Excerpt from The Life and Times of Marie Madeleine: Countess of La Fayette I have also seen the features of her age as they touched upon and influenced her life and character. Yet, when all is said, to reconstruct the life of this grande dame of the seventeenth century is, I am aware, a difficult task, one which requires, first of all, as Matthew Arnold says, a personal attraction towards one's subject. This personal attraction is indeed my excuse for undertaking the task; and, like Tristram Shandy, I throw myself on my reader's indulgen Like him I say. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.