Opinion in general, especially French opinion, has been very bitter toward her. History has even reproached her with having been a usurper, a tyrant, and a selfish master. The great preacher, Fénelon, wrote to her:
"They say you take too little part in affairs. Your mind is more capable than you think. You are, perhaps, a little too distrustful of yourself, or, rather, you are too much afraid to enter into discussions contrary to the inclination you have for a tranquil and meditative life."
Is this picture, left by Emile Chasles and accepted by M. Saint-Amand, truthful? "This intelligent woman, far from being too much heeded, was not enough so. There was in her a veritable love for the public welfare, a true sorrow in the midst of our misfortunes. To-day, it is necessary to retrench much from the grandeur of her worldly power and add a great deal to that of her soul." M. Saint-Amand believes her sincere when she wrote to Mme. des Ursins:
"In whatever way matters turn, I conjure you, madame, to regard me as a person incapable of directing affairs, who heard them talked too late to be skilful in them, and who hates them more than she ignores them.... My interference in them is not desired and I do not desire to interfere. They are not concealed from me, but I know nothing consecutively and am often badly informed."
The opinions of her contemporaries are not always flattering, but such are possibly due to envy and jealousy or to some purely personal prejudice. Thus, when the Duchess of Orléans, the Princesse Palatine, calls her "that nasty old thing, that wicked devil, that shrivelled-up, filthy old Maintenon, that concubine of the king," and casts upon her other gross aspersions that are unfit to be repeated, one must remember that the calumniator was a German, the daughter of the Elector Palatine Charles-Louis, a womanhonest in her morals, but shameless in her speech, who loved the beauties of nature more than those of the palaces; more shocked at hypocrites than at religion or irreligion, she took Mme. de Maintenon to be a type of the impostors whom she detested. It was her son who became regent, and it was her son who married one of the illegitimate daughters of Louis XIV.—an alliance of which his mother had a horror.
The memoirs of Saint-Simon are interesting, but the odious picture he has drawn of Mme. de Maintenon is hardly in accord with later appreciations. M. Saint-Amand sums up the two classes of critics thus:
"The revolutionary school which likes to drag the memory of the great king through the mire, naturally detests the eminent woman who was that king's companion, his friend and consoler. Writers of this school would like to make of her a type not only odious and fatal, but ungraceful and unsympathetic, without radiance, charm or any sort of fascination. She is too frequently called to mind under the aspect of a worn old woman, stiff and severe, with tearless eyes and a face without a smile. We forget that in her youth she was one of the prettiest women of her time, that her beauty was wonderfully preserved, and that in her old age she retained that superiority of style and language, that distinction of manner and exquisite tact, that gentle firmness of character, that charm and elevation of mind, which, at every period of her life, gained her so much praise and so many friends."
Mme. de Maintenon was born in prison. Her maiden name was Françoise d'Aubigné. She was the granddaughter of Agrippa d'Aubigné, the historian. Her father had planned to settle in the Carolinas, and his correspondence with the English government, to that effect, wastreated as treason; he was thrown into prison, where his wife voluntarily shared his fate and where the future Mme. de Maintenon was born. After the death of her father, she was confided to her aunt, Mme. de Villette, a Calvinist, who trained her in the principles of Protestantism. Because of the refusal of her daughter to attend mass, her mother put her in charge of the Countess of Neuillant who, with great difficulty, converted Françoise back to Catholicism.
At the home of the Countess of Neuillant, she often met Scarron, the comic poet—a paralytic and cripple—who offered her money with which to pay for admission to a convent, a proposition which she refused; subsequently, however, the countess sent her to the Ursulines to be educated. When, after two years, she lost her mother and was thus left without home, fortune, or future prospects, she consented, at the age of seventeen, to marry the poet. Thus, born in a prison, without even a dowry, harshly reared by a mother who was under few obligations to life, more harshly treated in the convent, introduced as a poor relation into the society of her aunt and to the friends of her godmother, the Countess of Neuillant, she early learned to distrust life and suspect man, and to restrain her ambitions.
Exceedingly beautiful, graceful, and witty, she soon won her way to the brilliant and fashionable society of the crippled wit, buffoon, and poet, who was coarse, profane, ungodly, and physically an unsightly wreck. In this society, which the burlesque poet amused by his inexhaustible wit and fancy, and his frank, Gallic gayety, she showed an infinite amount of tact and soon made his salon the most prominent social centre of Paris. There, Scarron, never tolerated a stupid person, no matter of what blood or rank.
When asked what settlement he proposed to make upon his wife, he replied: "Immortality." At another time, he remarked: "I shall not make her commit any follies, but I shall teach her a great many." On his deathbed he said: "My only regret is that I cannot leave anything to my wife with whom I have every imaginable reason to be content." In this free-and-easy salon, a young noble said, soon after the marriage of Scarron: "If it were a question of taking liberties with the queen or Mme. Scarron, I would not deliberate; I would sooner take them with the queen."
