The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-11-16

est you Americans to know that
 the historic home of Mime. de sevigne. the Chateau Of Grignan, is to be purchased by Count Boni de Castel lane, which. of course. means with the great fortune of Mime. la Comtesse, who was Miss Annie Gould. of New York. It is said to have belonged to his ancestors, by which he must mean of a collateral branch He will never make 1t what It appeared to Mime. de seyigne. Nor need he hope to catch any of her talent by haunting the terraces from which she gazed across the plain of the Drome at the distant Alps.
 l visited some years ago the Chateau de Grignan. More than three-fourths of the original pile were in ruins. The un- glazed windows admitted freely all the winds that swept over the department of the Drome. where they had the mistral, the icy winds from the Alps. the keen blasts from the Ardeche mountains, and the tail end of the African sirocco that blows over the Mediterranean and for some distance up the Rhone. Remains of architectural sculpture lie in the long grass. Italian artists probably executed them. Their facility is apparent in the allegorical figures. Pillars of different orders also lie about. Some of the ter races from which there are noble views, are no longer good for promenading, as in Mime. de Seveigne's time, owing to the heaps of rubbish.
 l pity the future purchaser of Grignan if he or she intends to restore it to the state in which Mime. de Sevelgne in her visits to her daughter saw it. The sight is fine, a rock like that of the Acropolis overlooking a wide plain, bounded by the mountains of Dauphiny and the towering Mount Ventoux. But is Is a mistral- swept site also, and has no sort of shelter from the fierce sunshine of the valley of the Rhone, which at the place where Grignan stands has the same climate as that of Burgos, and is Just as bleak. The eye of the Proyencal finds beauties in the plain that escape the northern stranger, who does not at once appreciate the rug ged scented, parched country which Mme. de Seveigne described so well in a single trait in calling 1t tune gueuse parfumee.
 Need I say that we owe the immortal letters of Mme de Seveigne to the daughter she idolized having married Comte de Grignan. Lieutenant general of the king in Languedoc, and later of Provence, who, on being appointed to the foremost post. went to live in the ancestral residence on the windswept TOcky eDln6DCof The ulSIdnc0 OI OT1B- nan from Paris in 1870 rendered 1t im- possible for Mime. de Sevelgne to go often to see her daughters. They did not live on amicable terms together, the children not responding to the adoring love of the mother. But absence soothed the moth- CTS heartwounds, and she endeavored in sending to the Comtesse de Grignan what were really news letters filled with town and court gossip to bring her round to a Uar fafa of mo highly educated, had rich Burgundian nature. The daughter took after her father, a Breton of a rather poor char acter, who seems to have been insensible to the bright qualities and agreeable ap- pearance of his wife, and neglected her to court Ninon de rEnclos
 Mime. de Seveigne left some delicious impressions of Grignan in her letters She died there of smallpox, at the age of seventy-two Her daughter, whose fate 1t was to perish some years later of the same disease, fled from her, leaving her to the care of Mme de Marcillac, a niece of La Rochefoucauld, author of Les Maximes.' Fortunately this voluntary sick-nurse was devoted to the dear warm hearted. and highly-gifted old lady. M de Grignan stayed in the chateau. We know from him how Mime. de Seveigne ended her life. This dear woman, so tender and so weak toward every one she loved, found strength and courage when she thought she had only herself to think of ' The son-in-law buried her in the parish church of St Sauveur, at the foot of Castle Hill. The revolutionists broke open her tomb in 1793 and the ma son requisitioned to break into the vault carried off all the unspoiled breadths of the rich brocade robe in which her corpse had been dressed and a lock of her hair The town notary took for his spoil one of the ribs of the skeleton. No leaden coffin sheathed the remains. Thirty-two years ago a society of historical research had the tomb examined and found one half of the skull nicely sawn as if by a surgeon On the death of the most ac- complished writer of any time her son-in- law had this operation performed in or der to send the other half with the part of the brain 1t contained to be studied by some friends interested In phrenology.
 have been taken through Zolas town house. He seems to have had a present. iment that he would be killed in his bed at night. To secure himself against mur- derous burglars he had forged iron grating of a beautiful design placed across his bedroom in order to isolate the part in which he slept from the rest of the apartment The structure of the bed rendered 1t impossible for any one to hide under 1t. Zola himself kept the key of the wicket in the grating, fearing that if he left it about a duplicate might be made The bed Is a ponderous, grandi- oce, and wholly out of proportion and harmony with the somewhat meagre architecture of the house. It must have been made long ago for some Italian "magnifico's" palace. and is misplaced In