I say all this for justice, and from the desire I have that our girls should have their minds and their hearts right, for it may very well be that the girls in question are not suitable for us. I do not need, monsieur, to commend them to your charity; I pray God to console and bless them.
To Mme. du Pérou.
1696.
Madame, I have always forgotten to ask you why they continue to serve the young ladies with rye bread in days when wheat is no longer dear. It was very proper that they should learn by their own experience the inequality of the riches of the world, and take some share in the public sufferings; but they ought to be put back into the usual system when there is no reason to keep them out of it. The tendency of communities is to retrench on food, rather than on commodities or embellishments which they ought to go without. As our nourishment is simple and frugal, nothing should touch it. The girls are murmuring in their hearts much more bitterly than they dare say. I try in everything to help you with my experience.
Do not think, either for yourself or for your girls, that those who do not feel dull have no need of relaxation. Serious occupations wear upon us, little by little, without our perceiving it until too late; that is why, my dear daughter, you ought to prevent such a result by diversions of the mind that are innocent. Take care only that nothing passes contrary to religious modesty, nothing worldly, nothing excited or excessive; but that gentleness, holy liberty, simplicity, charity, modesty reign in everything. I wish no dancing.
To Mme. de Radouay.
October 15, 1696.
Profit, I conjure you, for yourself and for others by the experience you have just had of quinine. Nothing is more unreasonable than notions; our age assumes them about everything; they decide all things; there is no one who does not seek to be a doctor, or meddle in the direction of affairs; all have decided opinions; women pretend to judge of books, sermons, governments, of the spiritual and the bodily; modesty is no longer in usage. No one ever replies now, “I do not know,” or “It is not for me to judge;” no one is baffled; the place of knowledge and judgment is filled by intolerable presumption, for never were persons more ignorant. Do not have, or allow that quality in your midst. Say out, simply, that you do not know. Let yourselves be guided by confessors, doctors, superiors, magistrates, the king; inspire that modesty in your novices, to whom this letter is as necessary as to you.
I am delighted that the Reds desire to please me; what pleasure if at my next visit you can tell me they have all been good. They will obtain that happiness if they ask it of God and serve Him with their whole heart.
To Mme. de Fontaines [now the Superior].
December, 1696.
Complaint is made, my dear daughter, that you do not give enough little comforts to the classes. You want me to speak to you freely and I shall do so. I think it true that you are too stern about expenses and all sorts of economy. Consider, I beg of you, that the most important thing in your case is not to save a thousand francs more or less (and the favours asked of you would not cost more than that), but to firmly establish and cause to be liked your rule as Superior; and you can do it in no better way than by entering, not only into the just needs of your community, but even into some wants that are not altogether necessary.
When certain of the mistresses ask me for ribbon for use in representing the tragedies, and I give it, do you not think that I do better than if I replied dryly that my money would be better employed in giving alms? Am I not doing a much greater good by this compliance to the mistresses of the different classes? They are pleased; and it is just to soften their labour; we make their young ladies like them, and so dispose them to receive instruction; the latter will open their hearts themselves to those who grant them these attentions. Nevertheless, you refuse them twenty pairs of gloves, or you deduct those gloves from the next distribution; do you not see, my dear daughter, that to save ten francs you have vexed sixteen of your mistresses? Saint-François de Sales sent Mme. de Chantal word as to a lawsuit she had gained which he did not wish her to undertake. “This time,” he said, “you have been more just than kind; I would rather have you more kind than just.” Apply those words to yourself, and be more kind than saving, more careful than thrifty; make yourself beloved, and in that way you will do a solid good to the establishment. Keep your negatives for all that is against the regulations; never relax there, but even there you can make answers that will not be harsh by saying: “The Constitution forbids that; the rules point to this,” and so on. But for details within those lines, I beg you to give ear to what the mistresses request, leaning to compliance rather than severity. I pray God to give you the courage of which you have need to fulfil your duties, and an extension of charity and perception which will make you prefer great duties to little ones.
To Mme. de Pérou.
1699.
We should have an equitable not a superficial charity. For instance, we should rid ourselves of a girl who would be capable of corrupting others, without listening to the sentiments of a weak compassion which would lead us to say: “But she is so poor; what will her family do? she will be ruined in the world.” Better that she should be lost alone than ruin your whole establishment. For certain defects which cannot injure others and only make you suffer yourself, I exhort you to have infinite patience; how many we have known who were bad and are now among our best girls! I was listening to one the other day with great pleasure as she told me with humility and simplicity the evil inclinations that might have led her to bad ways, and yet she has done marvels. Such cases ought to encourage you and make you see that if there are some pains in educating there are also many grounds for consolation.
