The Catholic World Volume I Part 117

From this doc.u.ment, the authenticity of which is indisputable, we learn the utter untruthfulness of Young's recital. True, Narcissa was buried at night, and most probably {799} without any religious service, and a considerable sum charged for the privilege of interment, but she was not denied the "charity their dogs enjoy."

Calculating according to the average rate of exchange at the period, 729 livres would amount to thirty-five pounds sterling. Was it this sum that excited a poetical imagination so strong as to overstep the bounds of veracity? We could grant the excuse of poetical license had not Young declared in his preface that the poem was "real, not fict.i.tious." The subject is not a pleasing one, and we need not carry it any further; but may conclude, in the words of Mr. Cecil, who, alluding to Young's renunciation of the world in his writings when he was eagerly hunting for church preferment, says: "Young is, of all other men, one of the most striking examples of the sad disunion of piety from truth."

From The Dublin Review.

MADAME DE MAINTENON.

_Madame de Maintenon et sa Famille. Lettres et Doc.u.ments inedits._ Par HONORe BONHOMME. Paris: Didier. 1863.

_Histoire de Madame de Maintenon, et des princ.i.p.aux Evenements du Regne de Louis XIV_. Par M. le DUC DE NOAILLES, de l'Academie Francaise.

Tomes 4. Paris: Comon. 1849-1858.

_The Life of Madame de Maintenon_. Translated from the French. London: Lockyer Davis. 1772.

_The Secret Correspondence of Madame de Maintenon with the Princess des Ursins, from the original ma.n.u.scripts in the possession of the Duke of Choiseul_. Translated from the French. 3 vols. London: Whittaker. 1827.

Memorial de Saint-Cyr. Paris: Fulgence. 1846.

Female characters have, for good or ill, played a larger part on the stage of French history than of English. We have no names which correspond in extensive influence to those of Mesdames de Sevigne, de Maintenon, de Genlis, and Recamier; while the extraordinary power, both political and social, exercised by royal mistresses in France, finds no parallel in England, even in the worst days of courtly profligacy. Nor is it easy to say to what cause this difference between the two countries is to be ascribed. It may be that public opinion has been brought to bear more fully on individual action here than in France, and acts as a more powerful restraint; and it may be also that extreme prominence in society is repugnant to the more modest and retiring habits of Englishwomen. There is no lady in our annals who has occupied a position similar to that of Madame de Maintenon in relation to royalty except Mrs. Fitzherbert; but she, though highly distinguished for her virtues, was altogether wanting in those intellectual endowments which adorned that gifted woman who won the esteem and fixed the affections of Louis XIV. Many circ.u.mstances combined to make her the most striking example of female ascendency in France; and the object of this paper will be to trace the causes which led to it, as well as to her being, to this day, an object of never-failing interest to the French people. Like all great women, she has had many virulent detractors and many ardent eulogists; but we shall endeavor to avoid the {800} extremes of both, more especially as M. Bonhomme is of opinion that her biography has still to be written.

If there were no higher consideration, self-respect alone would demand scrupulous impartiality in a historical inquiry; and we are the less tempted to depart from this rule in the present instance because we are convinced that in Madame de Maintenon's history there is ample scope for the most chivalrous vindication of her fame, and that, as time goes on, and the materials relative to her contemporaries are collated, her apparent defects will lessen in importance, and her character stand out in fairer proportions and clearer light. It needs only to compare recent memoirs of her with the jejune attempts of the last century, to perceive how much her cause gains from fuller and closer investigation. The Due de Noailles has rendered good service to the literature of his country by his voluminous history of this lady, conducted as it is on the sound and admirable principle of making the subject of the biography speak for herself. There is no historical personage about whom more untruths have been circulated; and, after all that has been said and written, the only way to know her is to read her correspondence.

Lord Macaulay speaks of Franchise de Maintenon in terms so pointed, that they well deserve to be quoted at the outset:

"It would be hard to name any woman who, with so little romance in her temper, has had so much in her life. Her early years had been pa.s.sed in poverty and obscurity. Her first husband had supported himself by writing burlesques, farces, and poems. When she attracted the notice of her sovereign, she could no longer boast of youth or beauty; but she possessed in an extraordinary degree those more lasting charms, which men of sense, whose pa.s.sions age has tamed, and whose life is a life of business and care, prize most highly in a female companion.

