“There is your letter made,” said Mme. de Maintenon; “you have only to write it down simply, as you think it; if you think badly, it will be corrected.” She then said to us, “That is how I taught him, and you have seen the charming letters that he writes.” Mme. de Loubert, our head mistress, said it would be giving us great pleasure if she would take the trouble to write a model for us. She consented, and took for her subject the letters she had just corrected; she wrote a note and a letter in order to show us the difference.
We dared not show her the desire we had that she should write one for us as if to a person to whom we owed respect; one of our mistresses was so good as to say this for us. Mme. de Maintenon asked us, with her accustomed kindness, “To whom, my children, do you wish me to address it?” We answered her in a manner to let her know it should be to herself, as our benefactress. “Well,” she said, “since you wish it, I will write you a letter of ceremony and respect to aged persons, although they are not of better families than your own.” Then, addressing one of us, she said: “For instance, you owe respect to old M. T——, your uncle, whom I know, though he is of the same family as your own; you also owe me respect on account of my age,”—as if wishing to tell us there was no other reason to make us respect her, so great is her humility; but it does not become us, Mother, to speak to you of that, which you know better than we.
After having written the letter we had asked of her, she had the kindness to read it to us, and then said: “You see I have made it respectful and tender, but it is meant for those who regard me as a mother, just as I regard them as my daughters.”
We have not as yet, Mother, received the letters she took the pains to write for us, but we shall try to obtain them soon, and will then give them to you, without changing anything.
We must also tell you what she made us notice as to the last words of her letter which express the tenderness she allows us to show her, having the charity to consider us her daughters. She said to us: “If a person whom I did not know wrote to me thus it would not be proper, though I should not mind it; but as for those at Saint-Cyr, I like them to show me affection and write to me without ceremony....”
Before going away she said to us, “My dear children, do you think that all this will profit you?” We answered that we hoped the pains she had taken would not be wasted, and she went away saying that she wished the same with all her heart.
It is with much pleasure, Mother, that we have acquitted ourselves of what you ordered us; we beg you to excuse all the defects you may perceive in it; but we think there is no need to tell you how filled we are with gratitude to Mme. de Maintenon, who gives us daily fresh marks of her kindness. It is this which makes us hope for as fortunate a fate as that which has come to several of our companions who have been brought closer to her. We cannot hope that fate will do as much for us, but at least we are going to apply ourselves with all our strength to profit by the kindnesses which she now does us; and we shall endeavour all our lives to do honour to the education which she procured for us, and in which she so often employs herself. We are, Mother, with profound respect, your very humble and very obedient servants,
D’Osmont and Du Bouchot.
On good and bad characteristics of mind.
April, 1700.