I entreat you to tell my sister de Riancourt that she must give good nourishment to the sick, take great care that they rest well, warm them in their chills, and dry them if they perspire. But easy chairs in which they lounge all day, loose dressing-gowns without belts like fashionable women, soups without bread crumbs, such things, I say, are delicacies out of all proportion with the illnesses I have known you have, so far. Read her this part of my letter, I beg of you, and bind her conscience to establish the infirmary on the footing of religious charity but with none of that laxness which ought not to be allowed among your young ladies.
To Mme. de la Rozières [the sub-mistress of a class].
October 3, 1699.
I must, my dear daughter, repair by a letter the wrong I did in not seeing you in private when I saw the others. My want of leisure makes me fail in many things I ought to do, and want to do. It is a great pity to have for mother a person who is always moving about, off hunting, or at cards, when she ought to be talking with her daughters. You are too good to put up with me and my many defects, but I assure you that I am well punished, and there is nothing in the pleasures I speak of to console me for not going oftener to Saint-Cyr.
To Mme. de Pérou.
February 23, 1701.
It has seemed to me as if you desired that I should write to you on all things that might be of consequence to your establishment. I place in that rank the representations of the beautiful tragedies I caused to be written for you,[20] and which may in the future be imitated. My object was to avoid the miserable compositions of nuns, such as I saw at Noisy. I thought it was judicious and necessary to amuse children; I have always seen it done in places where they are collected; but I wished while amusing those of Saint-Cyr to fill their minds with fine things of which they would not be ashamed when they entered the world; I wished to teach them to pronounce properly; to occupy them in a way that would withdraw them from conversations with one another, and especially to amuse the elder ones, who from fifteen to twenty years of age get rather weary of the life at Saint-Cyr. These are my reasons for still continuing the representations, provided your superiors [meaning the Bishop of Chartres and the confessors] do not forbid them. But you must keep them entirely confined to your own house, and never let them be seen by outside persons under any pretext whatever. It is always dangerous to allow men to see well-made girls who add to the charms of their person by acting well what they represent. Therefore do not, I say, permit the presence of any man, whoever he may be, poor, rich, young or old, priest or secular,—I would even say a saint, if there were such on earth. All that can be allowed, if one of the superiors [priests] insists on judging the performance, is to let the youngest children act a play before him—as, in fact, we have already done.
To Mme. de Gruel [head mistress of the Reds].
March, 1701.
You admire too much what I do for your class, but nevertheless, such as it is you do not imitate it enough. You talk to your children with a stiffness, a gloominess, a brusqueness which will close their hearts. They should feel that you love them, that you are grieved by their faults for their own sake, and that you are full of hope that they will correct themselves; you should take them expertly, encourage them, praise them, in a word, employ all means except roughness—which will never lead any one to God. You are too rigidly of a piece, very proper to live with saints, but you ought to know how to adapt yourself, to be every sort of person, and especially a kind mother to a large family, all of whom are equally dear to her.
I have always forgotten to tell you that I noticed several days ago, in hearing you explain the Gospel, that you seem to me to embrace too many topics; children want but few. You also talk too much; I think you had better make the children talk more, so as to see if they have listened and understood. I likewise think that you are too eloquent. For example, you said to them that they must make an eternal divorce from sin; that is true, and well said, but I doubt if there are three girls in your class who know what a divorce is. Be simple, and think only of making yourself intelligible.
I think, my dear daughter, that you will consider it right that I should give you my opinion from time to time on what I see you do. Inspire your children, I conjure you, with the practices of piety, with a horror of sin, a sense of God’s presence, and a docility in being led by you. I beg you also to guide them according to the spirit of the Church; as for this, I have written a little compendium which you must follow.
Adieu, my dear daughter.
To Mme. de Montalembert [head mistress of the Blues].
October 19, 1703.
Your arrangements are all that could be wished, my dear daughter; we cannot thank God enough for what He does for you by means of your saintly and able confessor. I tell you again, my joy would be perfect if I could see you walking as straight without that great support; but I will have confidence in God and believe that the provision of strength you are making now will nourish you for the future.
The affection you feel for your girls will never harm you if you love them all equally; preferences would be ruinous to the class and to yourself; you must have none, except for the very best girls, and such preferences ought not to offend the others.
Why do you not ask of your class all that you know I should ask of them? My greatest honour at Saint-Cyr is that Saint-Cyr can do without me; what I should now do would be nothing; what there was of good in me has passed to you, my dear children, and will ever remain in the Institution. I desire with all my heart that it may be a school of virtue, and that you may live there as angels while corruption increases daily in the world. What would I not give to have you all see as I do how long and wearisome our days are here at Court; I do not mean only for those persons who have outlived the follies of youth, but for youth itself, which is dying of ennui because it wants to amuse itself continually and finds nothing to content that insatiable desire for pleasure. I toil at the oar to amuse Mme. la Duchesse de Bourgogne. It would not be thus if they sought only to please God, to work and sing His praises, as with you; the peace which that kind of life puts into the heart is a solid and lasting joy. Adieu; this subject would lead me far. I write to none but you to-day; assure the dear sisters that the healths about which they inquire are very good.