Her character was such as has well been compared to that soft green on which the eye, wearied by warm tints and glaring lights, reposes with pleasure. A just understanding; an inexhaustible yet never redundant flow of rational, gentle, and sprightly conversation; a temper of which the serenity was never for a moment ruffled; a tact which surpa.s.sed the tact of her s.e.x as much as the tact of her s.e.x surpa.s.ses the tact of ours; such were the qualities which made the widow of a buffoon first the confidential friend, and then the spouse, of the proudest and most powerful of European kings. It was said that Louis had been with difficulty prevented by the arguments and vehement entreaties of Louvois from declaring her Queen of France." [Footnote 159]

[Footnote 159: "History of England," chap, xi., 1689.]

The romance of her life began with her birth, which took place on the 27th of November, 1635, [Footnote 160] in the prison of Niort, where her father was confined. His life had been full of adventure and crime, and he was unworthy of the faithful and affectionate wife who shared his imprisonment. He changed his religious profession several times, but at the moment of Frances' birth he called himself Protestant. The child accordingly was baptized in the Calvinist church of Niort, though her mother was a Catholic, and was placed under the charge of her aunt, Madame de Vilette, at Murcay, about a league from the prison. The prisoner, Constant d'Aubigne, was at length released, and being disinherited by his father for his ill conduct, embarked a second time for America about the year 1643, [Footnote 161] taking with him his wife and children. Little Frances suffered so much from the voyage that at one time she was thought to be dead, and a sailor held her in his arms, ready to sink her in a watery grave. "_On ne revient pas_" as the Bishop of Metz said long after {801} to Madame de Maintenon, _"de si loin pour pen de chose."_ [Footnote 162]

[Footnote 160: "_Bonhomme_," p. 235.]

[Footnote 161: _Ibid._, p. 230. ]

[Footnote 162: "One does not return from so far but for a great object."]

Notwithstanding her father's evil example, there was enough in Frances d'Aubigne's ancestral remembrances to have dazzled her imagination in after life. Her aunt, who had been her earliest instructress, was a zealous Protestant; and her grandfather, Agrippa d'Aubigne, as a soldier, a historian, and a satirical poet, was one of the first men of his day. He had served Henry IV. in various capacities, and was used to address his royal master so freely as to reproach him for his change of religion. One day, when the king was showing a courtier his lip pierced by an a.s.sa.s.sin's knife, d'Aubigne said, "Sire, you have as yet renounced G.o.d only with your lips, and he has pierced them; if you renounce him in heart, he will pierce your heart also."

Frances' father died in Martinique, having lost all he had gained by gambling. Madame d'Aubigne therefore returned to France, and devoted herself to the education of her child. She made her familiar with "Plutarch's Lives," and exercised her in composition. She would gladly have kept the task of instruction to herself, but poverty constrained her at last to resign Frances with many fears into the hands of her aunt, Madame de Vilette. The effect of this transfer was her becoming imbued with Calvinist tenets; and when, through the interference of the government, [Footnote 163] she was removed from Madame de Vilette's care, and made over to a Catholic relative, she proved very refractory, and persisted in turning her back to the altar during ma.s.s. Various means of persuasion were tried in vain; and it was not till the Ursuline sisters in Paris took her in hand that her scruples vanished, and she consented to abjure her errors and to believe anything except that her aunt Vilette would be d.a.m.ned. In after-life she used often to say that her mother and several of the nuns had been very injudicious and severe with her, and that, but for the kindness and good sense of one lady in the convent, she should probably never have embraced the Catholic faith.

[Footnote 163: "_Duc de Noailles," tome_ I., p. 77.]

