As I have said, the primary idea was Madame de Maintenon’s, and it developed successively from a small start at Rueil (1682) with sixty pupils, through Noisy with its one hundred and twenty-four, to stately Saint-Cyr with its projected five hundred. Herself a daughter of the class of smaller landed gentry, she had experienced in her own person all the sorrows and bitterness, all the temptations and dangers to which these poor little sisters of her order must inevitably be exposed—and her thought was to gather as many of them as possible into shelter from them. With the generous means put at her disposition she reckoned that she could provide for five hundred young girls, up to the age of fifteen.
But—and it was the statesmanship of the King that raised the point—would there really be very much gained by keeping the girls only until their fifteenth year, and then sending them back to their families with nothing but a half-finished education to their credit? Would it not be better to keep them in Saint-Cyr until they were twenty, and their education complete? With an education such as was planned for them, and a small dowry to supplement the fortune it represented, these girls would find no difficulty in securing suitable “partis,” or being received into convents.
Madame de Maintenon perceived that this course would be much better, and she willingly agreed to have the original number of five hundred pupils reduced to two hundred and fifty. For, as she plainly saw, it was less a question of gathering in the greatest number of girls possible, than of conferring a permanent benefit on the whole kingdom, “by making the foundation a source of pious instruction for it.” Saint-Cyr was to be the leaven, which, hidden in “three measures of meal” (being the whole of France), was “to leaven the whole.” Every girl who left Saint-Cyr, after her thirteen years’ training in all Christian and womanly virtues and accomplishments, was to be a centre of education and enlightenment for all those with whom she should come in contact. In her was to come to life that picture of the Christian Gentlewoman which Fénélon has painted in immortal colours, and which M. Octave Gréard has hung in its true place in his gallery of women:—
“As for me,” he says, in his admirable introduction to the “Education des Filles,” “I love to picture to myself the young woman, educated by Fénélon, as he has painted her, in the setting of a provincial ‘gentilhommière’ he has chosen for her. Up with the dawn, lest laziness or self-indulgence should gain any hold on her; carefully planning the employment of her own day, and that of her servants, and apportioning its various tasks among them with gentle authority; devoting to her children all the time that is necessary to learn to know their characters, and to train them in right principles; her clever hands always busy with some useful piece of needlework; interesting herself in the business of the farm and the estate, and missing no opportunity of learning even from the humblest of those engaged on them; thoughtful for the comforts and wants of her dependents; founding little schools for poor children, and interesting her friends in the care of the destitute sick; leading amid solid and useful occupations, such as these, a full if uneventful existence, and animating everything about her with the same sentiment of life.”
No one who knows intimately the Catholic women of France can fail to recognise the type, and in its persistence (which really inspires a belief in the resurrection of France) must see an overwhelming justification of the statesmanship of Louis XIV. “What France needs,” says Père La Chaise, and he spoke for his royal penitent, too, “is not good nuns—we have enough of them—but good mothers of families.” It is the glory of Saint-Cyr, from its foundation until it fell under the axe of Revolution, to have furnished France with them, and, what is more, to have assured the vitality of the strain in a degree to which the affairs of France bear witness even to-day. When at a recent re-union of the “Ligue des Femmes Françaises,” the Catholic Women’s League of France, we saw the portrait of the ideal “Femme Française,” drawn by the Marquis de Lespinay, and recognised, in every gracious detail, its identity with the ideal which Fénélon formulated, and Saint-Cyr realized, did it not seem, indeed, that Madame de Maintenon’s prayer had been heard? That Saint-Cyr will live—in spirit at least—as long as France, and that France will live—because of it—as long as the world? Vive Saint-Cyr! Puisse-t-il durer autant que la France, et la France autant que le monde!
She was accustomed to early hours at home, was our little Marie-Jeanne, being a busy young person, whose usefulness in minding turkeys, and similar offices, was never questioned in the d’Aumale household. Accordingly, she was quite wide-awake when, very early next morning, the shutters were opened, and somebody passed down the dormitory, pausing at each little white bed to pass the holy-water to its small occupant, and elicit “Deo Gratiases” of varying degrees of drowsiness in answer to a very brisk “Benedicamus Domino.” Some of the “Deo Gratiases” were very, very sleepy—but certainly not Marie-Jeanne’s. Hers absolutely vibrated with energy, and the emphatic bump with which she immediately transferred her small person from bed to floor was but its fitting sequel.
“The dear little one!” said a voice; and Marie Jeanne, interrupting her toilet, looked up to see a very tall and beautiful lady pass the asperges to the nun, who had put her lonely little self to sleep last night, and come and take her in her arms.
“Shall I send one of the ‘bleues’ to help her to dress, Madame?” inquired the nun. But the beautiful lady shook her head. “I will help her, myself,” she told the Sister, “but indeed I think she will not need much helping.”
She was quite right. Everything that a little girl could reasonably be expected to do for herself, Marie Jeanne d’Aumale did. But, as she explained (afterwards, naturally, for she rightly gathered conversation was not allowed in the dormitory), the uniform of Saint-Cyr, which she donned this morning for the first time, was not at all like the style of garment she had been accustomed to wear at home, and one had to learn the ways of the fastenings.
It was a very pretty uniform, she decided, when she was fully dressed and ready to survey herself. It consisted of a neat brown frock, with a cape and apron to match. The apron was bound, in Marie Jeanne’s case, with a smart red ribbon, which showed, as she presently learned, that she belonged to the “Rouges,” the division comprising the youngest in the school, the children between seven and ten. The “Vertes,” whose apron-ribbon was green, came next in order of age, being girls between eleven and thirteen. Then came the “Jaunes,” with their yellow ribbon—girls between fourteen and sixteen. The “Bleues” were the big girls of the school, and showed their standing by the blue ribbon which bordered their apron. Little or big, they all wore pretty white muslin caps on their heads, and soft white muslin collars round their necks, of the fashion we call “Puritan.” They were encouraged to do their hair, if modestly, as becomingly as possible, and a dainty bit of ribbon was supplied occasionally to help in its adornment. It would appear from an “Entretien” with the “Vertes” in the year 1703, that Madame de Maintenon and the Dames de Saint-Louis had occasionally a little trouble with the “demoiselles” about the way they wore their caps, which they persisted in putting too far back on their heads, showing too much hair.