The letters are naturally of the very first importance for determining
the character of Margaret's life as a woman of business, a diplomatist,
and so forth. They show her to us in all these capacities, and also in
that of an enlightened and always ready patroness of letters and of men
of letters. Further, they are of value, though their value is somewhat
affected by a reservation to be made immediately, as to her mental and
moral characteristics. But they are not of literary interest at all
equal to that of either of the other divisions. They are, if not spoilt,
still not improved, by the fact that the art of easy letter-writing,
in which Frenchwomen of the next century were to show themselves such
proficients, had not yet been developed, and that most of them are
couched in a heavy, laborious, semiofficial style, which smells, as far
as mere style goes, of the cumbrous refinements of the _rhetoriqueurs_,
in whose flourishing time Margaret herself grew up, and which conceals
the writer's sentiments under elaborate forms of ceremonial courtesy.
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