Translator's Note—The above was the last letter Saint-Evremond ever wrote Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, and with the exception of one more letter to his friend, Count Magalotti, Councillor of State to His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Tuscany, he never wrote any other, dying shortly afterward at the age of about ninety. His last letter ends with this peculiar Epicurean thought in poetry:
Je vis éloigné de la France,
Sans besoins et sans abondance,
Content d'un vulgaire destin;
J'aime la vertu sans rudesse,
J'aime le plaisir sans mollesse,
J'aime la vie, et n'en crains pas la fin.
(I am living far away from France,
No wants, indeed, no abundance,
Content to dwell in humble sphere;
Virtue I love without roughness,
Pleasures I love without softness,
Life, too, whose end I do not fear.)