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.

It may be asked how this formal and proper woman was enabled to exert upon the King so great an influence; for she was the real ruler of the land. No woman ever ruled with more absolute sway, from Queen Esther to Madame de Pompadour, than did the widow of the profane and crippled Scarron. It cannot be doubted that she exerted this influence by mere moral and intellectual force,–the power of physical beauty retreating before the superior radiance of wisdom and virtue. La Vallière had wearied and Montespan had disgusted even a sensual king, with all their remarkable attractions; but Maintenon, by her prudence, her tact, her wisdom, and her friendship, retained the empire she had won,–thus teaching the immortal lesson that nothing but respect constitutes a sure foundation for love, or can hold the heart of a selfish man amid the changes of life. Whatever the promises made emphatic by passion, whatever the presents or favors given as tokens of everlasting ties, whatever the raptures consecrating the endearments of a plighted troth, whatever the admiration called out by the scintillations of genius, whatever the gratitude arising from benefits bestowed in sympathy, all will vanish in the heart of a man unless confirmed by qualities which extort esteem,–the most impressive truth that can be presented to the mind of woman; her encouragement if good, her sentence to misery if bad, so far as her hopes centre around an earthly idol.

Now, Madame de Maintenon, whatever her defects, her pharisaism, her cunning, her ambition, and her narrow religious intolerance, was still, it would seem, always respected, not only by the King himself,–a great discerner of character,–but by the court which she controlled, and even by that gay circle of wits who met around the supper-tables of her first husband. The breath of scandal never tarnished her reputation; she was admired by priests as well as by nobles. From this fact, which is well attested, we infer that she acted with transcendent discretion as the governess of the Duke of Maine, even when brought into the most intimate relations with the King; and that when reigning at the court after the death of the Queen, she must have been supposed to have a right to all the attentions which she received from Louis XIV. And what is very remarkable about this woman is, that she should so easily have supplanted Madame de Montespan in the full blaze of her dazzling beauty, when the King was in the maturity of his power and in all the pride of external circumstance,–she, born a Protestant, converted to Catholicism in her youth under protest, poor, dependent, a governess, the widow of a vulgar buffoon, and with antecedents which must have stung to the quick so proud a man as was Louis XIV. With his severe taste, his experience, his discernment, with all the cynical and hostile influences of a proud and worldly court, and after a long and searching intimacy, it is hard to believe that he could have loved and honored her to his death if she had not been worthy of his esteem. And when we remember that for nearly forty years she escaped the scandals which made those times unique in infamy, we are forced to concede that on the whole she must have been a good woman. To retain such unbounded power for over thirty years is a very remarkable thing to do.

Madame de Maintenon, however, though wise and virtuous, made many grave mistakes, as she had many defects of character. Great as she was, she has to answer for political crimes into which, from her narrow religious prejudices, she led the King.

The most noticeable feature in the influence which Madame de Maintenon exercised on the King was in inciting a spirit of religious intolerance. And this appeared even long before Madame de Montespan had lost her ascendency. For ten years before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes there had been continual persecution of the Protestants in France, on the ground that they were heretics, though not rebels. And the same persecuting spirit was displayed in reference to the Jansenists, who were Catholics, and whose only sin was intellectual boldness. Anybody who thought differently from the monarch incurred the royal displeasure. Intellectual freedom and honesty were the real reasons of the disgrace of Racine and Fénelon. For the King was a bigot in religion as well as a despot on a throne. He fancied that he was very pious. He was regular in all his religious duties. He was an earnest and conscientious adherent to all the doctrines of the Catholic Church. In his judgment, a departure from those doctrines should be severely punished. He was as sincere as Torquemada, or Alva, or Saint Dominic. His wife encouraged this bigotry, and even stimulated his resentments toward those who differed from him.

At last, in 1685, the fatal blow was struck which decimated the subjects of an irresponsible king. The glorious edict which Henry IV. had granted, and which even Richelieu and Mazarin had respected, was repealed. There was no political necessity for the crime. It sprang from unalloyed religious intolerance; and it was as suicidal as it was uncalled for and cruel. It was an immense political blunder, which no enlightened monarch would ever have committed, and which none but a cold and narrow woman would ever have encouraged. There was no excuse or palliation for this abominable persecution any more than there was for the burning of John Huss. It had not even as much to justify it as had the slaughter of St. Bartholomew, for the Huguenots were politically hostile and dangerous. It was an act of wanton cruelty incited by religious bigotry. I wonder how a woman so kind-hearted, so intelligent, and so politic as Madame de Maintenon doubtless was, could have encouraged the King to a measure which undermined his popularity, which cut the sinews of natural strength, and raised up implacable enemies in every Protestant country. I can palliate her detestable bigotry only on the ground that she was the slave of an order of men who have ever proved themselves to be the inveterate foes of human freedom, and who marked their footsteps, wherever they went, by a trail of blood. Louis was equally their blinded tool. The Order–the "Society of Jesus"–was created to extirpate heresy, and in this instance it was carried out to the bitter end. The persecution of the Protestants under Louis XIV. was the most cruel and successful of all known persecutions in ancient or modern times. It annihilated the Protestants, so far as there were any left openly to defend their cause. It drove out of France from two hundred thousand to four hundred thousand of her best people, and executed or confined to the galleys as many more, They died like sheep led to the slaughter; they died not with arms, but Bibles, in their hands. I have already presented some details of that inglorious persecution in my lecture on Louis XIV., and will not repeat what I there said. It was deemed by Madame de Maintenon a means of grace to the King,–for in her way she always sought his conversion. And when the bloody edict went forth for the slaughter of the best people in the land, she wrote that "the King was now beginning to think seriously of his salvation. If God preserve him, there will be no longer but one religion in the kingdom." This foul stain on her character did not proceed from cruelty of disposition, but from mistaken zeal. What a contrast her conduct was to the policy of Elizabeth! Yet she was no worse than Le Tellier, La Chaise, and other fanatics. Religious intolerance was one of the features of the age and of the Roman Catholic Church.

