Women of Modern France

by Hugo P. Thieme

The obstacles to be conquered before reaching her goal were indeed numerous, but she managed them all. There were so many persons hostile to her,—mistresses and intriguers, bishops and priests, courtesans and valets, princes and members of the royal family,—to overcome whom she had to be on her guard, make use of every opportunity, show a rare knowledge of society and court, a profound skill and address, resolution and will; and she was equal to all occasions.

Her greatest defect was the narrowness of her religious views. Entirely in the hands of her spiritual advisers, obeying them faithfully and blindly, she was not inclined to theological investigation, but was sincerely devout. More interested in the various persons than in doctrines, she showed a passion for making bishops, abbots, and priests, as well as for negotiating compromises, reconciling amours propres and doing away with all religious hatred. Lacking, above all else, clearness of conception, promptness and firmness of decision, she was finally persuaded to encourage the bigotry of Louis XIV. and his intolerance toward those who differed from him. Hence, in 1685, she permitted that fearfully destructive persecution of the Protestants, which caused over three hundred thousand of France's most solid people to leave the country; and by her fanaticism and false zeal, she caused the king to be a party to that awful catastrophe.

"This one act of hers counterbalances nearly all her virtues, and we remember her more as the murderess of thousands of innocents than as the calm and virtuous governess. But we must remember the nature of her advisers and the eternal policy of the Catholic Church, which are ever identical with absolutism. To uphold the institutions and opinions already established, was the one sentiment of the age; innovation, progress, were destructive—Mme. de Maintenon became the watchful guardian of royalty and the Church." Such is the verdict of English opinion. M. Saint-Amand judges the affair differently:

"A woman as pious and reasonable as she was, animated always by the noblest intentions, loving her country and always showing sympathy for the poor people—not merely in words but in deeds as well—detesting war and loving justice and peace, always moderate and irreproachable in her conduct—such a woman cannot be the mischievous, crafty, malicious, and vindictive bigot imagined by many writers; she did not encourage such an act, nor would her nature permit to do so.... The prayer she uttered every morning, best portrays the woman and her rôle: 'Lord, grant me to gladden the king, to console him, to sadden him when it must be for Thy glory. Cause me to hide from him nothing which he ought to know through me, and which no one else would have courage to tell him.' ... To Madame de Glapion she said: 'I would like to die before the king; I would go to God; I would cast myself at the foot of His throne; I would offer Him the desires of a soul that He would have purified; I would pray Him to grant the king greater enlightenment, more love for his people, more knowledge of the state of the provinces, more aversion for the perfidy of the countries, more horror of the ways in which his authority is abused: and God would hear my prayers.'"

This pious woman was weary of life before her marriage, and but changed the nature of her misery upon reaching the highest goal open to a woman. Marly, Versailles, Fontainebleau were only different names for the same servitude. When she had attained her desire, she thought her repose assured; instead, her ennui, her disgust of life and the world, only increased; realizing this, she began to direct her thoughts entirely toward God and her aspirations toward things not of this earth—hence the almost complete absence of her influence in politics.

She was never happy, and that her life was a disappointment to her may be gathered from the following words from her pen: "Flee from men as from your mortal enemies; never be alone with them. Take no pleasure in hearing that you are pretty, amiable, that you have a fine voice. The world is a malicious deceiver which never means what it says; and the majority of men who say such things to young girls, do it hoping to find some means of ruining them."

Her most intense desire seemed to be to please, and be esteemed—to receive the honneur du monde, which appeared to be her sole motive for living. When in power, she did not use her influence as the intriguing women of the epoch would have done, because she did not possess their qualities—taste, breadth of vision, and selfish ambitions. Her objects in life were the reform of a wicked court, the extirpation of heresy, the elevation of men of genius, and the improvement of the society and religion of France. After the death of the king (in 1715), she retired to Saint-Cyr, and spent the remainder of her life in acts of charity and devotional exercises.

After the king's death she dismissed all her servants and disposed of her carriages as well, "unable to reconcile herself to feeding horses while so many young girls were in need," as she said. For almost four years she peacefully and happily lived in a very modest apartment. She seldom went out and then only to the village to visit the sick and the poor. On June 10, 1717, when she was eighty-one years old, Peter the Great went to Saint-Cyr for the purpose of seeing and talking to the greatest woman of France. He found her confined to her bed; the chamber being but dimly lighted, he thrust aside the curtain in order to examine the features of the woman who had ruled the destinies of France for so many years. The Czar talked to her for some time, and when he asked Madame de Maintenon from what she was suffering, she replied: "From great old age." She died on August 15, 1719, and was buried in the choir of the church of Saint-Cyr, where a modest slab of marble indicated the spot where her body reposed until, in 1794, when the church was being transformed into hospital wards, "the workmen opened the vault, and took out the body and dragged it into the court with dreadful yells and threw it, stripped and mutilated, into a hole in the cemetery."

The greatest work of Mme. de Maintenon was the founding of the Seminary of Saint-Cyr, which the king granted to her about the time of their marriage and of his illness; it was probably intended as the penance of a sick man who wished to make reparation for the wrongs inflicted upon some of the young girls of the nobility, and as a wedding gift to Mme. de Maintenon. There, aided by nuns, she cared for and educated two hundred and fifty pupils, dowerless daughters of impoverished nobles. It was "the veritable offspring of her who was never a daughter, a wife, nor a mother." There she was happy and content; there she recalled her own youth when she was poor and forsaken; there she found respite from the turmoils and agitations of Versailles; there she was supreme; there she governed absolutely and was truly loved.

For thirty years she was queen at Saint-Cyr, visiting it every other day and teaching the young girls for whom it was a protection against the world. Since childhood, she had been so accustomed to serve herself, to wait upon others and to care for the smallest details of the management of the household, that she introduced this spirit into society and at Saint-Cyr, where she managed every detail, from the linen to the provisions; this showed a reasonable and well-balanced mind, but not any high order of intelligence.