Et blême
Dit des vers ou d’abord personne n’entend rien.”
So wrote Madame Deshoulières, and the flippancy on the tremendous theme evoked general disgust. “What is this tumbled from the clouds?” cried Madame de la Sablière. “This sweet and interesting shepherdess, who talked so tenderly to her sheep and flowers and birds, has suddenly changed her crook into a serpent!”
Madame de Sévigné preferred to be entirely of the opinion of Madame Deshoulières, but if envy of the great tragic poet was in the heart of the one, personal animosity was beyond question in that of the other; for Madame de Sévigné had never forgiven either Boileau or Racine for favouring the intrigue of her grandson, de Grignan with the Champmeslé.
Madame Deshoulières burned with desire for dramatic honours, and she wrote a tragedy called Genséric. It was a feeble, ill-constructed piece of work, and was ill-received; but it was not to be forgotten, for it perpetuated the immortal figure of speech, as familiar in England as in France, of the advice to her—“Return to your sheep” (anglicé—“Let us go back to our muttons”).[8]
Once again she wooed the drama in the guise of comedy and opera; but her efforts were signal failures. She died at the age of sixty-two, of the same malady as her godmother, and, like her, she bore the cruel suffering with patience and resignation, writing in the intervals of pain a paraphrase of the Psalms, and her Reflections Morales, one of her best works. Bossuet, who administered to her the last consolations of religion, spoke in warm eulogy of those last days of hers.
A singular circumstance disturbed the smooth flow of Mademoiselle de L’Enclos’ life at this time. It was the sudden appearance of an aged woman who declared herself to be Marion Delorme, and claiming a fifty-seven years’ friendship with Ninon.
She declared that the report of her death had been false; that the doctor, Guy Patin, had not attended her funeral; but had saved her life, and then she had left Paris and lived out of France.