, and fitted up as a permanent abode. They sent for their pictures and other articles from St. Petersburg. The general occupied the ground-floor; Madame Swetchine took the rooms above. Her apartments consisted of a salon and a library commanding an extensive view of gardens. Here it was that her friends used to assemble; not many at a time, but successively. She never gave soirées, and her dinner-parties consisted of a few intimates round a small table. Her hours for {458} reception were every day from three till six, and then from nine till midnight. Debarred by her health from paying visits, she contented herself with receiving in this manner; and for thirty years a continuous stream of persons was for ever passing on through her rooms. She had not sought to form it; but there was her salon, and one of a peculiar character.

Two features distinguished it: the religious tone that prevailed, and the absence of party spirit. Madame Swetchine herself was eminently religious, and she had a large way of viewing all things. Her influence, though partly moral and intellectual, was ever chiefly religious; and she gave that presiding characteristic to the atmosphere around. So long as faith and morality were not attacked, all other points she considered secondary, and admitted the widest diversity of opinion on them. Her own views on all subjects were firmly held, and she expressed them with freedom. There could be no mistake about it. In religion she was a strict Catholic, and in philosophy Christian; in politics she preferred a liberal monarchy; but far from seeking to give that color to her salon, she would not allow any friend holding the same views to try to impose them on others. This was equally the case in matters of art and taste; she tolerated nothing exclusive; but the principle is much more difficult to be followed out when applied to politics, which involve interests of such magnitude, appealing to all the passions, and especially in such an excitable atmosphere as that of Paris. Nothing better shows Madame Swetchine's tact and gentleness of temper than her intimacies with men of such different stamps, and the way in which she made them to a certain extent amalgamate. But the above qualities would have failed to do it, had their spring been a worldly one; hers flowed truly from the Christian charity with which her whole soul was full. In this she and her salon were unique.

She lived to see two great revolutions in France: the one of 1830, and that which substituted the republic for Louis Philippe, ending with the empire. Members of all these régimes were among her visitors. Ministers of state under the Restoration, those who embraced the Orleans cause, men belonging to the republican government, ambassadors from most of the foreign courts in Europe; all these in turn enjoyed her conversation, some her esteem or affection, according to the degrees of intimacy and sympathy. Her own feelings, as well as convictions, lay with legitimists; but others were no less welcomed, and some of various parties were highly valued. True, however, to religion, she never gave her friendship to men not devoted to the interests of the Church. Her great object was to do good to souls, but in a quiet, unostentatious, womanly way; gently leading to virtue, never inculcating it. This of course became more exclusively her province as she grew older.

She was truly liberal in all her sentiments; not assuredly from indifference, but through a large philosophy of spirit that allowed for diversities of opinion in all things not essential. At the same time her own convictions were unflinchingly avowed, as well as her ideas and tastes in smaller matters.

The men with whom she was most intimate have all more or less been known to fame, and are eminent also for their religious spirit. We might begin a list with Monsieur de Maistre at St. Petersburg, when she was but twenty-five; then following her to Paris, see her make acquaintance with his friend Monsieur de Bonald; exercise maternal influence over MM. de Falloux, de Montalembert, and Lacordaire; and finally wind up with Donoso Cortès, the Marquis de Valdegamas, Prince Albert de Broglie, and Alexis de Tocqueville.

Each one of the distinguished personages above has figured prominently on the great stage, more or less renowned in politics and letters, and {459} always holding a high moral character. It may seem fastidious to recall their titles to fame. In our day, when all are acquainted with continental literature, who is not familiar with the witty author of the Soirées de St. Pétersbourg, although it be permitted somewhat to ignore the rather dry philosophical works of his friend de Bonald? Monsieur de Falloux, with filial love, has raised a monument to Madame Swetchine that will endure beside his life of Pope Pius V., and jointly with the remembrance of his political integrity. Who that has followed the late history of Europe does not know Donoso Cortès, the great orator, whose famous three discourses in the Spanish chambers instantaneously reached so far and wide, whose written style is the very music of that rich Castilian idiom, and whose liberal political views kept pace with his large Catholic heart? Soeur Rosalie and Madame Swetchine together soothed his dying hours. The author of La Démocratic en Amérique has been indiscreetly praised, but none can deny his ability, Prince Albert de Broglie, doctrinaire in his views, still advocates with talent the cause of religion and of constitutional monarchy. These two latter were among the latest acquisitions to Madame Swetchine's salon.

