“Mme. de Montespan and I, for example,” she added, continuing to speak in a low voice to the mistress,—“we have been the greatest friends in the world; she liked me much, and I, simple as I was, trusted her friendship. She was a woman of much intelligence and full of charm; she spoke to me with great confidence, and told me all she thought. And yet we are now at variance, without either of us having intended it. It is assuredly without fault on my side; and yet if either has cause to complain it is she; for she may say with truth: ‘I was the cause of her elevation; it was I who made her known and liked by the king, and she became the favourite while I was dismissed.’ On the other hand, was I wrong to accept the affection of the king on the conditions upon which I accepted it? Did I do wrong to give him good advice and to try, as best I could, to break up his connections? But let us return to what I meant to say in the first instance. If in loving Mme. de Montespan as I loved her I had been led to enter in a bad way into her intrigues, if I had given her bad advice, either from the world’s point of view or from God’s, if—instead of urging her all I could to break her bonds—I had shown her the means of retaining the king’s affection, would she not have in her hands at this moment the means of destroying me if she wished revenge? ‘This (or that) person whom you esteem so much,’ she used to say to me, ‘said to me thus and so; she urged me to do this, she counselled me that,’ etc. Have I not good reason to say that we should not let anything be seen even to our friends which they might use in the end against us? Sooner or later things are known, and it is very annoying to have to blush for things we have said and done in times past.”
“I said, many years ago, to M. de Barillon [one of her oldest friends] that there was nothing so clever as to never be in the wrong, and to conduct one’s self always and with all sorts of persons in an irreproachable manner; he thought I was right, and said that, in truth, there was nothing so able as to put one’s self, through good conduct, under shelter from all blame.
“I remember that one day the king sent me to speak to Mlle. de Fontanges; she was in a fury against certain mortifications she had received; the king feared an explosion and sent me to calm her. I was there two hours and I employed the time in persuading her to quit the king and in trying to convince her it would be a fine and praiseworthy thing to do. I remember that she answered me excitedly, ‘Madame, you talk to me of quitting a passion as I would a chemise.’ But to return to myself, you must admit I had nothing to blush for, and no reason to fear it should be known what I had said to her.
“You cannot too strongly preach the same conduct to your young ladies; let them give nothing but good advice; teach them to act in the most secret and personal affairs as if a hundred thousand witnesses were about them, or would be later; for I say again, there is nothing that is not sooner or later known, and it is more Christian, more virtuous, safer, and more honourable to have been a noble personage only; and even if we remain forever ignorant of what has been the wisdom of our conduct, I think we ought to count for much the inward testimony of a good conscience.” Then rising, she said to the class, “Adieu, my children, I am obliged to return to Versailles; but I have given my sister de Saint-Périer a fine field on which, to instruct you.”
On contempt for insults and injuries.
1701.
On the last day of the year 1700, the community having said to Mme. de Maintenon that they hoped to bury with the past century all their old differences and be other than they had been in the coming one; and also that they begged her to pardon and forget the imperfections of the year 1700 and those which had preceded it, “The past year,” she replied, “has been fortunate enough; many things have been corrected and I now see in this establishment more of good than of evil. God grant that you advance as much the coming year; I hope it greatly, for He has given you good willingness; that is what he requires of us: ‘Peace on earth to men of good will,’ said the angels. When this good will is real and sincere it does not remain useless, it produces infallibly its fruit; in some sooner, in others later. We must await the times and moments of God, not by remaining idle, but by working with good will, without discouragement and without uneasiness, leaving to God the care of blessing our labour. It is certain that He desires our perfection more than we do ourselves. He could make us perfect in a single day and all at once; but that is not His ordinary conduct; He defers, He touches the heart of one at this time, another may be touched at a future time. We must adore His designs and work in peace and confidence.”
The Dames de Saint-Louis having complained in the same conversation that they were not persecuted as other institutions had been at their birth: “You will be,” said Mme. de Maintenon, “and you have been already, though the harm that is said of you may not come to your ears. I pay no regard to it, nor to that which is said of me myself. I receive letters every day not only in the style of the person whom my sister de Butéry knows of, but letters which ask if I am not tired of growing fat by sucking the blood of the poor; and what I, being so aged, expect to do with the gold I am amassing. I receive other letters that go farther still and say to me the most insulting things; some of them warn me I shall be assassinated. But all this does not trouble me; I do not think it needs much virtue to feel no resentment for that sort of opposition. I said rather an amusing thing on a first impulse the other day to a poor woman, who came to me while I was surrounded by a number of the Court, weeping and imploring that I would get justice for her. I asked what wrong had been done to her. ‘Insults,’ she said; ‘they insult me, and I want reparation.’ ‘Insults!’ I exclaimed, ‘why, that is what we live on here!’ That answer made the ladies who accompanied me laugh.” “I think, Madame,” said Mme. de Saint-Pars, “that, far from enriching yourself at the expense of the poor, you run into debt for the charities you do.” “As for debts,” she replied, “I have none; but it often happens that I have no money; and when I settle my accounts at the end of the year I do not see how my income has been able to furnish all I have spent and given away.”
On Civility.
1702.