To Mme. de Bouju [head mistress of the Yellows].
January 4, 1704.
Yes, my dear daughter, you must use simple language; a nun should rule that as she rules her eyes, her walk, and all her actions. We should feed on Holy Scripture, but not use its terms more than is necessary to make it understood. M. Fagon is often praised because he talks medically in so simple and intelligible a way that we think we see the things that he explains; a village doctor talks Greek. Explain to your girls what you find in the books you read to them; but tell them always they are never to use those words. In this our Mother and I are not aiming at any one in particular, only at the names you introduce; and from them we pass to learned words, in short, to that which may be called the pedantic spirit. We cannot endure this in learned people; how much more displeasing is it in ignorant ones and particularly in those of our sex! We should do very wrong, my dear daughter, to tell you this in a roundabout way; because, by the favour God has done you, we can say to you all without reserve. Ask Him, I beg of you, to give to me the same grace.
To Mme. du Pérou.
Fontainebleau, October 1, 1707.
I think as you do about Saint-Cyr; and whatever reasons I may have to open the door to certain persons sometimes, I am always enchanted when they go out of it, and I never love Saint-Cyr so well as when it is its natural self. My sister de Radouay will tell you if that is flattery; she tells us many truths in a jesting way, and I should like, as she advises, to prepare you for the change you will some day feel; but I find difficulty in doing so, and I fall back on what wisdom has told us: “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
My intention was to answer all letters with my own hand, but I have so many things to do that I must husband myself from early morning in order to be able to go on till night; my sister de Fontaines would choke at the recital of my days; my restraints extend to everything. The letter of my sister de Jas has furnished me with many subjects of rejoicing in the account she gives me of her interior and her exterior; but those are subjects of confession,—they must not be answered. Our good mistress of the novices goes quietly to her ends; she asks me to send her a “Conversation;” if she saw me, she would not ask it. My poor mind is dragged apart by four horses; it is not yet eleven o’clock, but my head feels bound with iron, and yet I must sustain my rôle as personage till ten at night.
I see no difficulty in putting Mlle. de Grouchy into the novitiate; why not also Fontanges, who desires it so ardently? Their appearance is not charming, but we must accustom ourselves to value only that which God values. I am perfectly well so far as my general health is concerned; that is to say, I no longer have fever or weakness, but many rheumatic pains in my head as soon as I expose myself to cold.
Adieu, my children. I shall see you again on the 17th of October, and I defy you to be more glad than I.
To Mme. de Saint-Périer [mistress of the Blues].
Versailles, 1708.
We were interrupted a few days ago just as I was telling you, my dear daughter, what I have already written elsewhere, namely: when you have girls of high rank you must redouble your care for their education, but in a manner imperceptible to the others—for the equality that you keep is admirable. What I ask does not go further than wishing you to speak to them oftener in private, employing them in all that can open their minds, instilling into them a solid piety and whatever can form their hearts to virtue. Those girls, when they go into the world, or even into convents, can do greater good than others who are forced by poverty to return to their parents. Mlle. de Rochechouart is a case in point; it seems to me that you push her enough; I hope that her inclinations respond to her birth.
You say you have had difficulty in combining two things that I asked of you, and which you find opposed to each other: one, that you ought to train, as much as you can, the consciences of your girls to be simple, open and direct; and the other, that you must not make them talkative. There is no contrariety, as I think, between the two things; it is never the frank who have the most to say. Frankness does not consist in saying much, but in saying all; and that all is quickly said when it is sincere, because there are no preambles, and no great number of words are needed to open the heart. A simple person says naïvely what is in her mind; if she should chance to be a little too diffuse, obedience calms her and four words are enough. Those who are not simple cannot resolve either to speak or hold their tongues; their confidences must be dragged from them; we lose ourselves in their twists and turns; that is what makes such long conversations and frequent confessions; they have said something, but not all; they were not willing to tell perhaps one circumstance, and then they are frightened at not having told it, and so they return to tell it and perhaps much else. Now an honest heart tells at once all it knows. Have you not observed that the frankest girls are the soonest confessed? They hide nothing, and the confessor, who knows their disposition, has little to say to them....
To Mme. du Pérou [now Superior of Saint-Cyr].
Versailles, 1711.
The [mistresses of the] classes are your principal affair; the establishment is your Institute, that is the king’s intention; that is the object of your office. Never weary of preaching to your sisters the vigilance required in guarding and educating the young ladies. Do not add rules to rules; you have rules enough, but the mistresses do not read them enough. Make ceaseless attack upon the furtive quibbling that the Dames de Saint-Louis keep up about their time. They go against the will of God, the intention of their instituters and founders, and against the charity they owe to the young ladies if they leave them at times when their regulations do not oblige them to be in church. That hunger for prayer is only self-love wanting to be pleased with itself for its works, and counting as nought that which is done under rules. How can they teach young ladies that duty should be done according to the place of each person if they themselves neglect the duty of theirs, which is the care of those young ladies? A true Dame de Saint-Louis ought to contrive to be with her class at all possible moments, even at the hours when she is not obliged to be there. And yet they think they are pleasing God by making a half-hour’s orison which was not required of them, and deserting the employment of the time which He does demand in accordance with their vows! I should never end on this chapter, my dear daughter. Never give up on this point, I conjure you. It is for you to see that the rules are obeyed, and when your functions cease and you become again a simple mistress, set an example of fidelity to the others.