MM. de Montalembert and de Falloux were like her sons; she knew them from their early manhood, called them by their Christian names, loved and counselled them as any mother might. But if her influence over them was so salutary, we cannot help admiring most the unswerving attachment of these young men to her; Madame Swetchine's letters show her expostulating with Comte de Montalembert, then little past twenty, and endeavoring to convince him he is wrong. He will not yield; but acknowledges afterward the justness of her views, and allows now these letters to be published. Alfred de Falloux is the son sent for when danger seems impending; he tends her dying couch in that same salon where he had so often and for so many years walked with her conversing; to him she confides her papers and last wishes.

The celebrated Père Lacordaire was very dear to her; and she certainly acted the part of a mother toward him. Monsieur de Montalembert presented him to her when Abbé Lacordaire was but twenty-eight, and quite unknown. His genius—which she immediately discerned—and his ardent soul interested her wonderfully. Soon after he became connected, through Abbé de Lamennais, with the journal L'Avenir; by his own generous and oft-repeated avowal she kept him from any deviation at this trying moment. "You appeared to me as the angel of the Lord," writes he, "to a soul floating between life and death, between earth and heaven."

Nor was this the only time. Her letters show her following him with breathless interest through his chequered career, and assuring him of her warm undying friendship, "so long as he remains faithful to God and his Church."

And this was a beautiful affection, whichever side we view it. For more than twenty years it lasted; that is, for the rest of her life. The ardent young man is seen with the erratic impulses of his glowing intellect, yet docile to the motherly admonitions of his old friend; and by degrees, as time mellows him somewhat—though it never could subdue nature altogether—he sinks into a calmer strain, still asking advice, and taking it, with language more respectful, though not a whit less tender. Madame Swetchine brought to bear on him a species of idolatry; she admired his genius to excess, and loved his fine nature as any doting parent might; but these sentiments never rendered her blind to his faults; and she constantly blended reproof with admiration, while strenuously endeavoring to keep him ever in the most perfect path. She had the satisfaction of seeing him, ere she departed this life, safely anchored in a religious order, and the Dominicans fairly re-established in France; one of her pre-occupations on her death-bed, after bidding him adieu, was to secure {460} that his letters should be one day given to the public. For thus she knew he would be better appreciated.

Other names of men well-known in the Parisian world of letters, or for their deeds of charity, might here be added as having adorned her salon. There was the Vicomte de Melun, connected with every good work (literary or other) in the French capital; and her two relatives, Prince Augustin Galitzin and Prince (afterward Père) Gagarin. The former still writes; the latter, erst a gay man of fashion and then metamorphosed into a zealous Jesuit, is now devoting his missionary labors to Syria.

And lastly may be named one who, though he never mingled in the world of her salon, yet visited Madame Swetchine and esteemed her greatly. Père de Ravignan presided at one time in her house over meetings of charitable ladies, who were afterward united with the Enfants de Marie at the convent of the Sacré Coeur.

Nor were her friendships exclusively confined to men. Madame Swetchine had not that foible into which many superior women fall of affecting to despise their own sex; and which always shows that they innately, unconsciously often, separate their individual selves from all the rest of womankind as alone superior to it. Hers was a larger view: she loved souls; and "souls," says one of her aphorisms, "have neither age nor sex." When shall we in general begin to live here as we are to do for ever hereafter?