The reputation made by the young Mme. Scarron gained her many influential friends, especially among court people. At the death of her husband, in 1660, to avoid trouble with his family, she renounced the marriage dowry of twenty-four thousand livres. Her friends procured her a pension of two thousand livres from the queen. Thus freed from care, she lived according to her inclination, which tended toward pleasing and doing good; taking good cheer and her services voluntarily and unaffectedly to all families, she gradually made herself a necessity among them—thus she laid the foundation of her future greatness. She was received by the best families, grew in favor everywhere, and even won over all her enemies. Modest, complaisant, promptly and readily rendering a favor, prudent, practical and virtuous, her one desire was to make friends, not so much for the purpose of using them, but because she realized that a person in humble circumstances cannot have too many friends.
Her portrait as a widow is admirably drawn by M. Saint-Amand: "Mme. Scarron seeks esteem, not love. To please while remaining virtuous, to endure, if need be, privations and even poverty, but to win the reputation of a strong character, to deserve the sympathy andapprobation of honest persons—such is the direction of all her efforts. Well dressed, though very simply; discreet and modest, intelligent anddistingué, with that patrician elegance which luxury cannot create, but which is inborn and comes by nature only; pious, with a sincere and gentle piety; less occupied with herself than with others; talking well and—what is much rarer—knowing how to listen; taking an interest in the joys and sorrows of her friends, and skilful in amusing and consoling them—she is justly regarded as one of the most amiable as well as one of the superior women in Paris. Economical and simple in her tastes, she makes her accounts balance perfectly, thanks to an annual pension of two thousand livres granted her by Queen Anne of Austria."
When Mme. Scarron was about to leave Paris because of lack of funds and the loss of her pension, after the death of Queen Anne, her friend Mme. de Montespan, the king's mistress, interfered in her behalf and had the pension renewed, thus inadvertently paving the way for her own downfall. Three years later Mme. Scarron was established in an isolated house near Paris, where she received the natural children of Louis XIV. and Mme. de Montespan, as they arrived, in quick succession, in 1669, 1670, 1672, 1673, and 1674. There, acting as governess, she hid them from the world. This is the only blemish upon the fair record of her life. It is maintained by her detractors that a virtuous woman would not have undertaken the education of the doubly adulterous children of Louis XIV. (thus, in a way, encouraging adultery), and that she would have given up her charge upon the first proposals of love.
However deep this stain may be considered, one must remember that the standard of honor at the court of Louis XIV. did not encourage delicacy in matters of love,and Mme. Scarron knew only the standard of society; her morality was no more extraordinary than was her intelligence, and it was to her credit that she preserved intact her honor and her virtue. At first the king looked with much dissatisfaction upon her appointment, not admiring the extreme gravity and reserve of the young widow; however, the unusual order of her talents and wisdom soon attracted his attention, and her entrance at court was speedily followed by quarrels between the mistress and Louis XIV. In 1674 the king, wishing to acknowledge his recognition of her merits, purchased the estate of Maintenon for her and made her Marquise de Maintenon.
Her primary object became the gaining of the favor of Mme. de Montespan; for this purpose she taught herself humility, while toward the king she directed the forces of her dignity, reserve, and intellectual attainments. Being the very opposite of the mistress who won and retained him by sensuous charms (in which the king was fast losing pleasure and satisfaction), she soon effected a change by entertaining her master with the solid attainments of her mind—religion, art, literature.
Mme. de Maintenon was always amiable and sympathetic, kind and thoughtful, never irritating, crossing, or censuring the king; wonderfully judicious, modest, self-possessed, and calm, she was irreproachable in conduct and morals, tolerating no improper advances. Although the characteristics and general deportment of Mme. de Montespan were entirely different from those of Mme. de Maintenon, the latter entertained true friendship for her benefactress, displaying astonishing tact, shrewdness, and self-control.
If Mme. de Maintenon were not, at first, loved by the king, it was because she appeared to him too ideal, sublime, spirituelle, too severely sensible. Then came theturning point; at forty years of age she was "a beautiful and stately woman with brilliant dark eyes, clear complexion, beautiful white teeth, and graceful manners;" sedate, self-possessed, and astonished at nothing, she had learned the art of waiting, and studied the king—showing him those qualities he desired to see.
Her aim became to take the king from his mistress and lead him back to the queen. After gaining his confidence by her sincerity and trustworthiness, and making herself indispensable to him, she succeeded in bringing about the desired separation, through the medium of the dauphiness, whom she won over to her cause. Thus, without perfidy, hypocrisy, intrigue, or manœuvring, by simply being herself, she replaced the haughty and beautiful Mme. de Montespan.
When, after the queen's death, and after having lived about the king for fifteen years, "she had succeeded in making the devotee take precedence of the lover, when piety had overcome passion, when religion had effected its change, then Louis the Great offered his hand in marriage to her who had only veneration, gratitude, and devotion for him, but no passion or love." Reasons of state demanded the secrecy of the marriage; for had he raised her to the throne, political complications would have arisen and disturbed his subsequent career; Mme. de Maintenon fully appreciated the intricacies of the situation, and was therefore content to remain what she was.
