relatives; and "the future wife of Louis XIV. could be seen on a morning
assisting the coachmen to groom the horses, or following a flock of
turkeys, with her breakfast in a basket." But she was beautiful and
bright, and panted, like most ambitious girls, for an entrance into what
is called "society." Society at that time in France was brilliant,
intellectual, and wicked. "There was the blending of calculating
interest and religious asceticism," when women of the world, after
having exhausted its pleasures, retired to cloisters, and "sacrificed
their natural affections to family pride." It was an age of intellectual
idlers, when men and women, having nothing to do, spent their time in
_salons_, and learned the art of conversation, which was followed by the
art of letter-writing.
To reach the _salons_ of semi-literary and semi-fashionable people,
where rank and wealth were balanced by wit, became the desire of the
young Mademoiselle d'Aubigné. Her entrance into society was effected in
a curious way. At that time there lived in Paris (about the year 1650) a
man whose house was the centre of gay and literary people,--those who
did not like the stiffness of the court or the pedantries of the Hôtel
de Rambouillet. His name was Scarron,--a popular and ribald poet, a
comic dramatist, a buffoon, a sort of Rabelais, whose inexhaustible wit
was the admiration of the city. He belonged to a good family, and
originally was a man of means. His uncle had been a bishop and his
father a member of the Parliament of Paris. But he had wasted his
substance in riotous living, and was reduced to a small pension from the
Government. His profession was originally that of a priest, and he
continued through life to wear the ecclesiastical garb. He was full of
maladies and miseries, and his only relief was in society. In spite of
his poverty he contrived to give suppers--they would now be called
dinners--which were exceedingly attractive. To his house came the noted
characters of the day,--Mademoiselle de Scudéry the novelist, Marigny
the songwriter, Hénault the translator of Lucretius, De Grammont the pet
of the court, Chatillon, the duchesses de la Salière and De Sévigné,
even Ninon de L'Enclos; all bright and fashionable people, whose wit and
raillery were the admiration of the city.
It so happened that to a reception of the Abbé Scarron was brought one
day the young lady destined to play so important a part in the history
of her country. But her dress was too short, which so mortified her in
the splendid circle to which she was introduced that she burst into
tears, and Scarron was obliged to exert all his tact to comfort her. Yet
she made a good impression, since she was beautiful and witty; and a
letter which she wrote to a friend soon after, which letter Scarron
happened to see, was so remarkable, that the crippled dramatist
determined to make her his wife,--she only sixteen, he forty-two; so
infirm that he could not walk, and so poor that the guests frequently
furnished the dishes for the common entertainments. And with all these
physical defects (for his body was bent nearly double), and
notwithstanding that he was one of the coarsest and profanest men of
that ungodly age, she accepted him. What price will not an aspiring
woman pay for social position!--for even a marriage with Scarron was to
her a step in the ladder of social elevation.
Did she love this bloated and crippled sensualist, or was she carried
away by admiration of his brilliant conversation, or was she actuated by
a far-reaching policy? I look upon her as a born female Jesuit,
believing in the principle that the end justifies the means. Nor is such
Jesuitism incompatible with pleasing manners, amiability of temper, and
great intellectual radiance; it equally marked, I can fancy, Jezebel,
Cleopatra, and Catherine de Médicis. Moreover, in France it has long
been the custom for poor girls to seek eligible matches without
reference to love.
It does not seem that this hideous marriage provoked scandal. In fact,
it made the fortune of Mademoiselle d'Aubigné. She now presided at
entertainments which were the gossip of the city, and to which stupid
dukes aspired in vain; for Scarron would never have a dull man at his
table, not even if he were loaded with diamonds and could trace his
pedigree to the paladins of Charlemagne. But by presiding at parties
made up of the _élite_ of the fashionable and cultivated society of
Paris, this ambitious woman became acquainted with those who had
influence at court; so that when her husband died, and she was cut off
from his life-pension and reduced to poverty, she was recommended to
Madame de Montespan, the King's mistress, as the governess of her
children. It was a judicious appointment. Madame Scarron was then
thirty-four, in the pride of womanly grace and dignity, with rare
intellectual gifts and accomplishments. There is no education more
effective than that acquired by constant intercourse with learned and
witty people. Even the dinner-table is no bad school for one naturally
bright and amiable. There is more to be learned from conversation than
from books. The living voice is a great educator.