To Mme. de Fontaines.
April 20, 1713.
Do not let us complain, my dear sister, and fear the future; let us rather try to establish the present as best we can. You can contribute better than any one to this purpose, for you are sufficiently prudent not to vex the sisters; at the same time you will never allow the young ladies to speak in a low tone to one another. The sisters must excuse a great deal of poor talk that they will hear, and not reprove it when there is no real harm in it.
Mme. d’Auxy [this was Jeannette de Pincré, an adopted daughter of Mme. de Maintenon] is quite beside herself when she has a new gown. She consults me about the trimming; I enter into it and give her my advice, telling her that her joy and liking for adornment belongs to her age, but that youth must pass, and that I hope she will come sooner or later to better inclinations. I think that such compliance does more good than severity, which serves only to rebuff the young and make them dissimulating.
I am told that one of the little girls was scandalized in the parlour because her father talked of his breeches. That is a word in common usage. What refinement do they mean by this? Does the arrangement of the letters form an immodest word? Do they feel distress at the words “breed” or “breeze” or “breviary”? It is pitiable. Others only whisper under their breath that a woman is pregnant; do they wish to be more modest than our Lord who talked of pregnancy and childbirth, etc.? One of the young ladies stopped short when I asked her how many sacraments there were, not being willing to name marriage. She began to laugh and told me they were not allowed to name it in the convent from which she came.
What! a sacrament instituted by Jesus Christ, which he honoured with his presence, the obligations of which his Apostles explained, and which we ought to teach to our daughters, must not be named to them! These are the things that turn a convent education into ridicule. There is much more immodesty in such proceedings than there is in speaking openly of what is innocent and with which all pious books are filled. When our young ladies have passed through marriage they will know that it is not a thing to be laughed at. They ought to be accustomed to speak of it very seriously and even sadly, for I think it is the state of life in which we suffer most tribulation, even in the best marriages. They should be taught, when occasion offers, the difference between immodest words, which must never be uttered, and coarse words,—the first being sinful, the second simply against good-breeding.
Adieu, my daughter, I never can finish when it is a question of our girls and the good of the establishment.
To Mme. de la Rouzière [a class mistress].
Monday, May 6, 1714.
I think, my dear daughter, that being too much attached to one’s body means fearing too much inconveniences and want of ease, being too particular about one’s person, being easily disgusted with that of others, dressing with too much care, apprehending cold, heat, smoke, dust—in a word, all the little flesh mortifications—too much; it is desiring to satisfy our senses, seeking pleasure, being too much attached to our health, taking too much care of it, troubling ourselves about remedies, occupying ourselves with our own relief, being too nice about what we like and too fidgety about what we fear; it is examining ourselves on such points with too much care. Being too much attached to one’s mind means to think we have one, to plume one’s self upon it, to wish to increase it, to show it, to turn the conversation according to our own tastes, to seek out persons who have mind and despise others whom we think have none, to speak affectedly, and write the same.—But I am obliged to finish, my dear daughter.
To Mme. de Vandam [then head mistress of the Blues].
January 12, 1715.
In the year 1700 or 1701 I busied myself much with the classes, and we began to establish what is now practised with such great success. We should, however, renew our vigilance unceasingly, my dear daughter, and forbid the young ladies absolutely to say a single word in a low voice to their companions. This fault, which seems very slight to persons without experience, is really very considerable; and there is none as to which you must be less indulgent. Punish it very severely, and let people say what they like. If the young ladies would reason about it for a moment themselves they would admit that they are whispering in order to say things that they know are not right; it is therefore very proper to forbid it.
We cannot feel sure of youth without this precaution; but after taking it, do not reprove them too severely for what you hear them say; strive to teach them to distinguish the good, the bad, the indiscreet, the imprudent, the immodest, the coarse; but always little by little, letting pass a number of things.
I see our mistresses shocked and alarmed when our girls desire finery and think themselves happy when they get a pink gown; a crime ought not to be made of that weakness of their age and sex; they should be told gently that such tastes will pass away, but not that they are sins. By such little concessions you will win their confidence the more. But I repeat: they must not whisper, and the mistresses, the blacks, and the flame-coloured ribbons must keep their eyes always upon them.
I pray God to make you know the value and sincerity of this vigilance, so that you may give yourself wholly to it; keep at a distance whatever can embarrass you, and watch continually, but quietly.