She came to the king when he was beginning to feel the effects of his former mode of life; he needed fidelity and friendship, and he saw these in her. His feelings for her are well described in the following extract by M. Saint-Amand:
"To sum up: the king's sentiment for her was of the most complex nature. There was in it a mingling ofreligion and of physical love, a calculation of reason and an impulse of the heart, an aspiration after the mild joys of family life and a romantic inclination—a sort of compact between French good sense, subjugated by the wit, tact, and wisdom of an eminent woman, and Spanish imagination allured by the fancy of having extricated this elect woman from poverty in order to make her almost a queen. Finally, it must be noted that Louis XIV., always religiously inclined, was convinced that Mme. de Maintenon had been sent to him by Heaven for his salvation, and that the pious counsels of this saintly woman, who knew how to render devotion so agreeable and attractive, seemed to him to be so many inspirations from on High."
It must not be inferred, however, that the feeling for Mme. de Maintenon was purely ideal. "He was unwilling to remarry," says the Abbé de Choisy, "because of tenderness for his people. He had, already, three grandsons, and wisely judged that the princes of a second marriage might, in course of time, cause civil wars. On the other hand, he could not dispense with a wife and Mme. de Maintenon pleased him greatly. Her gentle and scintillating wit promised him an agreeable intercourse which would refresh him after the cares of royalty. Her person was still engaging and her age prevented her from having children."
As his wife, Mme. de Maintenon took more interest in the king and his family than she did in the affairs of the kingdom. To be the wife of the hearth and home, to educate the princes, to rear the young Duchess of Bourgogne, granddaughter of Louis XIV., to calm and ease the old age of the king and to distract and amuse him, became her sole objects in life. Her power, thus directed, became almost unbounded; she was the dispenser of favors and the real ruler, sitting in the cabinet of the king; and her counsels were so wise that they soon became invaluable.
At court, she opposed all foolish extravagance, such as the endless fêtes and amusements of all kinds which had become so popular under Mme. de Montespan—a procedure which caused her the greatest difficulties and provoked revolts and quarrels in the royal family. By her prudence, tact, wisdom, and the loyalty of her friendship, she won and retained the respect and favor—if not the love—of everyone. Her reputation was never tarnished by scandal. "When one reflects that Louis XIV. was only forty-seven years old and in the prime of life and Mme. de Montespan in the full blaze of her marvellous beauty, that this woman of humble birth, in her youth a Protestant, poor, a governess, the widow of a low, comic poet, should win so proud a man as Louis XIV., seems incredible."
When one considers that throughout life her one aspiration was an irreproachable conduct, that her manner of action was always defensive, never offensive, that her chief aim was to restore the king to the queen (who died in her arms) and not to replace his mistress, one cannot withhold admiration and esteem from this truly great woman who accomplished all those honorable designs.
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, reconcilingamours propresand 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 andher 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 thehonneur du monde, which appeared to be her sole motive for living. When in power, shedid 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 kinggranted 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.
Of the young girls in her charge, she desired to make model women, characterized by simplicity and piety; they were to be free from morbid curiosity of mind, were to practise absolute self-denial and to devote their lives to a practical labor. Her advice was: "Be reasonable or you will be unhappy; if you are haughty, you will be reminded of your misery, but if you are humble, people will recall your birth.... Commence by making yourself loved, without which you will never succeed. Is it not true that, had you not loved me or had you had an aversion for me,you would not have accepted, with such good grace, the counsels that I have given you? This is absolutely certain—the most beautiful things when taught by persons who displease us, do not impress but rather harden us."
A counsel that strikes home forcibly to-day, one which strongly attacks the modern fad of neglecting home for church, is expressed well in one of her letters: "Your piety will not be right if, when married, you abandon your husband, your children and your servants, to go to the churches at times when you are not obliged to go there. When a young girl says that a woman would do better properly to raise her children and instruct her servants, than to spend her morning in church, one can accommodate one's self to such religion, which she will cause to be loved and respected."
At the hour of leisure, she gave the girls those familiar talks which were anticipated by them with so much pleasure, and extracts from which are still cherished by the young women of France. She believed that the aim of instruction for young girls should be to educate them to be Christian women with well-balanced and logical minds. With her varied experience of the ups and downs of life, she gradually came to the conclusion that, after all, there is nothing in the world so good as sound common sense, but one that is not enamored of itself, which obeys established laws and knows its own limits. Her sex is intended to obey, thus her reason was a Christian reason.
"You can be truly reasonable only in proportion as you are subservient to God.... Never tell children fantastic stories, nor permit them to believe them; give them things for what they are worth. Never tell them stories of which, when they grow to independent reasoning, you must disillusion them. You must talk to a girl of seven as seriously and with as much reason as to a young ladyof twenty. You must take part in the pleasures of children, but never accommodate them with a childish language or with foolish or puerile ways. You can never be too reasonable or too sane. Religion, reason, and truth are always good."
