Within a few years she lost her father, husband, two of her brothers, and her second son; and after putting her financial affairs into order, she and her friend, the Countess of Maure, took up their quarters at the famous Place Royale; there they decided to devote their lives to letters, and there assembled their friends, men and women, regardless of rank or party, personal merit being the only means of access. Mmes. de Sablé and de Rambouillet were called the arbiters of elegance and good taste.
To her friends, Mme. de Sablé was always accommodating and showed no partiality; well informed, she was constantly approached for counsel and favors; discreet and trustworthy, the most important secrets were intrusted to her--a confidence which she never betrayed. During the Fronde she remained faithful to the queen and Mazarin, but did not become estranged from her friends, so many of whom were Frondists, and who chose her as their counsellor, arbitrator, and pacifier.
About 1655 she began to realize her unsettled position in the world and to long for a place where she might, modestly and becomingly, spend her declining years. She was then fifty-five years of age. The ideas of Jansenism had so impressed the great people of the day, that she decided to retire to Port-Royal, to end her days with sympathizers of the spiritual life around her and her former friends whenever she desired them. There she gathered about her the most exclusive and aristocratic people of the day: La Rochefoucauld, the Prince and Princess of Conti, Condé, Monsieur,--brother of Louis XIV.,--Mme. de La Fayette, Mme. de Hautefort, and others.
At her apartments, not only were religious and literary affairs discussed, but the most delicate and delicious dishes were prepared and elixirs and remedies for disease compounded. Famous people were led to seek her, through her reputation and influence, and through friendship, for she seldom left her house. Mme. de Sablé possessed all the qualities that attract and hold, nothing extraordinary or rare, but abundant politeness and elegance.
It was not long before she began to withdraw from even her friends, still continuing, however, her fine cuisine, the remarkable care of her health, and her medical experiments. Her dinners became celebrated, and invitations to them were much in demand; about them there were no signs of opulence, but her gatherings were distinguished for refinement and taste. Her friends were constantly asking her for her recipes, of the preparation of which no one but herself knew the secret.
At the salon of Mme. de Sablé originated many famous literary works, such as the Conférences sur le Calvinisme, works on Cartesian philosophy, the Logique de Port-Royal, Questions sur l'Amour, Les Maximes, etc. She will be remembered as the initiator of many maxims, in the composition of which she excelled. A number of her sayings concerning friendship have been preserved. Two treatises, in the form of maxims, on the education of children and on friendship, respectively, are supposed to have come from her pen; from them La Rochefoucauld conceived the ideas he utilized in his famous Maxims.
La Rochefoucauld's maxims were composed according to the chance of conversation, which gave rise to various subjects and led to his serious reflection upon them. Cousin even goes so far as to say that the Pensées of Pascal would never have been published in that form had not the Maxims enjoyed such favor. Pascal often visited Port-Royal and naturally followed the general reflective tendency of its society. His Discours sur les Passions de l'Amour possibly originated at the salon of Mme. de Sablé, because the subject of which that work treated was one much discussed there. La Rochefoucauld was in the habit of sending his maxims to Mme. de Sablé with the message: "As you do nothing for nothing, I ask of you a carrot soup or mutton stew."
When La Rochefoucauld entered the society of Mme. de Sablé, he had seen much of life, was familiar with most of the adventures and intrigues of the Fronde and the society of the time; he himself had acted his part in all, and at the age of fifty was ready to put his experience into a permanent form of reflection. His Maxims created a stir, through the clearness and elegance of their character, their fine analyses of man as he was in the seventeenth century, and through their truthfulness and general applicability to men of every country. From all the illustrious women of the day, either he or Mme. de Sablé received letters of criticism or suggestion--eulogies and condemnations of which he took notice in his next edition. This shows the intense interest felt in the appearance of any new literary production.
Cousin says that the whole literature of maxims and reflections issued directly from the salon of a kind and good woman who had retired to a convent with no other desire than to live over her life, to recall her past and what she had seen and felt therein; and upon her society, that woman impressed her own tastes, elegance, and seriousness. Her great act of benevolence was her protection of Port-Royal. When, after the death in 1661 of Mother Angélique Arnauld, that institution became the object of persecution and its tenants were either imprisoned or compelled to seek refuge in the various families of Paris, Mme. de Sablé remained faithful to its principles; she lived with her friends, Mme. de Longueville and Mme. de Montausier, until 1669, when, with the coöperation of Mme. de Longueville, who exerted all her influence for Port-Royal, she finally succeeded in bringing about its reopening. At least, Cousin ascribes this result to Mme. de Sablé, but he may have somewhat exaggerated her influence in this respect. From her retreat at Port-Royal, she kept up a constant correspondence with her friends all over France; she lived there until 1678, with but one intimate friend, Mme. de Longueville.
Mme. de Sablé had remarkable gifts; her mission in politics, religion, and literature seems to have been to excite to action, to stimulate and to bring out to its fullest value, the talents and genius of others. In her modest salon, she inspired the great and illustrious work which will keep her memory alive as long as the Maxims and Pensées are read. Her name will be connected with that of Mme. de Longueville, because of their ideal friendship, and with that of Port-Royal because of her ardent and self-sacrificing support of it in the time of its direst persecution, when any exhibition of sympathy was dangerous in the extreme; and finally, her name will always be connected with that small circle of French society of the seventeenth century, which was noble, moral, and elevating to an unusual degree.