[On the 30th of August, 1715, two days before the king’s death, Mme. de Maintenon went to Saint-Cyr, which was bound by its Constitution to provide for her and her establishment; she never left its precincts again.]
[The following reports were written down by the mistresses, occasionally by the pupils, and corrected by Mme. de Maintenon herself, in order to make them more worthy of being read and re-read by the mistresses in after days.]
Advice to the Young Ladies on the letters they write. Brevity and simplicity recommended.
January, 1695.
As you order us to write down what was said yesterday at recreation we shall do so as exactly and simply as we can. Mme. de Maintenon was good enough to come here expressly to correct our letters, as our mistresses had begged her to do. She first made all the young ladies surround her, and those whose letters were to be corrected stood nearest to her. She showed them, one after another, the faults in those presented to her, making us particularly notice how a simple, natural style, without turns of phrase, was the best, and the one that all persons of intellect used; telling us that the principal thing in order to write well is to express simply and clearly what one thinks. She gave us as an example M. le Duc du Maine, whom she taught to write, when she had the care of him, by the time he was five years old. She related to us that having told him one day to write to the king, he answered, quite embarrassed, that he did not know how to write letters. Mme. de Maintenon said, “But have you nothing in your heart that you want to tell him?”
“I am very sorry he has gone,” he replied.
“Well,” she said, “write that, it is very good.” Next she said, “Is that all you are thinking? have you nothing else to say to him?”
“I shall be very glad when he comes back,” replied the Duc du Maine.
“There is your letter made,” said Mme. de Maintenon; “you have only to write it down simply, as you think it; if you think badly, it will be corrected.” She then said to us, “That is how I taught him, and you have seen the charming letters that he writes.” Mme. de Loubert, our head mistress, said it would be giving us great pleasure if she would take the trouble to write a model for us. She consented, and took for her subject the letters she had just corrected; she wrote a note and a letter in order to show us the difference.
We dared not show her the desire we had that she should write one for us as if to a person to whom we owed respect; one of our mistresses was so good as to say this for us. Mme. de Maintenon asked us, with her accustomed kindness, “To whom, my children, do you wish me to address it?” We answered her in a manner to let her know it should be to herself, as our benefactress. “Well,” she said, “since you wish it, I will write you a letter of ceremony and respect to aged persons, although they are not of better families than your own.” Then, addressing one of us, she said: “For instance, you owe respect to old M. T——, your uncle, whom I know, though he is of the same family as your own; you also owe me respect on account of my age,”—as if wishing to tell us there was no other reason to make us respect her, so great is her humility; but it does not become us, Mother, to speak to you of that, which you know better than we.
After having written the letter we had asked of her, she had the kindness to read it to us, and then said: “You see I have made it respectful and tender, but it is meant for those who regard me as a mother, just as I regard them as my daughters.”
We have not as yet, Mother, received the letters she took the pains to write for us, but we shall try to obtain them soon, and will then give them to you, without changing anything.
We must also tell you what she made us notice as to the last words of her letter which express the tenderness she allows us to show her, having the charity to consider us her daughters. She said to us: “If a person whom I did not know wrote to me thus it would not be proper, though I should not mind it; but as for those at Saint-Cyr, I like them to show me affection and write to me without ceremony....”
Before going away she said to us, “My dear children, do you think that all this will profit you?” We answered that we hoped the pains she had taken would not be wasted, and she went away saying that she wished the same with all her heart.
It is with much pleasure, Mother, that we have acquitted ourselves of what you ordered us; we beg you to excuse all the defects you may perceive in it; but we think there is no need to tell you how filled we are with gratitude to Mme. de Maintenon, who gives us daily fresh marks of her kindness. It is this which makes us hope for as fortunate a fate as that which has come to several of our companions who have been brought closer to her. We cannot hope that fate will do as much for us, but at least we are going to apply ourselves with all our strength to profit by the kindnesses which she now does us; and we shall endeavour all our lives to do honour to the education which she procured for us, and in which she so often employs herself. We are, Mother, with profound respect, your very humble and very obedient servants,
D’Osmont and Du Bouchot.
On good and bad characteristics of mind.
April, 1700.
On April 12 of the year 1700, Madame said to us during recreation: “I fear you judge too much by what the young ladies who present themselves for the novitiate have done in the classes. You see a girl commit some considerable fault, perhaps many faults, and that is enough to prejudice you against her; this is not just. You ought to judge, both in good and evil, only by perseverance in them; because a girl who has kept to either throughout the classes proves that such is her character. I should, therefore, not oblige a girl who has done well throughout to make a long novitiate. And, without excluding a girl who did badly in the lower classes and seemed to change on entering class Blue, I should nevertheless prolong her novitiate so as to give her time to strengthen herself in good, if her change is sincere, and to test it if assumed; so that you may see if she has one of those fickle, inconstant natures which, it may be feared, will fall back after a time into its early defects.