To appreciate the importance of Mme. de Maintenon's position and the revolutionary effect which her attitude produced upon the customs of the time, one must remember with what she had to contend. Hers was a period of passion and adventure—a period which was followed by sorrow and disaster. The novels of Mlle. de Scudéry, which were at the height of their popularity, had over-refined the sentiments; thechevaleresqueheroes and picturesque heroines turned the heads of young girls, who dreamed of an ideal and perfect love; their one longing was for the romantic—for the enchantments and delights of life. In this stilted and amorous atmosphere, Mme. de Maintenon preserved her poise and fought vigorously against the fads of the day. The young girls under her care were taught to love just as they were taught to do other things—with reason. Also, she guarded against the weaknesses of nature and the flesh. "Than Mme. de Maintenon, no one ever better knew the evils of the world without having fallen prey to them," says Sainte-Beuve; "and no one ever satisfied and disgusted the world more, while charming it at the same time."
Mme. de Maintenon's ideal methods of education were not immediately effective; there were many periods of hardship, apprehension, and doubt. Thus, when Racine'sEsther(written at the request of Mme. de Maintenon, to be presented by the pupils at Saint-Cyr) was performed, there sprang up a taste for poetry, writing, and literature of all kinds. The acting turned the girls' thoughts into other channels and threatened to counteract the teachingsof simplicity and reason; no one ever showed more genuine good sense, wholesomeness of mind, and breadth of view, than were displayed by Mme. de Maintenon in dealing with these disheartening drawbacks.
In endeavoring to impress upon those young minds the correct use of language and the proper style of writing, she wrote for them models of letters which showed simplicity, precision, truth, facility, and wonderful clearness; and these were imitated by them in their replies to her.
She wished, above all, to make them realize that her experience with that social and court life, for which they longed, was one of disappointment: that was a world apart, in which amusing and being amused was the one occupation. She had passed wearily through that period of life, and sought repose, truth, tranquillity, and religious resignation; to make those young spirits feel the fallacy of such a mode of existence was her earnest desire, and her efforts in that direction were characterized by a zeal, energy, and persistence which were productive of wonderful results. That was one phase of her greatness and influence.
But Mme. de Maintenon was somewhat too severe, too narrow, too strict,—one might say, too ascetic,—in her teaching. There was too little of that which, in this world, cheers, invigorates, and enlivens. Her instruction was all reason, without relieving features; it lacked what Sainte-Beuve calls thedon des larmes(gift of tears). Hers was a noble, just, courageous, and delicate judgment; but it was without the softening qualities of the truly feminine, which calls for tears and affection, tenderness and sympathy.
She remains in educational affairs the greatest woman of the seventeenth century, if not of all her countrywomen. M. Faguet says: "This widow of Scarron, who was nearlyQueen of France, was born minister of public instruction." She powerfully upheld the cause of morality, was a liberal patroness of education and learning, and all aspiring geniuses were encouraged and financially aided by her. It was she who impressed upon Louis XIV. the truth of the existence of a God to whom he was accountable for his acts—a teaching which contributed no little to the general purification of morals at court.
The writings of Mme. de Maintenon occupy a very high place in the history of French literature; in fact, her letters have often been compared with those of Mme. de Sévigné, although, unlike the latter, she never wrote merely to please, but to instruct, to convert, and to console. In her works there was no pretension to literary style; they were sermons on morals, characterized by discretion and simplicity, dignity and persuasiveness, seriousness and earnestness; Napoleon placed her letters above those of Mme. de Sévigné. M. Saint-Amand says of her writings: "More reflection than vivacity, more wisdom than passion, more gravity than charm, more authority than grace, more solidity than brilliancy—such are the characteristics of a correspondence which might justify the expression, the style is the woman."
He gives, also, the following discriminating comparison between the two writers: "Enjoyment, Gallic animation, good-tempered gayety, fall to the lot of Mme. de Sévigné; what marks Mme. de Maintenon is experience, reason, profundity. The one laughs from ear to ear—the other barely smiles. The one has pleasant illusions about everything, admiration which borders onnaïveté, ecstasies when in the presence of the royal sun: the other never permits herself to be fascinated by either the king or the court, by men, women, or things. She has seen human grandeur too close at hand not to understand its nothingness,and her conclusions bear the imprint of a profound sadness. At times Mme. de Sévigné, also, has attacks of melancholy, but the cloud passes quickly and she is again in the sunshine. Gayety—frank, communicative, radiant gayety—is the basis of the character of this woman who is more witty, seductive, and amusing than is any other. Mme. de Sévigné shines by imagination—Mme. de Maintenon by judgment. The one permits herself to be dazzled, intoxicated—the other always preserves her indifference. The one exaggerates the splendors of the court—the other sees them as they are. The one is more of a woman—the other more of a saint."
Mme. de Maintenon may be called "a woman of fate," She was never daughter, mother, or wife; as a child, she was not loved by her mother, and her father was worthless; married to two men, both aged beyond their years, she was, indeed, but an instrument of fate. Truthful, candid, and discreet she was entirely free from all morbid tendencies, and was modest and chaste from inclination as well as from principle. Though outwardly cold, proud, and reserved, yet in her deportment toward those who were fortunate enough to possess her esteem, she was kind—even loving. While not intelligent to a remarkable degree, she was prudent, circumspect, and shrewd, never losing her self-control. When once interested, and convinced as to the proper course, she displayed marvellous strength of will, sagacity, and personal force. Beautiful and witty, she easily adapted herself to any position in which she might be placed; though intolerant and narrow in her religious views, she was otherwise gentle, charitable, and unselfish. Therefore, it is evident that she possessed, to a greater degree than did any other woman of her time, unusual as well as desirable qualities—qualities that made her powerful and incomparable.
