"France was in a condition of perfect tranquillity; no arms were known other than the implements necessary for removing the earth and building. The troops were employed for these purposes, not only with the intention of the Ancient Romans, which was only to take them out of a state of idleness as injurious to themselves as excessive work would be. But the object was also to make the River Eure flow against its will, to make the fountains of Versailles play continuously. They employed the troops on this prodigious plan, so as to advance the King's pleasures by a few years, and they did so at less expense and in less time than they had dared hope.
"The quantity of sickness always caused by earth-work rendered the troops in camp at Maintenon, where the chief part of the work lay, incapable of performing any service. But this drawback did not seem worthy of any attention in the midst of the tranquillity which we were enjoying."—T.
[468] Nicolas Pradon (1632-1698), a tragic poet who has left a reputation as a ridiculous, vain and jealous author. Nevertheless, he achieved some success in his day and, when Racine produced his Phèdre, his envious rivals brought out Pradon's tragedy of the same name in opposition to the great poet's masterpiece (1677). A few days sufficed to restore the two plays to their relative places in the judgment of the public. Besides several other tragedies, Pradon wrote a comedy directed against Racine and entitled the Jugement d'Apollon sur Phèdre and a pamphlet against Boileau entitled the Triomphe de Pradon (1684).—T.
[469] I omit ten lines quoted from Racine.—T.
[470] Charles d'Aubigné (1634-1703) answered his sister with a blasphemous phrase. He married, in 1678, Mademoiselle Geneviève Piètre and was the father of the Mademoiselle d'Aubigné who married the Duc de Noailles in 1698, receiving the estates of Maintenon as her marriage-portion.—T.
[471] Constant d'Aubigné (d. circa 1645), second son of Théodore Agrippa d'Aubigné, the Calvinist favourite of Henry IV.—T.
[472] Paul Scarron (1610-1660), the burlesque author, married Mademoiselle d'Aubigné in 1652, when she was only seventeen years of age. Louis XIV. gave her the domain of Maintenon in 1674 and erected it into a marquisate for her.—T.
[473] The reproach which M. de Chateaubriand, following the example of so many others, here levels against Madame de Maintenon has ceased to bear upon the memory of that illustrious woman since the publication of the Marquis de Dangeau's Relation de la dernière maladie de Louis XIV.—Note by Madame Lenormant.
[474] Louis Dauphin of France (1661-1711), known as the Great Dauphin, and Louis Duc de Bourgogne (1682-1712), his son, who became Dauphin, for one year, on his father's death, predeceased Louis XIV., their father and grandfather, who was succeeded, in 1715, by his great-grandson, Louis XV.—T.
[475] André Le Nôtre (1613-1700), the great French architect and landscape-gardener, designed not only the gardens at Versailles and most of the other French royal palaces, but laid out Kensington Gardens, St. James's Park and Greenwich Park in England and a number of the most celebrated gardens in Rome. Louis XIV. granted him letters of nobility in 1675.—T.
[476] Olivier de Serres (1539-1619), known in France as the "Father of Agriculture," was summoned to Paris by Henry IV. and introduced various improvements into the royal domains. Inter alia, he imported the silk-industry into France and planted fifteen thousand white mulberry-trees in the Tuileries Gardens.—T.