“One of the things to which you ought to apply yourselves the most,” continued Madame, “is to know the character of your novices; it is very important to choose only sound ones; piety may cut off vices, but it seldom changes the defects that come from the character of the mind. As for me, I would rather have what you call here a naughty girl, who is often only frolicksome, than a captious mind or an ill-humoured one, however pious. I rather like what are called naughty children, that is to say jovial, vainglorious, passionate, even a little headstrong, girls who chatter and are lively and self-willed, because all those defects are easily corrected by reason and piety, or even by age itself. But an ill-formed mind, a captious mind remains to the end.”
“What do you mean,” they asked her, “by an ill-formed, captious mind?”
“A mind,” replied Madame, “that does not yield to reason; that does not see results; believes always that one is trying to vex it, gives an evil turn to everything, and without being malignant takes things quite otherwise than as they are meant. But nothing is worse than a false spirit, a disguised and dissembling one, or an obstinate and opinionated one. Beware of those defects and of a bad temper; they are most troublesome in a community; for nothing makes the burden of government heavier than the management of difficult natures which require diverse treatment. God allows all these defects because such ill-formed natures can always be saved. He is,” she added pleasantly, “more indulgent than we; He receives many persons into His paradise whom I should be sorry to admit into our community.”
Mme. de Riancourt asked if being rather sulky was the same as being bad-tempered. “No,” replied Madame, laughing. “I would readily permit a little sulkiness; there are few children not subject to it; but their natures are not bad for all that. What I call a bad temper is that of a person easily affronted, suspicious, cavilling about an air, a look, a word,—in short, a person with whom one can never be a moment at one’s ease; whereas a girl of a good spirit takes everything in good part, lets many things go by without taking them up; and, far from imagining that persons mean to attack her, when they are not dreaming of it, does not even perceive a real intention to annoy; a girl who accommodates herself to everything, who finds facilities for doing whatever is wanted; a girl whom a superior can put without caution into any office and with all sorts of persons. That is what I call a good mind; it is a treasure to a community.”
Mistresses ought to suit their conduct to the diverse natures.
1701.
On one of our working-days Madame said to us: “You ask me to instruct you about your classes; experience will teach you more than I can tell you; it is less my own mind that has taught me what I know than the experiments I made myself in the days when I educated the princes. You should regulate your conduct to the various characters; be firm, but never find too much fault; you must often shut your eyes and see nothing, and above all take care not to irritate your girls and drive them indiscreetly to extremities. There come unlucky days, when they are upset, emotional, and ready to murmur; whatever you might then do in the way of remonstrance and reprimand would not bring them back to order. You must let things slide as gently as you can, so as not to commit your authority; and it will often happen that the next day the class will do marvels. Some children are so passionate and their tempers are so quick that were you to whip them ten times running you could not lead them as you wish. At such times they are incapable of reason, and punishment is useless; you must give them time to calm, and calm yourself; but in order that they may not think you give up to them and that by their obstinacy they have become the stronger, you must use dexterity, employ an intermediary, or say that you put off the affair to another time, which renders it more terrible; but do not think that they will be angry and passionate all their lives because in childhood their tempers are quick.
“I have seen this in M. le Duc du Maine; he is now the gentlest man in the world, but in his childhood, made irritable by illness and violent remedies, he was sometimes in a fury of impatience which every one reproached me for permitting. They used to put him into a boiling bath [bain bouillant], and because he screamed and was out of temper they wanted me to scold him; but I assure you I had not the courage; I would go away to write, or have myself called away, so that he might not think I tolerated his ill-temper (which, as I think, was very pardonable on such occasions); besides which, the remedies so heated his blood that all I could have said or done would not have calmed him. One must study the moments at which to take the means most suitable to children. Sometimes a look, a word, will bring them back to their duty; or a private conversation in which you can bring them to reason by speaking kindly with them. There are some that you must publicly rebuke, and sometimes often; there are others that you must punish instantly and not appear to spare. In short, discretion and experience can alone teach you the means you ought to take on all occasions; but you will never succeed unless you act with a great dependence on the spirit of God. You must pray to Him much for all those with whom you are intrusted; address Him in a special manner when you are puzzled, never doubt that He will help you as long as you distrust yourselves and are careful to keep yourselves united to Him.”
Questions on ideas of pleasure. Principle of conduct to follow in friendships.
December, 1701.
Mme. de Maintenon asked Mlle. de la Jonchapt on what was the lesson of the day when she entered the class [of the Blues]. She replied, “It was, Madame, on the ideas we form of pleasure.”
“Well,” said Mme. de Maintenon, “what are yours; what would they be if you were no longer here?”
“I think,” said the young lady, “I would like to be with my family, all assembled and all united.”
“You are right to consider that a pleasure,” said Mme. de Maintenon, “it is in the order of God; nothing is so lovable as a united family. And you, Laudonie, what would you like, when you are no longer here?”