Madame Scarron, on the death of her husband, was already a queen of
society. As the governess of Montespan's children,--which was a great
position, since it introduced her to the notice of the King himself, the
fountain of all honor and promotion,--her habits of life were somewhat
changed. Life became more sombre by the irksome duties of educating
unruly children, and the forced retirement to which she was necessarily
subjected. She could have lived without this preferment, since the
pension of her husband was restored to her, and could have made her
_salon_ the resort of the best society. But she had deeper designs. Not
to be the queen of a fashionable circle did she now aspire, but to be
the leader of a court.
But this aim she was obliged to hide. It could only be compassed by
transcendent tact, prudence, patience, and good sense, all of which
qualities she possessed in an eminent degree. It was necessary to gain
the confidence of an imperious and jealous mistress--which was only to
be done by the most humble assiduities--before she could undermine her
in the affections of the King. She had also to gain his respect and
admiration without allowing any improper intimacy. She had to disarm
jealousy and win confidence; to be as humble in address as she was
elegant in manners, and win a selfish man from pleasure by the richness
of her conversation and the severity of her own morals.
Little by little she began to exercise a great influence over the mind
of the King when he was becoming wearied of the railleries of his
exacting favorite, and when some of the delusions of life were beginning
to be dispelled. He then found great solace and enjoyment in the society
of Madame Scarron, whom he enriched, enabling her to purchase the estate
of Maintenon and to assume its name. She soothed his temper, softened
his resentments, and directed his attention to a new field of thought
and reflection. She was just the opposite of Montespan in almost
everything. The former won by the solid attainments of the mind; the
latter by her sensual charms. The one talked on literature, art, and
religious subjects; the other on fêtes, balls, reviews, and the glories
of the court and its innumerable scandals. Maintenon reminded the King
of his duties without sermonizing or moralizing, but with the insidious
flattery of a devout worshipper of his genius and power; Montespan
directed his mind to pleasures which had lost their charm. Maintenon was
always amiable and sympathetic; Montespan provoked the King by her
resentments, her imperious exactions, her ungovernable fits of temper,
her haughty sarcasm. Maintenon was calm, modest, self-possessed,
judicious, wise; Montespan was passionate, extravagant, unreasonable.
Maintenon always appealed to the higher nature of the King; Montespan to
the lower. The one was a sincere friend, dissuading from folly; the
other an exacting lover, demanding perpetually new favors, to the injury
of the kingdom and the subversion of the King's dignity of character.
The former ruled through the reason; the latter through the passions.
Maintenon was irreproachable in her morals, preserved her self-respect,
and tolerated no improper advances, having no great temptations to
subdue, steadily adhering to that policy which she knew would in time
make her society indispensable; Montespan was content to be simply
mistress, with no forecast of the future, and with but little regard to
the interests or honor of her lord. Maintenon became more attractive
every day from the variety of her intellectual gifts and her unwearied
efforts to please and instruct; Montespan, although a bright woman,
amidst the glories of a dazzling court, at last wearied, disgusted and
repelled. And yet the woman who gradually supplanted Madame de Montespan
by superior radiance of mind and soul openly remained her friend,
through all her waning influence, and pretended to come to her rescue.
The friendship of the King for Madame de Maintenon began as early as
1672; and during the twelve years she was the governess of Montespan's
children she remained discreet and dignified. "I dismiss him," said she,
"always despairing, never repulsed." What a transcendent actress! What
astonishing tact! What shrewdness blended with self-control! She
conformed herself to his tastes and notions. At the supper-tables of her
palsied husband she had been gay, unstilted, and simple; but with the
King she became formal, prudish, ceremonious, fond of etiquette, and
pharisaical in her religious life. She discreetly ruled her royal lover
in the name of virtue and piety. In 1675 the King created her Marquise
de Maintenon.
