Madame de Maintenon

“ Whatever is in the heart comes out sooner or later in the writings, and those who read Madame de Maintenon in her letters, will be in no doubt as to what were her guiding principles. Always true to herself, she was an enigma to those only who had not the key to her true character. ”

“ Madame de Maintenon received her with marked attention, mingled with reserve, promised her support with the ministers when the affair should be discussed, and made her promise to pass the entire day, at Versailles, for the King was obliged to visit the new gardens at Marly.
The time for mass being come, Madame de Maintenon said to the fair Epicurean, with a smile: "You are one of us, are you not? The music will be delicious in the chapel to-day; you will not have a moment of weariness." ”

“ Mme. de Maintenon is at Saint-Cyr, in the institution which she founded herself. She was never the king’s mistress, but something much higher. She was governess to Mme. de Montespan’s children, and from that she got a footing in salons, but she went much farther. The devil in hell cannot be worse than she has been; her ambition has flung all France into wretchedness. ”

“ It is said that I have special talent for sustaining and enlivening a conversation; there is something in that, I admit, but to do her justice, I must say that in this respect Madame de Maintenon is without a rival. She has quite a wealth of invention; the most arid subject in her hands becomes attractive; while for transitions, her skill is unequalled. Far simpler than myself, she gauges her whole audience with a single glance. ”

“ In matters of religion, Madame de Maintenon, who understands such things, was my usual mentor. I told her that I was disheartened, and should not go to confession again for ever so long. She was shocked at my resolve, and strove all she could to make me change my mind and endeavour to lead me back into the right way.
She forever kept repeating her favourite argument, saying, "Good gracious! suppose you should die in that state!" ”

“ I said to her; "in your place, I should insist upon the necessities of my health. And the Court of France will not fall nor change its physiognomy, even if a German or Iroquois Dauphine should courtesy awry, or in bad taste."
Madame de Maintenon began to laugh, and assured me that "her post as lady in waiting would be an actual burden, if the King had destined her for it in spite of herself, and there should be no means of withdrawing from it." ”

“ I replied; “when I think that you, who have a hundred-fold more cleverness than I, have not been able to maintain yourself at Court as you wished, what would happen to me, a poor foreigner, who knows nothing of intrigues and does not like them?”
She was angry and said: “Fie! you are good for nothing.”
She never could forgive the king for not having declared her queen. She gave herself out to the King of England as so pious and humble that the queen took her for a saint. ”

“ Never, in fact, even when looking back through ages, does one experience very powerful feelings on behalf of those who were deficient in them, and dry, cold virtue, without the passion that animates, and the struggle that vivifies it, will always lack admirers. Madame de Maintenon not only appears austere and inflexible, but everything with her is conventional and calculated. Her piety is not ardent in its outbursts, like La Vallière’s, but restrained and deliberate, and her scruples always turn to the advantage of her fortune. ”

“ No claim less powerful could have induced the latter to take into her favour a person who was so little worthy. Like all women who know nothing but what chance has taught them, and who have long languished in obscurity before arriving at splendour, Madame de Maintenon was dazzled by the very name of Princess, even if assumed: as to a real Princess, nothing equalled her in her opinion. The Princess then tried hard to get the Prince invited to Marly, but without success. ”

“ Upon rising from the table, the King passed, according to custom, into the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, followed by the Princesses of the blood, who grouped themselves around him upon stools; the others who entered, kept at a distance. Almost before he had seated himself in his chair, he said to Madame de Maintenon, that he had just been witness of an act of "incredible insolence" (that was the term he used) which had thrown him into such a rage that he had been unable to eat: that such an enterprise would have been insupportable in a woman of the highest quality ”

“ I am very much deserted here, for every one, young and old, runs after favour. The Maintenon cannot endure me, [Pg 57] and the Duchesse de Bourgogne likes only what that lady likes. I have done my best to conciliate that all-powerful person, but I cannot succeed in doing so. So I am excluded from everything, and I never see the king except at supper. I can only act according to the will of others. I was less bound when Monsieur was living. I dare not sleep away from Versailles without the king’s permission. It is not wrong, therefore, that I should wish to be with you in our dear Palatinate ”

“ There is nothing more burdensome than the life they lead; it costs them infinite trouble, constraint, expense, and ennui to pay their court; and at the end of it all you will hear them say: ‘Ah! how vexed I am; I have stood about since morning and I think the king has not even seen me.’ And, in truth,” continued Mme. de Maintenon, “they get up very early in the morning, dress with care, and are on their feet all day, watching for a favourable moment to make themselves seen and be presented ”

“ The Duc du Maine thought he could have married my daughter, but certain merchants who were in Mme. de Montespan’s apartment overheard her speaking to Mme. de Maintenon of the marriage,—those ladies thinking such common persons would not understand them. But the merchants spoke up and said, “Mesdames, don’t try that; it will cost you your lives if you make that marriage.” That prevented the thing; for Mme. de Montespan was so frightened she went to the king and begged him not to think of it any longer. ”

“ I certainly cannot deny that he is a lover of women; but he has his caprices, and everybody does not please him. The grand style suits him less than the dissipated, loose ways of the opera-dancers. I often ridicule him for it.
Our little king is now in the Tuileries in perfect health; he has never been really ill; he is very lively, and does not keep in one position for a single instant. To tell you the truth, he is very badly brought up; they let him do just what he likes for fear of making him ill. ”