“I hope, Madame, that I should find my pleasure in rendering service to my father and mother.”
“That is also very right,” said Mme. de Maintenon, “every time that you think in that way, and do not look for greater pleasures, it may be said that you are very reasonable. But you do not sufficiently put into your plan that you will have to suffer. Expect that, my children, I implore you; nothing is so capable of softening ill-fortune, which may overtake you, as being prepared for it; always expect something worse than you have met with.”
“There is one among them,” said the mistress (it was Mme. de Saint-Périer), “who tells me she expects her pleasure in going to see her friends and receiving them in her own house.”
“Assuredly,” replied Mme. de Maintenon, “there is much pleasure in living with our friends and conversing with open hearts, as we say, and no constraint. But there is,” she added in a lower voice to the mistress, “a pagan maxim, which I think very stern; it is to act with our friends as if we were sure they would some day be our enemies. I could secure myself, it seems to me, by letting my friends see nothing that was bad in me; I should try never to be wrong in their presence, nor in that of persons whom I loved less, because so many circumstances occur in life to separate us that friends often become enemies, and then we are in despair at having trusted them too much, and having spoken to them freely without reserve.
“Mme. de Montespan and I, for example,” she added, continuing to speak in a low voice to the mistress,—“we have been the greatest friends in the world; she liked me much, and I, simple as I was, trusted her friendship. She was a woman of much intelligence and full of charm; she spoke to me with great confidence, and told me all she thought. And yet we are now at variance, without either of us having intended it. It is assuredly without fault on my side; and yet if either has cause to complain it is she; for she may say with truth: ‘I was the cause of her elevation; it was I who made her known and liked by the king, and she became the favourite while I was dismissed.’ On the other hand, was I wrong to accept the affection of the king on the conditions upon which I accepted it? Did I do wrong to give him good advice and to try, as best I could, to break up his connections? But let us return to what I meant to say in the first instance. If in loving Mme. de Montespan as I loved her I had been led to enter in a bad way into her intrigues, if I had given her bad advice, either from the world’s point of view or from God’s, if—instead of urging her all I could to break her bonds—I had shown her the means of retaining the king’s affection, would she not have in her hands at this moment the means of destroying me if she wished revenge? ‘This (or that) person whom you esteem so much,’ she used to say to me, ‘said to me thus and so; she urged me to do this, she counselled me that,’ etc. Have I not good reason to say that we should not let anything be seen even to our friends which they might use in the end against us? Sooner or later things are known, and it is very annoying to have to blush for things we have said and done in times past.”
“I said, many years ago, to M. de Barillon [one of her oldest friends] that there was nothing so clever as to never be in the wrong, and to conduct one’s self always and with all sorts of persons in an irreproachable manner; he thought I was right, and said that, in truth, there was nothing so able as to put one’s self, through good conduct, under shelter from all blame.
“I remember that one day the king sent me to speak to Mlle. de Fontanges; she was in a fury against certain mortifications she had received; the king feared an explosion and sent me to calm her. I was there two hours and I employed the time in persuading her to quit the king and in trying to convince her it would be a fine and praiseworthy thing to do. I remember that she answered me excitedly, ‘Madame, you talk to me of quitting a passion as I would a chemise.’ But to return to myself, you must admit I had nothing to blush for, and no reason to fear it should be known what I had said to her.
“You cannot too strongly preach the same conduct to your young ladies; let them give nothing but good advice; teach them to act in the most secret and personal affairs as if a hundred thousand witnesses were about them, or would be later; for I say again, there is nothing that is not sooner or later known, and it is more Christian, more virtuous, safer, and more honourable to have been a noble personage only; and even if we remain forever ignorant of what has been the wisdom of our conduct, I think we ought to count for much the inward testimony of a good conscience.” Then rising, she said to the class, “Adieu, my children, I am obliged to return to Versailles; but I have given my sister de Saint-Périer a fine field on which, to instruct you.”
On contempt for insults and injuries.
1701.
On the last day of the year 1700, the community having said to Mme. de Maintenon that they hoped to bury with the past century all their old differences and be other than they had been in the coming one; and also that they begged her to pardon and forget the imperfections of the year 1700 and those which had preceded it, “The past year,” she replied, “has been fortunate enough; many things have been corrected and I now see in this establishment more of good than of evil. God grant that you advance as much the coming year; I hope it greatly, for He has given you good willingness; that is what he requires of us: ‘Peace on earth to men of good will,’ said the angels. When this good will is real and sincere it does not remain useless, it produces infallibly its fruit; in some sooner, in others later. We must await the times and moments of God, not by remaining idle, but by working with good will, without discouragement and without uneasiness, leaving to God the care of blessing our labour. It is certain that He desires our perfection more than we do ourselves. He could make us perfect in a single day and all at once; but that is not His ordinary conduct; He defers, He touches the heart of one at this time, another may be touched at a future time. We must adore His designs and work in peace and confidence.”
