Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, Countess de LAFAYETTE (1634-1693). L.A.S. "De La Vergne", [Espinasse] December 12 [1656], to Abbé Gilles Ménage in Paris; 2 1/2 pages in-4, address with trace of black wax seal (old transcription enclosed). Beautiful, literary and friendly letter. "Vous aves eu de si bonnes raisons pour ne pas escrire me deux ordinaires de suitte que jaurois tous les torts du monde de m'en plaindre je trouve mesme quelles sont trop bonnes et je voudrois que vous en avez des moins valables que celle de votre indisposition presentement that I have little health I have a pity nompareille those who have none and asseurement there is nothing so precious in life and we can not have rest without health and with it we can almost console all finally doors you well and you will be happy "... She received his Italian poems [Rime italiane (1636), attached to the Poemata]: "I have found many that I did not know, there is such a large quantity in which I take part that if I had subtracted two or three things, I would say that they are all for me. This rewards me, and beyond having been the cause of your having studied Italian so carefully, I am very happy that all the praise you give me is in a language that is heard less by people who know me than by those who don't, for at least I won't be ashamed to know that all those who know me know me... to know that all those who read them will say that I don't deserve them those who have never seen me will surely believe that a man who writes verses so well in a foreign language has too much spirit to write them in praise of a person who is not quite in it. is not quite worthy of it, and on this thought I have a way of Me Laure [an allusion to Petrarch's Laure] I will read your poems with great attention and will send you, at the p[remi]er ordinaire, the parts that will touch me the most"... Finally, she asks Ménage if he has indeed "sent me a letter from the Jansenistes" [probably the 15th of Pascal's Provinciales, published on November 23], and concludes: "adieu nostre cher amy Menage raimons nous bien je vous en prie nous ne scaurions en verité mieux faire". Correspondance (ed. Beaunier), no. 47.