She had had her early friendships in Russia, and most passionate they were; too girlish in their romantic enthusiasm, too wordily tender in expression; but time mellowed these affections, without wearing them out. The two principal women-friends of her youth in Russia, after her sister, were Roxandre Stourdja, a Greek by birth, afterward Comtesse Edlinz, and the Comtesse de Nesselrode. Both of these in later years visited her Paris salon. But she also formed several new French intimacies. Her grief for the loss of Madame de Duras, when death deprived her of that friend, was a little softened by her warm sympathy for the two daughters left, Mesdames de Rauzan and de la Rochejacquelain. If she saw most of the former, the latter had for Madame Swetchine a second tie through her early marriage with a grandson of the Princesse de Tarente, whom Madame Swetchine had so revered in her girlish days at St. Petersburg. Both the Duchesse de Rauzan and Comtesse de la Rochejacquelain were very beautiful; and Madame Swetchine dearly loved beauty, especially when combined, as in them, with grace and elegance, cleverness and piety. For both the sisters were remarkable: one had more fascinating softness united with good sense; the other was more witty and brilliant. The last country-house visited by Madame Swetchine shortly before her death was the chateau de Fleury, belonging to Madame de la Rochejacquelain, where we read that she loved to find still mementos of the Princesse de Tarente.

Madame Swetchine was very intimate with Madame Récamier, her fellow-star as leader of a contemporary salon. She greatly prized her worth. Another friend much loved was the Comtesse de Gontant Biron, in youth eminent for her beauty, and always for her many virtues. Among younger women distinguished by Madame Swetchine were Mrs. Craven, née la Ferronaye; the Princess Wittgenstein, lovely as clever, a Russian by birth, and a convert to the Catholic Church; and quite at the last period, the Duchess of Hamilton.

She was always partial to youth, taking a warm interest in anything that might minister to the welfare or pleasures of that age. Thus she liked the young women of her acquaintance to be well dressed, and would admire their taste or try to improve it, even in that respect, with perfectly motherly solicitude. Those going to balls frequently stopped on their way to show their toilettes to Madame Swetchine; and not seldom, too, they would {461} return in the morning to ask advice on graver matters, or to display the progress of their children. The good Madame Swetchine did to persons of the world by quiet friendly counsel is incalculable; she never spared the truth when she thought it could be of use, and as she had great perspicacity, she was not often deceived. Beside, her natural penetration became yet keener, not only by long experience, but also by the numerous confidences she received from the many souls in a measure laid bare before her. M. de Falloux has well said that she "possessed the science of souls, as savants do that of bodies." However one might be pained at what she said, it was impossible to feel wounded; her manner was so kind, and her rectitude of intention so evident. And thus did she render her salon useful: living in public, as it might appear, surrounded chiefly by the great ones of earth, her thought was yet ever with God, and she positively worked for him day by day without even quitting those few rooms. Nay, so completely is Madame Swetchine identified with her salon for those who knew her through any part of the thirty years spent in Paris, that it is difficult for our idea to separate her from it.

Even materially speaking she seldom left it. With a simplicity that seems strange indeed to our English notions, she caused her little iron bedstead to be set up every night in one of her reception-rooms; each morning it was doubled up again and consigned to a closet. During her last illness it was just the same; she lay in her salon, the only difference being that then the bed remained permanently. Not an iota else was changed in the aspect of her apartment; no table was near the sick-couch with glass or cup ready to hand; what she wanted in this way she signed for to a deaf-and-dumb attendant, Parisse, whose grateful eyes were ever fixed upon her benefactress, to divine or anticipate what might be wished. And there, too, she died.

To us with our exclusive family feelings, or indeed to the general human sentiment that courts the utmost privacy for that solemn closing scene, there is something which jars in the account of Madame Swetchine's last days on earth. Doubtless all the consolations of religion were there to hallow her dying moments; she continued to the last to devote long hours to prayer; and by an enviable privilege she possessed a domestic chapel blessed with the perpetual presence of the Blessed Sacrament; but what strikes us strangely is, that her salon had chanced to remain open while extreme unction was being administered; and so, as it was her usual reception hour, the few friends in Paris at that season (September) continued to drop in one by one, and kneeling, each new-comer behind the other, prayed with and for her. Those last visitors were Père Chocarn, prior of the Dominicans; Père Gagarin; Mesdames Fredro, de Meyendorf, and Craven; Messieurs de Broglie, de Falloux, de Melun, and Zermolof. But the strange feeling we cannot help experiencing must be reasoned with. Her salon and her friends were to Madame Swetchine home and family.