The seventeenth century was, in French history, the greatest century from the standpoint of literary perfection, the sixteenth century the richest in naissant ideas, and the eighteenth the greatest in the way of developing and formulating those ideas; and each century produced great women who were in perfect harmony with and expressed the ideals of each period of civilization.
It is not within the limits of reason to expect women to rival, in literature, the great writers such as Corneille, Racine, Molière, Bossuet, La Fontaine, Descartes, Pascal—most of whom were but little influenced by femininity; there were those, however, among the sex, who were conspicuous for elevation of thought, dignity in manner and bearing, and brilliancy in conversation—attributes which they have left to posterity in numberless exquisite and charming letters, in interesting and invaluable memoirs, or in consummate psychological and social portraitures incorporated into the form of novels. Among female writers of letters, Mme. de Sévigné wears the laurel wreath; Mme. de La Fayette, with Mlle. de Scudéry, is the representative of the novel; Mme. Dacier was the great advocate of the more liberal education of women; and theSouvenirsof Mme. de Caylus made that authoress immortal.
The association of La Rochefoucauld, the Cardinal de Retz, the Chevalier de Meré, Mme. de La Fayette, and Mme. de Sévigné, was responsible for almost everything elevating and of interest produced in the seventeenth century. Of that highly intellectual circle, Mme. de Sévigné was the leading spirit by force of her extraordinary faculty for making friends, her wonderful talent as a writer, her originality and her charming disposition. She gave the tone to letters; M. Faguet says that her epistles were all masterpieces of amiable badinage, lively narration, maternal passion, true eloquence. More than that, they are important sources of historical knowledge, inasmuch as they contain much information concerning the politics of the day, and furnish an excellent guide to the etiquette, fashions, tastes, and literature of the writer's period.
Mme. de Sévigné was the most important figure of the time, being to that third prodigiously intellectual epoch of France what Marguerite de Navarre was to the sixteenth century, and the Hôtel de Rambouillet to the beginning of the seventeenth century. She represented the style,esprit, elegance, andgoûtof this greatest of French cultural periods. Her life may be considered as having had two distinct phases—one connected with an unhappy marriage and the other the period of a restless widowhood.
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marchioness of Sévigné, was born at Paris, in 1626; at the age of eighteen months she lost her father; at seven years of age, her mother; at eight, her grandmother; at ten, her grandfather on her mother's side; she was thus left with her paternal grandmother, Mme. de Chantal, who had her carefully educated under the best masters, such as Ménage and Chapelain (court favorites), from whom she early imbibed a genuine taste for solid reading; from these instructors she learned Spanish, Italian, and Latin.
In 1644, she was married to the Marquis Henri de Sévigné, who was killed six years later in a duel, but who had, in the meantime, succeeded in making a considerable gap in her immense fortune, in spite of the precautions of her uncle, the Abbé of Coulanges. Henceforward, her interests in life were centred in the education of her two children; to them she wrote letters which have brought her name down to posterity as, possibly, the greatest epistolary writer that the history of literature has ever recorded.
Mme. de Sévigné was but nineteen years old when, after the marriage of Julie d'Angennes, the frequenters of the Hôtel de Rambouillet began to disperse, and she was in much demand by the successors of Mme. de Rambouillet. While the women of the reign of Louis XIII.—Mmes. de Hautefort, de Sablé, de Longueville, de Chevreuse, etc.—were exceedingly talented talkers, they were poor writers: but in Mme. de Sévigné, Mme. de La Fayette, and Mlle. de Scudéry both arts were developed to the highest degree.
Mme. de Sévigné was on the best terms with every great writer of her time—Pascal, Racine, La Fontaine, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, La Rochefoucauld. She was a woman of such broad affections that numerous friends and admirers were a necessary part of her existence. Of all the eminent women of the seventeenth century, she had the greatest number of lovers—suitors who frequently became her tormentors. Ménage, her teacher, who threatened to leave her never to see her again, was brought back to her by kind words, such as: "Farewell, friend—of all my friends the best." The Abbé Marigny, that "delicate epicurean, that improviser of fine triolets, ballads, vaudevilles, that enemy of all sadness and sticklers for morality," charmed her, at times, with sentimental ballads, such as the following:
"Si l'amour est un doux servage,Si l'on ne peut trop estimerLes plaisirs ou l'amour engage,Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!"Mais si l'on se sent enflammerD'un feu dont l'ardeur est extrême,Et qu'on n'ose pas l'exprimer,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!"Si dans la fleur de son bel âge,Une qui pourrait tout charmer,Vous donne son cœur en partage,Qu'on est sot de ne point aimer!"Mais s'il faut toujours s'alarmer,Craindre, rougir, devenir blême,Aussitôt qu'on s'entend nommer,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!"Pour complaire au plus beau visageQu'amour puisse jamais former,S'il ne faut rien qu'un doux langage,Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!"Mais quand on se voit consumer.Si la belle est toujours de même,Sans que rien la puisse animer,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!