Only a few years pa.s.sed before she had to choose between a conventual life and a distasteful marriage. Her mother was dead, and "the beautiful Indian," as she was called, was left almost without resources. She had become acquainted with the comic poet Scarron, and often visited him. He was five-and-twenty years older than herself, and hideously deformed. A singular paralysis, caused by quack medicines, had deprived him of the use of his limbs, his hands and mouth only being left free. His satirical pieces had been very popular, and, though fixed to his chair, he received a great deal of company, and joked incessantly. He was much struck by Frances d'Aubigne, and appreciated her talents the more highly because mental culture was rapidly advancing, and the conversation in drawing-rooms began to be rational. His offer of marriage was accepted by her, for "she preferred," as she said, "marrying him to marrying a convent." In the summer of 1652 she became his bride. Such a union deserved a place in one of his own farces, and gave little promise of happiness or virtue. But the consequences were far different from what might have been expected. A change for the better had taken place in public morals, and Madame Scarron had no sooner a house of her own than she took a prominent part in the movement. She carefully tended her helpless spouse; brushed the flies from his nose when he could not use his fingers, and administered to him the opiate draught without which he could not sleep. She received his guests with a dignity beyond her years, and her conduct was regulated on a plan of general reserve. No one dared address her in words of double signification; and one of the young men of fashion who frequented the house declared that he {802} would sooner think of venturing on any familiarity with the queen than with Madame Scarron. People saw that she was in earnest. During Lent, she would eat a herring at the lower end of the table, and retire before the rest. So young and attractive, in a capital of brilliant dissipation, and with such a husband as Scarron, her example could not but have an effect. Meanwhile she cultivated her mind, and learned Italian, Spanish, and Latin. She knew not what might be required of her, for Scarron's fortune was dwindling away, and he had been compelled to resign the prebend of Mans. He was a lay-ecclesiastic, and, like many literary men of that day, bore the t.i.tle of abbe.

Poverty again stared her in the face, and the servant who waited at table had often to whisper, "Madame, no roast again to-day!" Devoted to her husband's sick chamber, she avoided society abroad, and wrote, only two years after her marriage, letters which might have come from an aged saint on the brink of eternity. "All below is vanity," she said, "and vexation of spirit. Throw yourself into the arms of G.o.d; one wearies of all but him, who never wearies of those who love him."

Her enemies have strongly contested her virtue at this period, and appealed to her intimacy with Ninon de Lenclos in proof of their allegations. This modern Leontium certainly frequented Scarron's drawing-room and also (such were the dissolute manners of the age) that of most other celebrities in Paris. But the unhappy woman herself has left behind her an unquestionable testimony to Madame Scarron's purity. "In her youth," she says, "she was virtuous through weakness of mind: I tried to cure her of it, but she feared G.o.d too much." She had, of course, many admirers, and she must needs have gone out of the world not to have them. But to be admired and courted is one thing, to yield and sin mortally is another. It might be wished that Madame Scarron's name had never been mixed up with that of Ninon, to whom virtue was "_faibleese d'esprit_" but the freedom of her conduct must not be tried too severely by the stricter laws of propriety which prevail among us now. She never forgot Ninon, corresponded with her at times, aided her when she was in distress, and was consoled by her dying like a Christian at the age of 90. [Footnote 164 ] She who had boasted that Epicurus was her model gave the closing years of her life to G.o.d. [Footnote 165]

[Footnote 164: In 1705.]

[Footnote 165: "_Duc de Noailles," tome_ i., p. 206.]

Madame Scarron's resistance to the importunities of Villarceaux was well known, and is thus alluded to by Bois-Robert in verses addressed to the marquis himself: [Footnote 166]

"Si c'est cette rare beaute Qui tieut ton esprit enchaine, Marquis, j'ai raison de te plaindre; Car son humeur est fort a craindre: Elle a presque autant de fierte Qu'elle a de grace et de beaute."

[Footnote 166: "Marquis, if it is this rare beauty who holds you in chains, I have reason to pity you; for she as of a temper much to be feared. She has almost as much pride as she has grace and beauty."]

But those who follow the course of Madame de Maintenon's interior life know perfectly well how to interpret what Bois-Robert called "haughtiness," and Ninon "weakness of mind." It is a matter of no small importance to rescue such characters from the foul grasp of calumny. Gilles Boileau was the only one of her contemporaries while she was young who dared to throw out any suspicion against her honor, but this he did evidently to avenge himself on Scarron, against whom he had a mortal pique.

A new era was dawning on France. Richelieu and Mazarin had by their policy prepared the triumphs of monarchy; Turenne and Conde had displayed their genius in war; the great ministers and captains waited for the moment when their master should call them to his service; and arts and letters were ready to embellish all with their rich coloring.