And now it might seem that nothing more could be said of her; but, in truth, a very small portion has yet been expressed. Beside the six hours devoted to reception, the day counted eighteen more. There were religious duties to be performed, and home duties no less imperative; there were the poor to be visited, and there were the claims of study, which Madame Swetchine never neglected up to the latest period of existence. All these calls upon her time were recognized by conscience, and therefore duly responded to. Madame Swetchine was, of course, an early riser; by eight or nine o'clock she had heard mass, visited her poor, and was ready to commence the business of the day.

After breakfast, an hour or two were devoted to General Swetchine, who liked her to read to him. During the {462} last fifteen years of his life, and his death only preceded hers seven years, he had become so deaf as to enjoy general society but little; but he would not allow her to give up her receptions on that account, as she wished to do. The rest of the morning was employed in study with strictly closed doors, only opened to cases of misfortune, and these Madame Swetchine never considered as intrusions. Her confidential servant knew it well, and did not scruple to disturb her when real want or sorrow begged for admittance. Her persevering love of study is well illustrated by her own assurance, but a few months before her death, that even then she never sat down to her writing-table without "feeling her heart beat with joy." She advised Mrs. Craven always to reserve a few morning hours for study, saying the quality of time was different at that period of day.

Several hours in the evening were again spent with the general. At midnight, when all visitors departed, Madame Swetchine retired to rest; but her repose never lasted much beyond two in the morning. Painful infirmities made her suffer all day long, and at night debarred her from sleep. Motion alone brought comparative ease, and therefore it was that, with intimate friends, she carried on conversation walking up and down her rooms. At night, suffocation increased, as also a nervous kind of excitement. It was at these hours, during the intervals snatched from pain, that she mostly composed the writings which M. de Falloux has given to the world. No wonder that they bear the impress of the cross; nor can we marvel that she speaks feelingly and scientifically of resignation, for good need had she to practise that. Such were usually her twenty-four hours in Paris.

If we look back to the past, religion had not always been the guiding principle with Madame Swetchine. Her father, M. Soymonof, was a disciple of Voltaire, and he brought her up without any pious training. She never even repeated morning or evening prayers; simply attended the imperial chapel as a matter of course. But Voltaire did not excite her admiration; his infidelity was too cold, his immorality too coarse; it was Rousseau who charmed her. His passionate language pleased her imagination, and the pages of La Nouvelle Héloise were almost entirely transcribed, to be again and again dwelt on. She could not detect the sophistry beneath. But the first deep sorrow of her youth taught her prayer, and brought her to the feet of God, never to abandon him. M. Soymonof was suddenly snatched from his children by death, and Madame Swetchine, the anguish of this bereavement, turned to heaven for help and consolation. Another sorrow, the nature of which we ignore, overtook her at this period; and, to use her own expression, she "threw herself then into the arms of God with such enthusiasm as naught else ever awakened."

The first effect was to render her a fervent adherent of Russian orthodoxy; but her mind was too philosophic to rest long satisfied with half conclusions. She was struck with the piety of French Catholics at St. Petersburg; especially the modest merit of the Chevalier d'Augard won her highest esteem. Finally, after much voluminous study, and despite the resistance her rebellious spirit loved to oppose to what she at first called M. de Maistre's "dogmatic absolutism," she entered the Catholic Church.