"Si l'amour est un doux servage,Si l'on ne peut trop estimerLes plaisirs ou l'amour engage,Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!
"Si l'amour est un doux servage,
Si l'on ne peut trop estimer
Les plaisirs ou l'amour engage,
Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!
"Mais si l'on se sent enflammerD'un feu dont l'ardeur est extrême,Et qu'on n'ose pas l'exprimer,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!
"Mais si l'on se sent enflammer
D'un feu dont l'ardeur est extrême,
Et qu'on n'ose pas l'exprimer,
Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!
"Si dans la fleur de son bel âge,Une qui pourrait tout charmer,Vous donne son cœur en partage,Qu'on est sot de ne point aimer!
"Si dans la fleur de son bel âge,
Une qui pourrait tout charmer,
Vous donne son cœur en partage,
Qu'on est sot de ne point aimer!
"Mais s'il faut toujours s'alarmer,Craindre, rougir, devenir blême,Aussitôt qu'on s'entend nommer,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!
"Mais s'il faut toujours s'alarmer,
Craindre, rougir, devenir blême,
Aussitôt qu'on s'entend nommer,
Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!
"Pour complaire au plus beau visageQu'amour puisse jamais former,S'il ne faut rien qu'un doux langage,Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!
"Pour complaire au plus beau visage
Qu'amour puisse jamais former,
S'il ne faut rien qu'un doux langage,
Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!
"Mais quand on se voit consumer.Si la belle est toujours de même,Sans que rien la puisse animer,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!
"Mais quand on se voit consumer.
Si la belle est toujours de même,
Sans que rien la puisse animer,
Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!
"L'ENVOI.
"L'ENVOI.
"En amour si rien n'est amer,Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!Si tout l'est au degré suprême,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime![If love is a sweet bondage,If we cannot esteem too muchThe pleasures in which love engages,How foolish one is not to love!But if we feel ourselves inflamedWith a passion whose ardor is extreme,And which we dare not express,How foolish we are, then, to love!If in the flower of her youthThere is one who could charm all.And offers you her heart to share,How very foolish not to love!But if we must always be full of alarm—Fear, blush and become pallid,As soon as our name is spoken,How foolish to love!If to please the most beautiful countenanceThat love can ever form,Only a mellow language is necessary,How foolish not to love!But if we see ourselves wasting away,If the belle is always the sameAnd cannot be animated,How very foolish to love!
"En amour si rien n'est amer,Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!Si tout l'est au degré suprême,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!
"En amour si rien n'est amer,
Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!
Si tout l'est au degré suprême,
Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!
[If love is a sweet bondage,If we cannot esteem too muchThe pleasures in which love engages,How foolish one is not to love!
[If love is a sweet bondage,
If we cannot esteem too much
The pleasures in which love engages,
How foolish one is not to love!
But if we feel ourselves inflamedWith a passion whose ardor is extreme,And which we dare not express,How foolish we are, then, to love!
But if we feel ourselves inflamed
With a passion whose ardor is extreme,
And which we dare not express,
How foolish we are, then, to love!
If in the flower of her youthThere is one who could charm all.And offers you her heart to share,How very foolish not to love!
If in the flower of her youth
There is one who could charm all.
And offers you her heart to share,
How very foolish not to love!
But if we must always be full of alarm—Fear, blush and become pallid,As soon as our name is spoken,How foolish to love!
But if we must always be full of alarm—
Fear, blush and become pallid,
As soon as our name is spoken,
How foolish to love!
If to please the most beautiful countenanceThat love can ever form,Only a mellow language is necessary,How foolish not to love!
If to please the most beautiful countenance
That love can ever form,
Only a mellow language is necessary,
How foolish not to love!
But if we see ourselves wasting away,If the belle is always the sameAnd cannot be animated,How very foolish to love!
But if we see ourselves wasting away,
If the belle is always the same
And cannot be animated,
How very foolish to love!
ENVOY.
ENVOY.
If in love, nothing is bitter,How dreadfully foolish not to love!If everything is so to the highest degree,How awfully foolish to love!]
If in love, nothing is bitter,How dreadfully foolish not to love!If everything is so to the highest degree,How awfully foolish to love!]
If in love, nothing is bitter,
How dreadfully foolish not to love!
If everything is so to the highest degree,
How awfully foolish to love!]
Tréville went so far as to say that the figure of Mme. de Sévigné was beautiful enough to set the world afire. M. du Bled divides her lovers into three classes: the first was composed of her literary friends; the second, of those enamored, impassioned suitors, loving her from good motives or from the opposite, who strove to compensate her for the unfaithfulness of her husband while alive and for the ennui of her widowhood; the third class was composed of her Parisian friends, of whom she had hosts, court habitués who were leaders of society.
