MADAME DE MAINTENON

Evening Star, Issue 22194, 23 November 1935, Page 2

MADAME DE MAINTENON

fWritten by Panachk for the ‘ Evening Star.’] Even as a rainy season to a poor umbrella-maker, so is a centenary to a columnist. Francoiso d’Aubigne, Marchioness of Maintenon, was born on November 27, 1635. Like many of us, she was born of a family noble but decayed. She opened her eyes in prison, from which her father was released on condition that ho embraced Catholicism. Rather than fulfil his promise, he lied to Martinique, and on the voyage the child was so ill with fevtr that she was taken for dead,' and just escaped burial. In Martinique her father gambled away Ins remaining fortune;- and her mother, realising that her daughter would have no dowry, devoted herself to the culture of Francoise’s mind, endeavouring “ to implant those high principles in her bosom which might arm her against temptation in circumstances of danger and difficulty.” .

Orphaned, Francoise needed all her high principles, for she was tossed from Protestant relatives to Catholic protection, and back again, set menial tasks such as feeding the poultry, and eventually proselytised or converted (as you prefer) by TJrsuline nuns. Though denied financial help by Protestant aunt and by Catholic convent, Francoise, thanks to her beauty, grace, and wit, found her way into Parisian society, where she was soon an ornament in those salons frequented by coarse literary men.

Hero she met the poet Scarron, who himself said that Nature had made him of the scrapings of his pot.. Ho was deformed in body, and gross alike in his burlesques and in his conversation ; but even his enemies granted him his humour and his kind heart. Francoise burst into tears when she entered his apartments, but when Scarron offered to marry her and give her a dowry she consented, though she was not yet sixteen. For ten years she was his wife and his nurse, and she writes complacently: “He, was excellent at heart, and I corrected his license.” The defenders of Madame Scarron emphasise the fact that she expurgated her husband’s literary works: her detractors protest that she was bosom friend, not only of the lovely Ninon de I’Enclos, hut of all the most infamous women in Paris.

Madame Scarron was only twenty-five when her husband died, and his pension with him. Left again to face the temptations that beset one of noble birth and extreme poverty, she lived in » convent, “ irreproachably,” and so economically that she had always enough to give bountifully to the poor. Thanks to the importunities of de Montespan, Louis XIV. renewed the pension, and Madame Scarron celebrated by bouts of devotion and parties with Ninon. So charming was Madame Scarron in society that one of the mortifications inflicted on her by her confessor was that she should make people vawn. Whereupon she writes that she is tempted to give up devotion. This is the rare human side, and explains why Napoleon at St. Helena preferred the letters of Madame de Maintenon even to those of de Sevigne. But this spontaneous strain was counteracted by an inhuman prudence and calculation. When she was asked by 'Madame de Montespan to _ take charge of some children of the highest distinction whose existence was not to be suspected, she would consent only at Louis’s express command. Thus, she brought herself into direct contact with the King, avoiding, at the same time, being under his favourite. Soon she attracted Louis’s interest, was invited to his private parties, and, when Montespan’s son, the young Duke of Maine, pleased his father with a witty retort, Louis made the governess a present of 100,000 francs. Soon she was able to buy the ©state of Maintenon, from which she took her name. AS Madame de Maintenon rose in the. King’s favour, there were constant quarrels with his mistress, Madame do Montespan, who, while admiring rival’s treatment of the children, resented her growing influence with Louis. The mistress was still beautiful and young; but Madame de Maintenon was able to persuade the King, who was growing older, vainer, and more susceptible to sermons, that she was actuated only by. tho highest motives for his eternal welfare. Her meekness and sweetness contrasted with the rages and jealousy of Montespan, who, feeling her power waning, trifled with sorcery and poison. Though Louis still found' his old love charming in her tears, he took to spending four hours each evening with Maintenon, delighting in her good sense and piety.

The poor Queen, Maria Theresa, welcomed the change. She had never before been so well treated, and she gave Madame do Maintenon a portrait of herself set in diamonds. When she died it was in the arms of Madame de Maintenon, whose friendship and consolation Louis could accept without reproach. Soon after tho death of the Queen Louis celebrated 1 a private marriage with Madame de Maintenon. There is no proof that the marriage took place, but*no one has dared, to believe that it did not. Louis transacted affairs of state in Madame de Maintenon’s apartments, but unless her opinion was asked, the lady kept silent. Madame do Montospan wandered round watering places, while Madame do Maintenon was for 30 years the ruling power in Versailles, snug in her red damask niche, from which she did not rise even to greet the wife of James 11.

Madame de Main tenon was wont to boast that hex* influence was always on the side of morality and decency. She was a very successful school misti’css. She founded St. Cyr, for the free education of girls who, like young Francoiso d’Aubigne, were of noble birth and poor circumstances. St. Cyr was endowed by Louis, who gave dowries to the girls as they became the brides of the nobility or of the church. At St. Cyr were produced the plays written by Racine for Madame de Maintenon’a pupils. ‘ Esther ’ was a thinly-veiled allegory, showing the triumph of the

modest Maintenou -over Vashti de Montespan, and her marriage with the noble Ahasuerus-Lonis. A contemporary says of dc Maintenon that she had “ a higli opinion of her mind, little esteem for her heart, and no taste for her person, but a thorough belief in her sincerity.” In her anomalous position at Versailles she did not avoid scandal, but she escaped glamour. Hers is not a sweetscented name. It is impossible to imagine a perfume called de Jla in tenon.