On the disgrace of Madame de Montespan, when the King was forty-six,
Madame de Maintenon still remained at court, having a conspicuous office
in the royal household as mistress of the robes to the Dauphiness, so
that her nearness to the King created no scandal. She was now a stately
woman, with sparkling black eyes, a fine complexion, beautiful teeth,
and exceedingly graceful manners. The King could not now live without
her, for he needed a counsellor whom he could trust. It must be borne in
mind that the great Colbert, on whose shoulders had been laid the
burdens of the monarchy, had recently died. On the death of the Queen
(1685), Louis made Madame de Maintenon his wife, she being about fifty
and he forty-seven.
This private and secret marriage was never openly divulged during the
life of the King, although generally surmised. This placed Madame de
Maintenon--for she went by this title--in a false position. To say the
least, it was humiliating amid all the splendors to which she was
raised; for if she were a lawful wife, she was not a queen. Some,
perhaps, supposed she was in the position of those favorites whose fate,
again and again, has been to fall.
One thing is certain,--the King would have made her his mistress years
before; but to this she would never consent. She was too politic, too
ambitious, too discreet, to make that immense mistake. Yet after the
dismissal of Montespan she seemed to be such, until she had with
transcendent art and tact attained her end. It is a flaw in her
character that she was willing so long to be aspersed; showing that
power was dearer to her than reputation. Bossuet, when consulted by the
King as to his intended marriage, approved of it only on the ground that
it was better to make a foolish marriage than violate the seventh
commandment. La Chaise, the Jesuit confessor, who travelled in a coach
and six, recommended it, because Madame de Maintenon was his tool. But
Louvois felt the impropriety as well as Fénelon, and advised the King
not thus to commit himself. The Dauphin was furious. The Archbishop of
Paris simply did his duty in performing the ceremony.
Doubtless reasons of State imperatively demanded that the marriage
should not openly be proclaimed, and still more that the widow of
Scarron should not be made the Queen of France. Louis was too much of a
politician, and too proud a man, to make this concession. Had he raised
his unacknowledged wife to the throne, it would have resulted in
political complications which would have embarrassed his whole
subsequent reign. He dared not do this. He could not thus scandalize all
Europe, and defy all the precedents of France. And no one knew this
better than Madame de Maintenon herself. She appeared to be satisfied if
she could henceforth live in virtuous relations. Her religious scruples
are to be respected. It is wonderful that she gained as much as she did
in that proud, cynical, and worldly court, and from the proudest monarch
in the world. But Louis was not happy without her,--a proof of his
respect and love. At the age of forty-seven he needed the counsels of a
wife amid his increasing embarrassments. He was already wearied,
sickened, and disgusted: he now wanted repose, friendship, and fidelity.
He certainly was guilty of no error in marrying one of the most gifted
women of his kingdom,--perhaps the most accomplished woman of the age,
interesting and even beautiful at fifty. She was then in the perfection
of mental and moral fascinations. He made no other sacrifice than of his
pride. His fidelity to his wife, and his constant devotion to her until
he died, proved the sincerity and depth of his attachment; and her
marvellous influence over him was on the whole good, with the exception
of her religious intolerance.
As the wife of Louis XIV. the power of Madame de Maintenon became almost
unbounded. Her ambition was gratified, and her end was accomplished. She
was the dispenser of court favors, the arbiter of fortunes, the real
ruler of the land. Her reign was political as well as social. She sat in
the cabinet of the King, and gave her opinions on State matters whenever
she was asked. Her counsels were so wise that they generally prevailed.