The absurd idea that religion renders the heart cold has been too often refuted to need any comment here. But it may be said that Madame Swetchine affords another example of how much devotion, by purifying human feeling, intensifies it also. God had given her a loving nature; and as her piety deepens with years, so does her tender affection for family ties, for friends, country, and finally for all the poor, suffering, helpless ones of earth. Her first great attachment was for her father, and so her first great sorrow was at his loss; for thus intimately {463} are love and pain ever conjoined in this world. Another deep affection of childhood and early youth, extending through life, was for her sister. Madame Swetchine was quite a mother to this child, ten years her junior. When she married, she still kept her with her; and when the young sister also married, becoming the wife of Prince Gagarin, Madame Swetchine became a mother also to the five boys who were successively brought into the world. "They are all my nephews," would she say; "but the two eldest are especially my children." And well did they respond to the feelings of their aunt, scarcely separating her from their own parent. When she shut herself up for study, it was their amusement to try and get her out to play with them; if she remained deaf to entreaties, the little boys would besiege her door, making deafening noises with their playthings, until she mostly yielded and let them in. A very short time before her death, when Madame Swetchine could hardly sit or speak, she assembled a large family party of young nephews and nieces, with their preceptors and governesses, to dine at her house, and was greatly diverted with their innocent mirth.

There is something disappointing in Madame Swetchine's marriage. The favor enjoyed by Monsieur Soymonof at court, her own position as maid-of-honor to the Empress Marie, her birth, fortune, extreme youth, and many individual qualifications, all alike rendered her a fitting match for any man in the empire. She certainly could have chosen. Several asked her hand. Amongst them was Count Strogonof, young, rich, noble, and talented. But Monsieur Soymonof preferred his own friend General Swetchine; and Sophie, we are told, accepted with affectionate deference her father's choice. The general was twenty-five years her senior, and though a fine military-looking man, with noble soldier-like feelings, scrupulously honorable, and with much to win esteem, yet he does not appear the sort of person suited to her ardent enthusiastic temperament. He possessed qualities fitted to command the respect of a young wife; but not exactly those that win her to admiration and love. Wherever honor was not concerned, he lapsed into his natural apathy: neither intellect nor imagination were by any means on a par with hers. And the girl of seventeen who prematurely linked her fate with his was full of romance: nurtured as she had been by a fond ill-judging father, with Rousseau to guide her opening thought, her early dreams probably had fed on some chivalrous St. Preux with whom to course the stream of life. Perhaps she was dreaming of wedding some stern military personification of the same. What an awakening there must have been! Was this the second deep sorrow that clouded her nineteenth summer? Was there a struggle then? Then did she "fling herself into the arms of God" victorious.

There is no clue to trace aught of this save that which guides to the usual windings of the human heart. Madame Swetchine was far too nice in her sense of duty, and far too delicate in feeling, to allow any such admissions to escape.

The devotion of a life-time was given unreservedly to General Swetchine. She never knew the happiness of becoming a mother, the tie that would of all others have been dearest to her heart. But the general had bestowed paternal affection on a young girl called Nadine Staeline, and Madame Swetchine also generously insisted on adopting her. Nadine, welcomed to their roof, was treated by Madame Swetchine like her own child.

Her attentions to the general continued unremitting. When he quitted Russia, she accompanied him to Paris; when he was summoned to return, though condemned to banishment from St. Petersburg and Moscow, she profited by the respite gained to go alone in her old age and infirmity to plead his cause herself with the emperor. Nor did she complain of the illness in Russia that followed such fatigue, for {464} her suit was granted. Still less did she regret the yet more serious malady that overtook her on returning to Paris with the glad tidings that brought such relief to his declining years. He lived to the age of ninety-two, and her grief at his loss was intense. Then indeed it was the long companion of a life-time that was taken from her; and we all know the tender attachment that strengthens with years between two persons who pass them together, and mutually esteem each other.

The general, on his part, always showed Madame Swetchine affection that had gradually become mixed up with a species of veneration. Though he never thwarted her religious views, he did not himself embrace them; he liked to see her Catholic friends, even priests, and especially Père de Ravignan; but remained satisfied with the Greek Church. Beside her duties as a wife, we have seen Madame Swetchine embrace those of a mother toward young Nadine. She never slackened in them until Nadine by her marriage ceased to require their exercise. Then she contrived to gratify her maternal instincts by undertaking the charge of Helene de Nesselrode, the daughter of her friend, just aged fourteen, and whose health demanded a warmer climate than that of Russia. Nor did she give her up till Helene married.