“ He does not wish to act secretly, like those who have preceded him in the management of the finances, but publicly, with honour. It is quite false that he has bought a palace from the Duchesse de Berry; she has none to sell; all the houses she has return to the king,—such as Meudon, Châville, and La Muette.
Law is so pursued that he has no peace day or night; a duchess kissed his hands in sight of everybody, and if duchesses kiss his hands, what will not the other women kiss? Impossible to have more capacity than he, but I would not for all the gold in the world be in his place ”

“ His Majesty complains of your attitude towards your former friend. If the frankness of your nature and the impatience of your humour have sometimes led you too far, I exhort you to moderate yourself, in your own interest and in that of your children. Madame de Maintenon is an amiable and witty person, whose society pleases the King. Have this consideration for a hard-working prince, whom intellectual recreation relaxes and diverts, and make a third at those pleasant gatherings where you shone long before this lady, and where you would never be her inferior. ”

“ She has reason to be happy; she is well [Pg 318] married, much beloved by the king and dauphin, and she truly makes the enjoyment of the whole Court. There are days when she has attacks of fever, and then the courtiers are in consternation, and cry out about the irreparable loss she would be to them. The people love her much because she lets herself be seen very readily; she has the most pleasing children she could possibly desire, less handsome than yours, but very vigorous, and perfect pictures,—graceful like herself, and showing already much intelligence. ”

“ Outward acts are to them an enigma and a stumbling-block, because the soul and its guiding principles cannot be seen. A true Christian, such as Madame de Maintenon, is an object of faith, as is the Church, and as was the Church's Lord in the days of his humiliation. Seated, to say the least, on the footstool of the throne, and surrounded by all the pomp and circumstance of royal life, she was to jaundiced eyes but one in a crowd of princes and courtiers, and differing from them only in that she was more astute ”

“ Mme. de Maintenon relied greatly on recreations to form her [Pg 230] pupils pleasantly, to show them their defects and win their confidence without seeming to be in search of it. In the good she felt she had done at Saint-Cyr she dwelt much on the pains she had bestowed on “recreation.” “That,” she said, “is what leads to union and removes partialities; that is what binds the mistresses with the pupils; a superior makes herself liked and warms the hearts of her girls by giving them pleasures ”

“ There is no one there whom I can ask for what I need; not a single woman. It is not because I could not have them, for the king is full of kindness, and if he thought I wanted one woman he would endure ten; but it never comes into his mind that I am constraining myself. As he is master everywhere, and does exactly what he wishes, he cannot imagine that any one should do otherwise; he believes that if I show no wants, I have none. You know that my rule is to take everything on myself and think for others. Great people, as a rule, are not like that ”

“ It is pure indolence in her. That is why we cannot take our meals together. She has not spoken to me since the death of the king.
Mme. de Berry is red. When she wishes to please she ought to talk, for she has natural eloquence. She keeps around her those who constantly deceive her. I say nothing to her now; she has intelligence, but has been very ill brought up. I no longer consider her as one of my grandchildren; she goes her way, and I go mine; I do not concern myself with her, nor she with me.
[Pg 81]
Paris, 1716. ”

“ The reform once established at Saint-Cyr and the first sad impression effaced, all became orderly, and joy returned as before to a life so uniform and busy. Mme. de Maintenon had, as I have said, the gift of education, and she would have no sadness about it; there never can be sadness in what is done thoroughly with a full heart in the right way; at one moment or at another, joy, which is but the expansion of the soul, returns and cannot cease to flow through actions. ”

“ Mme. de Maintenon, who is the foundress of Saint-Cyr, always busy with the purpose of amusing the king, is constantly introducing some novelty among the little girls brought up in that establishment, of which it may be said that it is worthy of the grandeur of the king and of the mind of her who invented and who conducts it. But sometimes the best-invented things degenerate considerably; and that establishment which, now that we have become devout, is the abode of virtue and piety, may some day, without any profound prophesying, be that of debauchery and impiety. ”

“ My son has pronounced a speech in Parliament and they tell me he did not speak badly. The young king is very delicate; the ministers who governed under the late king keep their places, and as there is no doubt that they are quite as curious as they ever were, letters will continue to be opened. It is quite impossible that I should keep my health in Paris, for what preserved it was fresh air and exercise, hunting, and walking. But I ought to learn to resign myself to the will of God; the frightful wickedness and falseness of this world disgust me with life ”

“ M. le Duc du Maine praised, without affectation, the intelligence of the artist; and as for the figure and the likeness, he said to the Princess: "You are good, but you are better." The calm and the naivety of this compliment made Mademoiselle shed tears. Her emotion was visible; she embraced my son anew.
"You have brought him up perfectly," she said to Madame de Maintenon. "His urbanity is of good origin; that is how a king's son ought to act and speak:
"His Majesty," said Madame de Maintenon, "has been enchanted with your country-house ”

“ The Maintenon told me this herself after the dauphine’s death, to prove it was solely the fault of that hussy that the dauphine did not live on good terms with me. That might be half true, but it is none the less certain that the old vilaine had set her against me. Nearly all the giddy young women who surrounded the dauphine were relations or allies of the old woman; it was by her orders that they tried to amuse and divert the princess,—in order that she might have no other society than what she gave her, and be bored elsewhere. ”

“ I do not believe that in the whole world you could find a more amiable and sweeter child than our pretty infanta. [15] She makes reflections that are worthy of a woman of thirty; for instance: “They say that those who die at my age are saved and go straight to paradise; I should therefore be very glad if the good God would take me.” I fear she has too much mind, and will not live. She has the prettiest ways in the world; she has taken a great liking to me, and runs to me in her antechamber with her arms wide open, and kisses me with affection. ”