No woman before or after her ever exerted so great an influence on the
fortunes of a kingdom as did the widow of the poet Scarron. The court
which she adorned and ruled was not so brilliant as it had been under
Madame de Montespan, but was still magnificent. She made it more
decorous, though, probably more dull. She was opposed to all foolish,
expenditures. She discouraged the endless fêtes and balls and
masquerades which made her predecessor so popular. But still Versailles
glittered with unparalleled wonders: the fountains played; grand
equipages crowded the park; the courtiers blazed in jewels and velvets
and satins; the salons were filled with all who were illustrious in
France; princes, nobles, ambassadors, generals, statesmen, and ministers
rivalled one another in the gorgeousness of their dresses; women of rank
and beauty displayed their graces in the Salon de Venus.
The articles of luxury and taste that were collected in the countless
rooms of that vast palace almost exceeded belief. And all these blazing
rooms were filled, even to the attic, with aristocratic servitors, who
poured out perpetual incense to the object of their united idolatry, who
sat on almost an Olympian throne. Never was a monarch served by such
idolaters. "Bossuet and Fénelon taught his children; Bourdaloue and
Massillon adorned his chapel; La Chaise and Le Tellier directed his
conscience; Boileau and Molière sharpened his wit; La Rochefoucauld
cultivated his taste; La Fontaine wrote his epigrams; Racine chronicled
his wars; De Turenne commanded his armies; Fouquet and Colbert arranged
his finances; Molé and D'Aguesseau pronounced his judgments; Louvois
laid out his campaigns; Vauban fortified his citadels; Riquet dug his
canals; Mansard constructed his palaces; Poussin decorated his chambers;
Le Brun painted his ceilings; Le Notre laid out his grounds; Girardon
sculptured his fountains; Montespan arranged his fêtes; while La
Vallière, La Fayette, and Sévigné--all queens of beauty--displayed their
graces in the Salon de Venus." What an array of great men and brilliant
women to reflect the splendors of an absolute throne! Never was there
such an _éclat_ about a court; it was one of the wonders of the age.
And Louis never lost his taste for this outward grandeur. He was
ceremonious and exacting to the end. He never lost the sense of his own
omnipotence. In his latter days he was sad and dejected, but never
exhibited his weakness among his worshippers. He was always dignified
and self-possessed. He loved pomp as much as Michael Angelo loved art.
Even in his bitterest reverses he still maintained the air of the "Grand
Monarque." Says Henri Martin:--
"Etiquette, without accepting the extravagant restraints which the court
of France endured, and which French genius would not support, assumed an
unknown extension, proportioned to the increase of royal splendor. It
was adapted to serve the monarchy at the expense of the aristocracy,
and tended to make functions prevail over birth. The great dukes and
peers were multiplied in order to reduce their importance, and the King
gave the marshals precedence over them. The court was a scientific and
complicated machine which Louis guided with sovereign skill. At all
hours, in all places, in the most trifling circumstances of life, he was
always king. His affability never contradicted itself; he expressed
interest and kindliness to all; he showed himself indulgent to errors
that could not be repaired; his majesty was tempered by a grave
familiarity; and he wholly refrained from those pointed and ironical
speeches which so cruelly wound when falling from the lips of a man that
none can answer. He taught all, by his example, the most exquisite
courtesy to women. Manners acquired unequalled elegance. The fêtes
exceeded everything which romance had dreamed, in which the fairy
splendors that wearied the eye were blended with the noblest pleasures
of the intellect. But whether appearing in mythological ballets, or
riding in tournaments in the armor of the heroes of antiquity, or
presiding at plays and banquets in his ordinary apparel with his thick
flowing hair, his loose surtout blazing with gold and silver, and his
profusion of ribbons and plumes, always his air and port had something
unique,--always he was the first among all. His whole life was like a
work of art; and the rôle was admirably played, because he played it
conscientiously."