Representatives of the second class were the Prince de Conti, the great Turenne, various counts and marquises, and Bussy-Rabutin, who was a type of the sensual lover and the more dangerous on account of the privileges heenjoyed because of his close relationship to Mme. de Sévigné. His portrait of her is interesting: "I must tell you, madame, that I do not think there is a person in the world so generally esteemed as you are. You are the delight of humankind; antiquity would have erected altars to you, and you would certainly have been a goddess of something. In our century, when we are not so lavish with incense, and especially for living merit, we are contented to say that there is not a woman of your age more virtuous and more amiable than are you. I know princes of the blood, foreign princes, great lords with princely manners, great captains, gentlemen, ministers of state, who would be off and away for you, if you would permit them. Can you ask any more?"
Such eulogies came not only from men like the perfidious and cruel cousin, but from her friends everywhere. The finest of these is the one by her friend Mme. de La Fayette, contained in one of the epistolary portraits so much in vogue at that time, and which were turned out,par excellence, in the salon of Mlle. de Luxembourg: "Know, madame,—if by chance you do not already know it,—that your mind adorns and embellishes your person so well that there is not another one on earth so charming as you when you are animated in a conversation in which all constraint is banished. Your soul is great, noble, ready to dispense with treasures, and incapable of lowering itself to the care of amassing them. You are sensible to glory and ambition, and to pleasures you are less so; yet you appear to be born for the latter, and they made for you; your person augments pleasures, and pleasures increase your beauty when they surround you. Joy is the veritable state of your soul, and chagrin is more unlike to you than to anyone. You are the most civil and obliging person that ever lived, and by a free and calm air—which is inall your actions—the simplest compliments of seemliness appear, in your mouth, as protestations of friendship."
The originality which gained Mme. de Sévigné so many friends lay principally in her force, wealth of resource, intensity, sincerity, and frankness. M. Scherer said she possessed "surprises for us, infinite energy, inexhaustible variety—everything that eternally revives interest."
The interest of the modern world in this remarkable woman is centred mainly in her letters. Guizot says: "Mme. de Sévigné is a friend whom we read over and over again, whose emotions we share, to whom we go for an hour's distraction and delightful chat; we have no desire to chat with Mme. de Grignan (her daughter)—we gladly leave her to her mother's exclusive affection, feeling infinitely obliged to her for having existed, inasmuch as her mother wrote letters to her. Mme. de Sévigné's letters to her daughter are superior to all her other epistles, charming as they all are; when she writes to M. Pomponne, to M. de Coulanges, to M. de Bussy, the style is less familiar, the heart less open, the soul less stirred; she writes to her daughter as she would speak to her—it is not a letter, it is an animated and charming conversation, touching upon everything, embellishing everything with an inimitable grace."
She had married her daughter to the Comte de Grignan, a man of forty, twice married, and with children, homely, but wealthy and aristocratic; writing to her cousin, Bussy-Rabutin, concerning this marriage, she said: "All these women (the count's former wives) died expressly to make room for your cousin." By marrying her daughter to such a man she encouraged all the questionable proprieties of the time. Mme. de Sévigné's affection for that daughter amounted almost to idolatry; it was to her that most of the mother's letters were written, telling her of her health,what was being done at Vichy, and about her business and for that child the authoress gave up her life at Paris in order to economize and thereby to help Mme. de Grignan in her extravagance, her son-in-law being an expert in spending money.
The intensity of her nature is well reflected in her letter upon the separation from her daughter: "In vain I seek my darling daughter; I can no longer find her, and every step she takes removes her farther from me. I went to St. Mary's, still weeping and dying of grief; it seemed as if my heart and my soul were being wrenched from me and, in truth, what a cruel separation! I asked leave to be alone; I was taken into Mme. du Housset's room, and they made me up a fire. Agnes sat looking at me, without speaking—that was our bargain. I stayed there till five o'clock, without ceasing to sob; all my thoughts were mortal wounds to me. I wrote to M. de Grignan (you can imagine in what key). Then I went to Mme. de La Fayette's, and she redoubled my griefs by the interest she took in them; she was alone, ill, and distressed at the death of one of the nuns; she was just as I should have desired, I returned hither at eight; but oh, when I came in! can you conceive what I felt as I mounted these stairs? That room into which I always used to go, alas! I found the doors of it open, but I saw everything upturned, disarranged, and your little daughter, who reminded me of mine.... The wakenings of the night were dreadful. I think of you continuously—it is what devotees call habitual thought, such as one should have of God, if one did one's duty. Nothing gives me diversion; I see that carriage which is forever going on and will never come near me. I am forever on the highways; it seems as if I were sometimes afraid that the carriage will upset with me; the rains there for the last three days, drove me todespair. The Rhone causes me strange alarm. I have a map before my eyes—I know all the places where you sleep. This evening you are at Nevers; on Sunday you will be at Lyons where you will receive this letter. I have received only two of yours—perhaps the third will come; that is the only comfort I desire; as for others, I seek none."
The letters of Mme. de Sévigné contain a great number of sayings applicable to habits and conduct, and these have had their part in shaping the customs and in depicting the time. To be modest and moderate, friendly, and conciliatory, to be content with one's lot and to bow to circumstances, to be sincere, to cultivate good sense and good grace—these counsels have been and still are, according to French opinion, the basis of French character: and Mme. de Sévigné's own popularity and success attest their wisdom.