Faithful to all the sentiments she experienced, and warm in her friendships, Madame Swetchine's most enthusiastic attachment appears to have been for Mademoiselle Stourdja. It dated from her early married life, and continued through the whole of existence. At first it well-nigh provokes a smile to see how, scarcely parted for a few hours from her friend, she rushes to her pen, that it may express the pangs of separation. But girlhood has not passed over, ere thought, reason, duty, figure largely in the letters of Madame Swetchine. Her correspondence was extensive, and portrays herself just as she appeared in daily life—a wise, gentle, and affectionate friend or counsellor, as circumstances might dictate. Nowhere does this show her to greater advantage than in the letters—too few, unfortunately—that we possess from Madame Swetchine to Père Lacordaire. The difference between the two minds is striking. Her good sense and exquisite judgment contrast with his fiery impetuosity of thought and feeling; it is evident that her soul moves in the serene atmosphere of near union with God; while he, the religious of already some years' standing, is yet battling with strong human torrents. How gently she calls him up a higher path, never forgetting her womanhood nor his priestly character. His tone becomes much more religious; with rare candor and simplicity he sees and owns past imperfections.

Patriotism was one of her ardent sentiments, and she considered the feeling as a duty incumbent on women no less than men: of course, conduct was to be in accordance. Like many Russians, love of country centred for her in devotion to the sovereign; and of this her letters afford curious exemplification. She calls Alexander "the hero of humanity," and, after enumerating his many perfections, rejoices that this young sage is our emperor! When her husband was harshly summoned back to Russia, that the disgrace of exile from court might be inflicted, she exclaims: "God knows that I have never uttered a word of complaint against my sovereigns, nor so much as blamed them in heart!" Strange loyalty this to our modern western notions!

Her tender charity toward the poor began to show itself at an early age. At twenty-five in St. Petersburg she was already the soul of all good works there: nor did she content herself with merely giving alms, nor even with seeking to promote moral improvement; her ingenious kindness displayed itself also in endeavouring to procure pleasure or innocent amusements. She took flowers to those she visited, or tried to adorn their rooms with pictures. The {465} friendless deaf-and-dumb girl whom she had adopted became her constant attendant; and Madame Swetchine bore with her violence of temper until the defect was partly overcome.

She undertook the charge of a poor boy at Vichy, because his many maladies and their repulsive nature rendered him an object almost of disgust. Each summer that she returned there, he was among the first to greet her, sure of the kindest welcome. For years all his wants were supplied at her expense; and when he died, she said he had now become her benefactor.

To know Madame Swetchine thoroughly, her writings must be read. They were never meant for publication, but are either self-communings, or thoughts poured out before God. Some of her aphorisms are touchingly delicate in sentiment.

"Loving hearts are like paupers; they live on what is given them."

"Our alms form our sole riches, and what we withhold constitutes our real poverty."

Her prayers and meditations may be used with advantage for spiritual reading. Her unfinished treatise on Old Age is very beautiful; but more exquisite still is that more complete one on Resignation. Any passage chosen at random would show elevated thought.

"The first degree of submission produces respectful acquiescence to God's will; then this sentiment becomes transformed into a pious and sincere acceptation full of confidence; until confidence itself gradually acquires a filial character."

"Faith," she says, "makes resignation reasonable, and hope renders it easy."

"The love of God draws us away from our long love of self."

"Patience is so near to resignation, that it often seems one and the same thing."

She acknowledges that the hardest trials of resignation are found in those misfortunes irreparable here on earth. Such are death, old age, physical infirmity, loss of worldly honor, final impenitence. But the death of those we love, she says, may be deeply mourned in the midst of resignation; and our own certain death affords not only a counterbalance to such affliction, but also to the other evils of life. Old age is a halt between the world overcome, and eternity about to begin. Physical infirmities make us live in the atmosphere of the gospel beatitudes; we are then truly the poor ones of Christ, or rather poverty itself. The world sometimes forgets, but never pardons; what matters, provided virtue remain unscathed, or that it be restored through repentance?

"Suffering teaches us how to suffer; suffering teaches us how to live; suffering teaches us how to die."

And here we take our leave of this remarkable woman, who offers such a bright example to our generation.

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