MME. DE MAINTENON

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17238, 19 April 1930, Page 10

MME. DE MAINTENON

QUEEN REFORMS A COURT

WHAT LOUIS XIV COULD EAT Miss Maud Cruttwcll in her, new hook tells the astonishing story of that famous French woman, Madame de Maihtenon, who, though born an u prison; became the second wife of Louis XIV. It is written critically and .based on wide research, and its verdict is to vindicate Mine, de Maintenon from the charge brought against her.'

"No personage of her importance in history," says the author, "has been so maligned, so misunderstood, so misrepresented. She, stigmatised as cruel, capricious, vindictive, fatal to France, was in reality a paragon of honesty, loyalty, and magnanimity; very .simple, very straightforward, supremely charitable; a saint whose ambitions were to convert her King and alleviate the misery caused by his wars.

Yet everyone spoke evil of her: "Misrepresented during'her lifetime, she was still more so after her death. . . . She has been unfortunate in her later biographers." Courtiers' Revenge.

In fact, the courtiers of Louis 1 XIV seem to have taken this form of vengeance Upon her because she converted what had been the naughtiest court of Europe into the dullest.

Louis XIV must have been a sad trial as a husband. His own intellect could scarcely be described as bright. He was moreover a glutton. "He often ate for his dinner four full plates of different soups; an entire pheasant, a partridge, a plateful of salad, two large slices of ham, a ragout of mutton, a plateful of patisseries, fruit, and hard-boiled eggs! We know from Dangeau's diary that he habitually remained at table from two to three hours." Mme de Maintenon wa.s a person who liked cleanliness and propriety, and the fashionable world at that date was thoroughly savage in its habits. People rarely or never washed. She complains bitterly "of the absence of corsets and the noses of the ladies brown with .snuff.'.' The pompousness of- Louis bored her extremely, and his excessive addiction to the chase tried her nerves. Her own character was unselfish and she did her best for the King and even attempted to bring about his moral reform with something of the spirit of a missionary. She was with him for long hours when he Jay on his deathbed, begging him to think only of God. . . .

Was she beautiful? (Her portraits do not suggest any great beauty, and what there had been seems to have faded earlv:

"The clear complexion, auburn hair, delicate features and red lips described with so much enthusiasm By Mile, de Scudery, were doubtless tarnished at this date (when she attracted Louis's affection) but one charm remained untouched —remained even in extreme old age—her magnificent eyes, "black, brilliant, yet soft, passionate, full of 'intelligence." One portrait but little known reproduces something of the .splendour of those eyes and a great charm of expression." The portrait in question, however, shows a rather dour-looking old lady with an enigmatic expression. (Dent.)