Part 9 (1/2)
Exceedingly beautiful, graceful, and witty, she soon won her way to the brilliant and fas.h.i.+onable society of the crippled wit, buffoon, and poet, who was coa.r.s.e, profane, unG.o.dly, 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 n.o.ble 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 circ.u.mstances 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 and approbation of honest persons--such is the direction of all her efforts. Well dressed, though very simply; discreet and modest, intelligent and _distingue_, 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, wis.h.i.+ng 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 friends.h.i.+p for her benefactress, displaying astonis.h.i.+ng 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 the turning 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 manoeuvring, 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 pa.s.sion, when religion had effected its change, then Louis the Great offered his hand in marriage to her who had only veneration, grat.i.tude, and devotion for him, but no pa.s.sion 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 friends.h.i.+p, 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 of religion 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 Abbe 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 fetes and amus.e.m.e.nts 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 friends.h.i.+p, 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 pa.s.sion for making bishops, abbots, and priests, as well as for negotiating compromises, reconciling _amours propres_ and 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 inst.i.tutions 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 n.o.blest 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 and her role: '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 G.o.d; 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sured; instead, her ennui, her disgust of life and the world, only increased; realizing this, she began to direct her thoughts entirely toward G.o.d 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.