Louis XIV. really mounted the throne in 1660, and the glory and greatness of France rose {803} with him. Pascal, Moliere, La Fontaine, and Boileau published their works almost at the same time. Racine presented to the king the first-fruits of his master mind, and the voice of Bossuet had already been heard from the pulpit. Scarron foresaw the brilliancy of the epoch, but he saw also that his own end was nigh. "I shall have," he said, "no cause for regret in dying, except that I have no fortune to leave my wife, who deserves more than I can tell, and for whom I have every reason in the world to be thankful." Humorous to the last, he made a jest of his sufferings, and, when seized with violent hiccough, said if he could only get over it, he would write a good satire upon it. He died perfectly himself, and was not even for a moment untrue to his character. A few seconds before his end, seeing those around him in tears, he said, "You weep, my children; ah! I shall never make you cry as much as I have made you laugh." He had but one serious interval to give to death--that in which Madame Scarron caused him to fulfil his religious duties. He had always been a Christian, and neither in his writings nor in his conversation had allowed anything prejudicial to religion to escape him. A chaplain came every Sunday to say ma.s.s at his house. "I leave you no fortune," he said to his wife when dying, "and virtue will bring none: nevertheless be always virtuous." The point of this admonition must be gathered from the corruption of the times. Her mother's last words also had sunk deep into Frances' memory, for she had warned her "to hope everything from G.o.d and to fear everything from man." Scarron died in 1660, and was soon forgotten. His name would now scarcely be known, nor would any at this day be conversant with his comedies and satires but for the exalted position which his widow subsequently attained. His immediate successors obeyed unconsciously the epitaph which he had himself composed, and made no noise over the grave where poor Scarron took his "first night's rest."

"Pa.s.sants, ne faites pas de bruit, De crainte que je ne m'eveille; Car voila la premiere nuit Que le pauvre Scarron sommeille." [Footnote 167]

[Footnote 167: "Poor Scarron his first night of sleep enjoys: Hush, pa.s.sers-by, nor wake him with your noise!"]

Was there ever a more pathetic joke?

When Mazarin died in 1661, the young king summoned his council and said, "Gentlemen, I have hitherto allowed the affairs of state to be conducted by the late cardinal; henceforward I intend to govern myself, and you will aid me with your advice when I ask it." From that day, the face of society in France rapidly changed. Then, as Voltaire says, the revolution in arts, intellect, and morals which had been preparing for half a century took effect, and at the court of Louis XIV. were formed that refinement of manners and those social principles which have since extended through Europe. The example long set by the Hotel de Rambouillet in Paris was followed by many others, and numerous _salons_ which have since become matter of history united all that was most brilliant in genius and talent with much that was estimable for worth and even piety.

The first ten years of Madame Scarron's widowhood were pa.s.sed in the midst of these elegant and intellectual circles. The a.s.semblies of Madame de Sevigne, Madame de Coulanges, Louvois' cousin, and Madame de Lafayette, the novelist, were, with the hotels of Albret and Richelieu, those which she princ.i.p.ally frequented. She was in great distress, and her friends tried to obtain for her the pension her husband had once enjoyed. But Cardinal Mazarin was inflexible. He remembered the "Mazarinade," in which Scarron had satirized him, and refused to grant any relief to his charming widow. But she would be beholden to none for a subsistence. She retired into the {804} convent of the Hospitalers, where a relation lent her an apartment, and lived for some time on a pittance she had h.o.a.rded. The queen-mother then became interested in her behalf, and a pension of 50 a year was a.s.signed her. "Henceforward," she said in a letter to Madame d'Albret, "I shall be able to labor for my salvation in peace. I have made a promise to G.o.d that I will give one fourth of my pension to the poor."

She now removed to the Ursuline convent, where she lived simply and modestly, but visited constantly, and received, as the sisters complained, "a furious deal of company." Her dress was elegant, but of cheap materials, and she managed by rare economy to keep a maid, pay her wages, and have a little over at the end of the year. She might have accepted the Marechal d'Albret's offer of a home in her hotel, but she preferred entire independence in her own humble asylum. Many a page could we fill with accounts of the friendships she formed at this period. To epitomize her life is in one respect a painful task, for the records we possess respecting her are equally interesting and copious. She has found at last a biographer worthy of her, and it is to the Due de Noailles' volumes we must refer those who long for further details than our s.p.a.ce allows us to give. He is the ablest champion of her honor that has yet appeared, and refutes triumphantly the calumnies of the Duc de Saint Simon by which so many have been deceived.