But religious bigotry is eternally odious to enlightened reason. No matter how interesting a man or woman may be in most respects, if stained with cruel intolerance in religious opinions, he or she will be repulsive. It left an indelible stain on the character of the most brilliant and gifted woman of her times, and makes us forget her many virtues. With all her excellences, she goes down in history as a cold and intolerant woman whom we cannot love. We cannot forget that in a great degree through her influence the Edict of Nantes was repealed.

The persecution of the Protestants, however, partially reveals the narrow intolerance of Madame de Maintenon. She sided but with those whose influence was directed to the support of the recognized dogmas of the Church in their connection with the absolute rule of kings. The interests of Catholic institutions have ever been identical with absolutism. Bossuet, the ablest theologian and churchman which the Catholic Church produced in the seventeenth century, gave the whole force of his vast intellect to uphold an unlimited royal authority. He saw in the bold philosophical speculations of Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Locke an insidious undermining of the doctrines of the Church, an intellectual freedom whose logical result would be fatal alike to Church and State. His eagle eye penetrated to the core of every system of human thought. He saw the logical and necessary results of every theory which Pantheists, or Rationalists, or Quietists, or Jansenists advanced. Whatever did not support the dogmas of mediaeval and patriotic theologians, such as the Papal Church indorsed, was regarded by him with suspicion and aversion. Every theory or speculation which tended to emancipate the mind, or weaken the authority of the Church, or undermine an absolute throne, was treated by him with dogmatic intolerance and persistent hatred. He made war alike on the philosophers, the Jansenists, and the Quietists, whether they remained in the ranks of the Church or not. It was the dangerous consequences of these speculations pushed to their logical result which he feared and detested, and which no other eye than his was able to perceive.

Bossuet communicated his spirit to Madame de Maintenon and to the King, who were both under his influence as to the treatment of religious or philosophical questions. Louis and his wife were both devout supporters of orthodoxy,–that is, the received doctrines of the Church,–partly from conservative tendencies, and partly from the connection of established religious institutions with absolutism in government. Whatever was established, was supported because it was established. They would suffer no innovation, not even in philosophy. Anything progressive was abhorred as much as anything destructive. When Fénelon said, "I love my family better than myself, my country better than my family, and the human race better than my country," he gave utterance to a sentiment which was revolutionary in its tendency. When he declared in his "Télémaque" what were the duties of kings,–that they reigned for the benefit of their subjects rather than for themselves,–he undermined the throne which he openly supported. It was the liberal spirit which animated Fénelon, as well as the innovations to which his opinions logically led, which arrayed against him the king who admired him, the woman who had supported him, and the bishop who was jealous of him. Although he charmed everybody with whom he associated by the angelic sweetness of his disposition, his refined courtesies of manner, and his sparkling but inoffensive wit,–a born courtier as well as philosopher, the most interesting and accomplished man of his generation,–still, neither Bossuet nor Madame de Maintenon nor the King could tolerate his teachings, so pregnant were they with innovations; and he was exiled to his bishopric. Madame de Maintenon, who once delighted in Fénelon, learned to detest him as much as Bossuet did, when the logical tendency of his writings was seen. She would rivet the chains of slavery on the human intellect as well as on the devotees of Rome or the courtiers of the King, while Fénelon would have emancipated the race itself in the fervor and sincerity of his boundless love.

This hostility to Fénelon was not caused entirely by the political improvements he would have introduced, but because his all-embracing toleration sought to protect the sentimental pantheism which Madame Guyon inculcated in her maxims of disinterested love and voluntary passivity of the soul towards God, in opposition to that rationalistic pantheism which Spinoza defended, and into which he had inexorably pushed with unexampled logic the deductions of Malebranche. The men who finally overturned the fabric of despotism which Richelieu constructed were the philosophers. The clear but narrow intellect of the King and his wife instinctively saw in them the natural enemies of the throne; and hence they were frowned upon, if not openly persecuted.