She had not the gift of seeing things vividly and reproducing them in living form; her talent was a rarer one—it induced the reader to form a mental picture of the scene described, so vivid as to be under the illusion of being present in reality; and this is done with so much grace, charm, happy ease and naturalness, that to read her letters means to love the writer. What mother or friend would not fall a willing victim to the charm of a woman who could write the following letter?
"You ask me, my dear child, whether I continue to be really fond of life; I confess to you that I find poignant sorrows in it, but I am even more disgusted with death; I feel so wretched at having to end all thereby, that, if I could turn back again, I would ask for nothing better, I find myself under an obligation which perplexes me; I embark upon life without my consent, and so must I go out of it; that overwhelms me. And how shall I go?Which way? By what door? When will it be? In what condition? Shall I suffer a thousand, thousand pains which will make me die desperate? Shall I have brain fever? Shall I die of an accident? How shall I be with God? What shall I have to show Him? Shall fear, shall necessity bring me back to Him? Shall I have sentiment except that of dread? What can I hope? Am I worthy of heaven? Am I worthy of hell? Nothing is such madness as to leave one's salvation in uncertainty, but nothing is so natural. The stupid life I lead is the easiest thing in the world to understand; I bury myself in these thoughts and I find death so terrible that I hate life more because it leads me thereto, than because of the thorns with which it is planted. You will say that I want to live forever, then; not at all; but, if my opinion had been asked, I would have preferred to die in my nurse's arms; that would have removed me from the vexations of spirit and would have given me heaven full surely and easily."
Mme. de Sévigné never bored her readers with her own reflections. She differed from her contemporaries, who seemed to be dead to nature's beauty, in her striking descriptions of nature. A close observer, she knew how to describe a landscape; animating and enlivening it, and making it talk, she inspired the reader with love of it.
"I am going to be alone and I am very glad. Provided they do not take away from me the charming country, the shore of the Allier, the woods, streams, and meadows, the sheep and goats, the peasant girls who dance thebourréein the fields, I consent to say adieu; the country alone will cure me.... I have come here to end the beautiful days and to say adieu to the foliage—it is still on the trees, it has only changed color; instead of being green, it is golden, and of so many golden tints that it makes a brocade of rich and magnificent gold, which weare likely to find more beautiful than the green, if only it were not for the changing part."
If the style of her letters did not make her the greatest prose writer of her time, it certainly entitled her to rank as one of the most original. The prose of the seventeenth century lacked "easy suppleness in lively movement, and imagination in the expression"—two qualities which Mme. de Sévigné possessed in a high degree. The slow and grave development, the just and harmonious equilibrium, the amplitude, are in her supplanted by a quick, alert, and freesaillie; the detail and marvellous exactness are enriched by color, abundance of imagery, and metaphors. M. Faguet says she is to prose what La Fontaine is to poetry.
The literary style of Mme. de Sévigné is not learned, studied, nor labored. In an epoch in which the language was already formed, she did what Montaigne did a century before, when, we may almost assert, he had to create the French language. Her most striking expressions are her own—newly coined, not taken from the vocabulary in usage. Her style cannot be duplicated, and for this reason she has few imitators. Her letters show that they were improvised—her pen doing, alone, the work over which she seemed to have no control when communicating with her daughter; to the latter she said: "I write prose with a facility that will kill you."
Mme. de Sévigné was possibly not a beautiful woman, but she was a charming one; broad in the scope of her affections, she found the making of friends no difficult task. M. Vallery-Radot leaves the following picture of her: "A blonde, with exuberant health, a transparent complexion, blue eyes, so frank, so limpid, a nose somewhat square, a mouth ready to smile, shoulders that seem to lend splendor to her pearl necklace. Her gayety andgoodness are so in evidence that there is about her a kind of atmosphere of good humor."
M. du Bled most admirably sums up her character and writings in the following: "She is the person who most resembles her writings—that is, those that are found; for alas! many (the most confidential, the most interesting, I think) are lost forever: in them she is reflected as she reflects French society in them. Endowed—morally and physically—with a robust health, she is expansive, loyal, confiding, impressionable, loving gayety in full abundance as much as she does the smile of the refined, as eager for the prattle of the court as for solid reading, smitten with nobiliary pride, a captive of the prejudices, superstitions and tastes of her caste (or of even her coterie), with her pen hardly tender for her neighbor—her daughter and intimates excepted. A manager and a woman of imagination, a Frondist at the bottom of her soul, and somewhat of a Jansenist—not enough, however, not to cry out that Louis XIV. will obscure the glory of his predecessors because he had just danced with her—faithful to her friends (Retz, Fouquet, Pomponne) in disgrace and detesting their persecutors, seeking the favor of court for her children. In the salons, she is celebrated for heresprit—and this at an age when one seldom thinks about reputation, when one is like the princess who replied to a question on the state of her soul, 'At twenty one has no soul;' and she possesses the qualities that are so essential to style—naturaléclat, originality of expression, grace, color, amplitude without pomposity and abundance without prolixity; moreover, she invents nothing, but, knowing how to observe and to express in perfection everything she had seen and felt, she is a witness and painter of her century: also, she loves nature—a sentiment very rare in the seventeenth century."