At the Hotel d'Albret Madame Scarron often met Madame de Montespan, who soon after became the mistress of Louis. The two ladies had many tastes in common, and an intimacy sprang up between them. How strangely they became related to each other afterward we shall presently see. Meanwhile Madame Scarron was overtaken by another reverse. The queen-mother died in 1666, and with her the pension ceased. Many splendid mansions were eager to receive and entertain her, but she declined them all as permanent abodes. A rich and dissolute old man proposed to marry her, and her friends unwisely seconded his overtures; but she was proof against them, and wrote to Ninon to express her grat.i.tude, because the voice of that licentious woman alone was raised in approval of her conduct. She was indignant at the comparison her friends made between the unworthy aspirant and her late husband, and avowed her readiness to endure any hardships rather than sacrifice her liberty, and entangle herself in an engagement which conscience could not approve. Constrained, therefore, by want, she was about to expatriate herself, and follow in the train of the d.u.c.h.esse de Nemours, who was affianced to the King of Portugal.

It was a sore trial, for none are more attached to their country, none endure exile with less fort.i.tude, than the French. She saw Madame de Montespan once more; it was in the royal palace, and that incident changed her destiny. The future rivals met under conditions how different from those which were one day to exist! Madame de Montespan, though not yet the king's mistress, was already in high favor, and the patroness of that poor widow who was afterward, by winning Louis'

esteem, to supplant her in his affections, and become, all but in name, Queen of France. Through her mediation the forfeited pension was restored, and we find her name in the list of ladies invited to a court fete in 1688. Nevertheless, her troubles withdrew her very much from the world, and she thought for a time of adopting a religious habit. Indeed, it is not impossible that she might actually have done so, had she not been made averse to the step by the severity of her confessor, the Abbe Gobelin. With a view of mortifying her ambition to please and be admired, he recommended her to dress still more plainly, and be silent in company. She obeyed, and became so disagreeable to herself and others that she sometimes felt inclined to {805} renounce her habits of devotion. [Footnote 168] She retired, however, to a small lodging in the Rue des Tournelles, lived more alone, and, as she wrote to Ninon, "read nothing but the Book of Job and the Maxims."

[Footnote 168: _"Duc de Noailles,_" tome i., pp. 310-12.]

Here fortune came to her relief. The infidelities of Louis XIV. are unhappily too well known. Suffice it in this place to say that Madame de Montespan bore him a daughter in 1669, and a son, afterward the Duc du Maine, in 1670. Circ.u.mstances required that the existence of these children should be concealed, and their mother, in whose heart the voice of conscience was never stifled, bethought her of the good Madame Scarron as one who was well fitted to take charge of their education. Accordingly, she was sounded on the subject. The king's name was not mentioned, but she was informed that the secret regarding the children was to be kept inviolate. She hesitated, refused, reconsidered the matter, and at last consented on condition that the king himself should command her services. The office was far from dishonorable in the eyes of the world. Madame Colbert, the minister's wife, had been intrusted with two of his majesty's children by Madame de la Valliere. It was not on this point that Madame Scarron was anxious, but she feared lest she should give scandal and entangle her conscience by a seeming indulgence to such immorality. Louis at last requested that she would be as a mother to his babes. They were placed with a nurse in an obscure little house outside the walls of Paris.