We are forced therefore to admit that the intolerance of Madame de Maintenon, repulsive as it was, arose in part, like the intolerance of Bossuet, from zeal to uphold the institutions and opinions on which the Church and the throne were equally based. The Jesuits would call such a woman a nursing mother of the Church, a protector of the cause of orthodoxy, the watchful guardian of the royal interests and those of all established institutions. Any ultra-conservatism, logically carried out, would land any person on the ground where she stood.

But while Madame de Maintenon was a foe to everything like heresy, or opposition to the Catholic Church, or true intellectual freedom, she was the friend of education. She was the founder of the celebrated School of St. Cyr, where three hundred young ladies, daughters of impoverished nobles, were educated gratuitously. She ever took the greatest interest in this school, and devoted to it all the time her numerous engagements would permit. She visited it every day, and was really its president and director. There was never a better school for aristocratic girls in a Catholic country. She directed their studies and superintended their manners, and brought to bear on their culture her own vast experience. If Bossuet was a born priest, she was a born teacher. It was for the amusement of the girls that Racine was induced by her to write one of his best dramas,–"Queen Esther," a sort of religious tragedy in the severest taste, which was performed by the girls in the presence of the most distinguished people of the court.

Madame de Maintenon exerted her vast influence in favor of morality and learning. She rewarded genius and scholarship. She was the patron of those distinguished men who rendered important services to France, whether statesmen, divines, generals, or scholars. She sought to bring to the royal notice eminent merit in every department of life within the ranks of orthodoxy. A poet, or painter, or orator, who gave remarkable promise, was sure of her kindness; and there were many such. For the world is full at all times of remarkable young men and women, but there are very few remarkable men at the age of fifty.

And her influence on the court was equally good. She discouraged levities, gossip, and dissipation. If the palace was not so gay as during the reign of Madame de Montespan, it was more decorous and more intellectual. It became fashionable to go to church, and to praise good sermons and read books of casuistry. "Tartuffe grew pale before Escobar." Bossuet and Bourdaloue were equal oracles with Molière and Racine. Great preachers were all the fashion. The court became very decorous, if it was hypocritical. The King interested himself in theological discussions, and became as austere as formerly he was gay and merry. He regretted his wars and his palace-building; for both were discouraged by Madame de Maintenon, who perceived that they impoverished the nation. She undertook the mighty task of reforming the court itself, as well as the morals of the King; and she partially succeeded. The proud Nebuchadnezzar whom she served was at last made to confess that there was a God to whom he was personally responsible; and he was encouraged to bear with dignity those sad reverses which humiliated his pride, and drank without complaint the dregs of that bitter cup which retributive justice held out in mercy before he died. It was his wife who revealed the deceitfulness, the hypocrisy, the treachery, and the heartlessness of that generation of vipers which he had trusted and enriched. She was more than the guardian of his interests; she was his faithful friend, who dissuaded him from follies. So that outwardly Louis XIV. became a religious man, and could perhaps have preached a sermon on the vanity of a worldly life,–that whatever is born in vanity must end in vanity.

It is greatly to the credit of Madame de Maintenon that she was interested in whatever tended to improve the morals of the people or to develop the intellect. She was one of those strong-minded women who are impressible by grand sentiments. She would have admired Madame de Staël or Madame Roland,–not their opinions, but their characters. Politics was perhaps the most interesting subject to her, as it has ever been to very cultivated women in France; and it was with the details of cabinets and military enterprises that she was most familiar. It was this political knowledge which made her so wise a counsellor and so necessary a companion to the King. But her reign was nevertheless a usurpation. She triumphed in consequence of the weakness of her husband more than by her own strength; and the nation never forgave her. She outraged the honor of the King, and detracted from the dignity of the royal station. Louis XIV. certainly had the moral right to marry her, as a nobleman may espouse a servant-girl; but it was a faux-pas which the proud idolaters of rank could not excuse.

And for this usurpation Madame de Maintenon paid no inconsiderable a penalty. She was insulted by the royal family to the day of her death. The Dauphin would not visit her, even when the King led him to the door of her apartments. The courtiers mocked her behind her back. Her rivals thrust upon her their envenomed libels. Even Racine once so far forgot himself as to allude in her presence to the miserable farces of the poet Scarron,–an unpremeditated and careless insult which she never forgot or forgave. Moreover, in all her grandeur she was doomed to the most exhaustive formalities and duties; for the King exacted her constant services, which wearied and disgusted her. She was born for freedom, but was really a slave, although she wore gilded fetters. She was not what one would call an unhappy or disappointed woman, since she attained the end to which she had aspired. But she could not escape humiliations. She was in a false position. Her reputation was aspersed. She was only a wife whose marriage was concealed; she was not a queen. All she gained, she extorted. In rising to the exalted height of ruling the court of France she yet abdicated her throne as an untrammelled queen of society, and became the slave of a pompous, ceremonious, self-conscious, egotistical, selfish, peevish, self-indulgent, tyrannical, exacting, priest-ridden, worn-out, disenchanted old voluptuary. And when he died she was treated as a usurper rather than a wife, and was obliged to leave the palace, where she would have been insulted, and take up her quarters in the convent she had founded. The King did not leave her by his will a large fortune, so that she was obliged to curtail her charities.