The King was not only sacred, but he was supposed to have different
blood in his veins from other men. His person was inviolable. He
reigned, it was universally supposed, by divine right. He was a divinely
commissioned personage, like Saul and David. He did not reign because he
was able or powerful or wealthy, because he was a statesman or a
general, but because he had a right to reign which no one disputed. This
adoration of royalty was not only universal, but it was deeply seated in
the minds of men, and marked strongly all the courtiers and generals and
bishops and poets who surrounded the throne of Louis,--Bossuet and
Fénelon, as well as Colbert and Louvois; Racine and Molière, as well as
Condé and Turenne. Especially the nobility of the realm looked up to the
king as the source and centre of their own honors and privileges. Even
the people were proud to recognize in him a sort of divinity, and all
persons stood awe-struck in the presence of royalty. All this reverence
was based on ideas which have ever moved the world,--such as sustained
popes in the Middle Ages, and emperors in ancient Borne, and patriarchal
rule among early Oriental peoples. Religion, as well as law and
patriotism, invested monarchs with this sacred and inalienable
authority, never greater than when Louis XIV. began to reign.
But with all his grandeur Louis XIV. did not know how to avail himself
of the advantages which fortune and accident placed in his way. He was
simply magnificent, like Xerxes,--like a man who had entered into a
vast inheritance which he did not know what to do with. He had no
profound views of statesmanship, like Augustus or Tiberius. He had no
conception of what the true greatness of a country consisted in. Hence
his vast treasures were spent in useless wars, silly pomps, and
inglorious pleasures. His grand court became the scene of cabals and
rivalries, scandals and follies. His wars, from which he expected glory,
ended only in shame; his great generals passed away without any to take
their place; his people, instead of being enriched by a development of
national resources, became poor and discontented; while his persecutions
decimated his subjects and sowed the seeds of future calamities. Even
the learned men who shed lustre around his throne prostituted their
talents to nurse his egotism, and did but little to elevate the national
character. Neither Pascal with his intense hostility to spiritual
despotism, nor Racine with the severe taste which marked the classic
authors of Greece and Rome, nor Fénelon with his patriotic enthusiasm
and clear perception of the moral strength of empires, dared to give
full scope to his genius, but all were obliged to veil their sentiments
in vague panegyrics of ancient heroes. At the close of the seventeenth
century the great intellectual lights had disappeared under the
withering influences of despotism,--as in ancient Rome under the
emperors all manly independence had fled,--and literature went through
an eclipse. That absorbing egotism which made Louis XIV. jealous of the
fame of Condé and Luxembourg, or fearful of the talents of Louvois and
Colbert, or suspicious of the influence of Racine and Fénelon, also led
him to degrade his nobility by menial offices, and institute in his
court a burdensome formality.
In spite of his great abilities, no monarch ever reaped a severer
penalty for his misgovernment than did Louis. Like Solomon, he lived
long enough to see the bursting of all the bubbles which had floated
before his intoxicated brain. All his delusions were dispelled; he was
oppressed with superstitious fears; he was weary of the very pleasures
of which he once was fondest; he saw before him a gulf of national
disasters; he was obliged to melt up the medallions which commemorated
his victories, to furnish bread for starving soldiers; he lost the
provinces he had seized; he saw the successive defeat of all his
marshals and the annihilation of his veteran armies; he was deprived of
his children and grandchildren by the most dreadful malady known to that
generation; a feeble infant was the heir of his dominions; he saw
nothing before him but national disgrace; he found no counsellors whom
he could trust, no friends to whom he could pour out his sorrows; the
infirmities of age oppressed his body; the agonies of remorse disturbed
his soul; the fear of hell became the foundation of his religion, for he
must have felt that he had a fearful reckoning with the King of kings.
Such was the man to whom the best days of Madame de Maintenon were
devoted; and she shared his confidence to the last. She did all she
could to alleviate his sorrows, for a more miserable man than Louis XIV.
during the last twenty years of his life never was seated on a throne.
Well might his wife exclaim, "Save those who occupy the highest places,
I know of none more unhappy than those who envy them." This great woman
attempted to make her husband a religious man, and succeeded so far as a
rigid regard to formalities and technical observances can make a man
religious.