Madame Scarron was to live as before in her own lodgings, but without losing sight of the infants. It was a point of honor with her to observe the utmost secrecy. She visited each of them separately, for they were kept apart, and pa.s.sed in and out disguised as a poor woman, and carrying linen or meat in a basket. Returning home on foot, she entered by a private door, dressed, and drove to the Hotel d'Albret or Richelieu to lull suspicion asleep. When the secret was at length known, she caused herself to be bled lest she should blush. [Footnote 169] In two years' time the number of children had increased, and a different arrangement was adopted. A large house was purchased in the country, not far from Vaugirard, and Madame Scarron, now enjoying a certain degree of opulence, established herself there, and gave all her time to the task of education. She was lost to the world, and her friends deeply lamented her disappearance. But she was sowing the seed of her future greatness. The king, who had a great love for his children, often saw her when he visited them; the aversion he had felt for her at first gradually melted away; he admired her tender and maternal care of his offspring, contrasted it with the comparative indifference of their own mother, greatly increased her pension, and, having legitimized the Duc du Maine, the Count de Vexin, and Mademoiselle de Nantes in 1673, soon after appointed them with their gouvernante a place at court. Thus, step by step, without her own seeking, she was led on to exercise a higher and most salutary influence on the king's moral character, till, in reward of her long-tried virtue, she was ultimately to fix his wandering affections and effect his conversion; an object which for so many years she had regarded as the end of her being. She was nearly forty years of age when she entered on her duties in the palace; and, in that difficult and trying position, she set the glorious example of one who was guided in all things by principle, and who thought that the highest talents were best devoted to leading an irreproachable life. She had a work before her, and it was great. She contributed to withdraw the king from his disorderly habits, to restore him to the queen, and to bring about a reformation of morals in a quarter where it {806} had been most wantonly r.e.t.a.r.ded by the royal example. The king, in that day, was all in all. The ideal of the government was royalty. The Fronde had died away, and with it the power of the n.o.bles. That of the people, in the sense in which it is now generally understood, was unknown; even infidels and scoffers scarcely dreamed of it. The monarch, like Cyrus [Footnote 170] and the Caesars, believed himself something more than man. Diseases fled at his touch, and he virtually set himself above all laws, human and divine. It needed the eloquence of a Bossuet to convince Louis that a priest had done his duty in refusing absolution to the mother of his illegitimate children, [Footnote 171] The success of his arms enhanced his self-esteem, and the atmosphere of his court was so tainted with corruption that Madame Scarron often sighed for retirement, and resolved to flee from so perilous and painful a promotion. Her intercourse with Madame de Montespan was chequered with stormy dissensions, and the jealousy of the latter became almost insupportable. The education of the children was a constant subject of contention, and Madame Scarron, who knew that they would be ruined if left to their mother, was not disposed to yield any of her rights. But the Duc du Maine was the idol of his father and mother, and this served to attach them both to the incomparable gouvernante, who loved the boy with an affection truly maternal.

[Footnote 169: "_Deuxieme Entretien a Saint-Cyr._" ]

[Footnote 170: "Herodotus, Clio," cciv.]

[Footnote 171: "_Duc de Noailles," tome_ i., p. 316.]

Being disgusted with the court, and having received from the king a present of 200,000 francs, she bought in 1674 the estate of Maintenon, about thirty miles from Versailles, with the intention of retiring thither. But a rupture between the king and his favorite mistress was at hand, and on this circ.u.mstance hinged Madame Scarron's future career.

In spite of his profligacy, Louis XIV. was at bottom religiously disposed. His serious attention to business proved him to be a man of thought and reflection, and, when the great festivals came round, it grieved him not to be in a condition to fulfil his religious duties.

The sermons of Bourdaloue during the Lent of 1675 touched him, and the expostulations of Bossuet in private deepened their effect. He resolved to dismiss Madame de Montespan, and departed to join the army without seeing her. "I have satisfied you, father," he said to Bourdaloue: "Madame de Montespan is at Clagny." "Yes, sire," replied the preacher; "but G.o.d would be better satisfied if Clagny were seventy leagues from Versailles." Meanwhile Madame Scarron, with the Duc du Maine, went to Bareges, and, as the king had, before creating her a marchioness, graciously called her, in presence of his n.o.bles, Madame de Maintenon, we shall henceforward speak of her by the name which she bears in history. The three most important personages in our drama were now separated. The king, at the head of his army, received the letters of Bossuet, conjuring him to persevere in his promises of amendment, while Madame de Montespan, in her retreat, was pressed by the same fervid eloquence to return to the path of virtue. But the Duc du Maine was everywhere entertained as the king's son, and fetes that vied with each other in splendor awaited him and his gouvernante everywhere. So popular was the king, so loyal his people, that his vice pa.s.sed for virtue or innocent gallantry.