242 - LA FAYETTE (Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, Countess of), 1634–1693.

LA FAYETTE (Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, Countess of), 1634–1693. L.A., n.d., [Vichy], May 14 [1657], 1½ pages in-4, to Abbé Ménage (handwritten address) (traces of a seal with tears, with some letters missing). An interesting letter to Gilles Ménage, mentioning her upcoming move to Meudon. Feeling unwell, Madame de La Fayette apologizes for not having been able to write in the previous mailing, as she was overwhelmed by severe headaches caused by the spa treatment she was undergoing at the time. She is delighted that Ménage is retiring to this countryside, which she considers very pleasant and conducive to their joint work, referring to “our letters”—a project she fears he may have abandoned and for which she promises him absolute secrecy. Finally, she thanks Ménage for having interceded on their behalf with Benoise regarding a matter of great importance to them. A man of letters as charming in appearance as he was in intellect, Abbé Gilles Ménage (1613–1692) provided the literary education of Madame de Lafayette, who was 20 years his junior and with whom he had fallen in love. Their platonic, epistolary, and intellectual relationship lasted more than 15 years and inspired, among others, Molière’s *Les Femmes savantes*. A brilliant philologist, he authored the first book on French etymology: *Les Origines de la langue françoise*, published by Augustin Courbé in 1650. A close friend of René-Renaud de Sévigné—the father-in-law of Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne (and uncle of Madame de Sévigné)—he met the future woman of letters when she was only 15 or 17; he taught her the fine arts of literature while introducing her to the most fashionable literary salons. When the family had to leave Paris for Champiré, it was Gilles Ménage who kept Marie-Madeleine informed of social and literary life through his letters and the books he sent her. It was to him that the manuscript of *La Princesse de Montpensier* was entrusted for printing—without the author’s name—in 1662. “The letters from Mme de La Fayette to Ménage are the only part of her correspondence of which we have more than just fragments. They deserve to be read and reread to understand what that tender love was— that love—wrongly called “precious”—which Mlle de Scudéry theorized about, but which more than one great lady experienced in the company of a brilliant mind who knew how to create around her the atmosphere of tender affection and intellectual and moral attention that marriage had denied her.” Introduction to the Complete Works of Mme de La Fayette, F. Bourin, 1994, preface by M. Déon. Includes its handwritten transcription and its original certificate of export for cultural property issued by the Ministry of Culture.