The Dames de Saint-Louis having complained in the same conversation that they were not persecuted as other institutions had been at their birth: “You will be,” said Mme. de Maintenon, “and you have been already, though the harm that is said of you may not come to your ears. I pay no regard to it, nor to that which is said of me myself. I receive letters every day not only in the style of the person whom my sister de Butéry knows of, but letters which ask if I am not tired of growing fat by sucking the blood of the poor; and what I, being so aged, expect to do with the gold I am amassing. I receive other letters that go farther still and say to me the most insulting things; some of them warn me I shall be assassinated. But all this does not trouble me; I do not think it needs much virtue to feel no resentment for that sort of opposition. I said rather an amusing thing on a first impulse the other day to a poor woman, who came to me while I was surrounded by a number of the Court, weeping and imploring that I would get justice for her. I asked what wrong had been done to her. ‘Insults,’ she said; ‘they insult me, and I want reparation.’ ‘Insults!’ I exclaimed, ‘why, that is what we live on here!’ That answer made the ladies who accompanied me laugh.” “I think, Madame,” said Mme. de Saint-Pars, “that, far from enriching yourself at the expense of the poor, you run into debt for the charities you do.” “As for debts,” she replied, “I have none; but it often happens that I have no money; and when I settle my accounts at the end of the year I do not see how my income has been able to furnish all I have spent and given away.”
On Civility.
1702.
Mme. de Maintenon having had the goodness to ask the young ladies on what topic they wished her to speak to them, Mlle. de Bouloc entreated her to instruct them on civility. She told them that civility consisted more in actions than in words and compliments; and there was but one rule to be given about it. “It is in the Gospel,” she said, “which adapts itself so well to the duties of civil life. You know that our Lord said that we must not do to others what we would not wish them to do to us. That is our great rule, which does not exclude the proprieties in usage in the different regions where we may be living. As for what regards society, I make civility to consist in forgetting one’s self and being occupied only with what concerns others; in paying attention to whatever may convenience or inconvenience them, so as to do the one and avoid the other; in never speaking of one’s self; in listening to others and not obliging them to listen to us; in not turning the conversation to one’s self or one’s own tastes, but letting it fall naturally on that of others; in moving away when two persons begin to speak to each other in a low voice; in returning thanks for the smallest service and therefore of course for great ones. You cannot do better, my children, than to practise all these good manners among yourselves, and so acquire such a habit of them that they will soon become natural to you. I assure you that these attentions, and continual regard paid to the claims of others are what make a person pleasing in society; and they cost nothing to those who are well brought up. You have, for the most part, that advantage; put it therefore to profit, and you will be compensated for the self-restraint you will have to exercise in the beginning by the esteem and friendship these deferential manners will procure you.”
On never neglecting to learn useful things.
1702.
Madame having come to class Green and asking news of a certain young lady, the mistress told her she had given up plain-chant. “Has she no voice?” said Madame, “well, we are alike in that. I never could sing an air, but I never hear one that I do not remember it, and after the second hearing I feel all the mistakes that are made in it. I do sing sometimes when I am alone, and it gives me great pleasure, but I do not think it would give as much to others if they heard me. What effect does plain-chant have on the classes?”
“They are delighted to learn it, and it will be very useful to them,” replied the mistress.
“Yes, undoubtedly,” said Madame; “even if they cannot sing, they will get a little knowledge of singing, which will always give them pleasure. We should never neglect to learn anything, no matter what. I never supposed that learning to comb hair would be useful to me. My mother, going to America, took several women with her, but they all married there,—even to one old woman, frightfully ugly, with club feet. My mother was left with none but little slaves, who were quite incapable of waiting upon her, and especially of doing her hair. She then taught me to do it, and as she had a very fine head of very long hair I was obliged to stand on a chair; but I combed it extremely well. From there I came to Court, and this little talent won me the favour of Mme. la Dauphine; she was quite astonished at the way I could handle a comb. I began by disentangling the ends of the hair and went on upwards. The dauphine said she was never so well combed as by me; I did it often, because her waiting-women never could do it as well; they, the women, would have been sorry—if for nothing else—not to have had me there every morning. I think you have to comb each other’s hair; and you ought not to make difficulties, or think it beneath you because you are young ladies. Many a day I have come here very early in the morning to comb the Reds and cut their hair and clean out the vermin. You are given the liberty to cut your hair; and cutting it makes it finer. I remember that my mother never saw me without putting her scissors to mine; and she succeeded in what she intended, for I have still a great deal of hair on my head.
“I repeat, my children, that you should never neglect to learn everything you can learn. Nothing so marks the intelligence of a person as liking to see and learn how a thing is done. I am charmed with Jeannette; it is surprising that a child of her age should apply herself as she does; the other day she spent half an hour watching to see how a lock was put on; she looked it over in every way and gave her whole attention to it. Mme. la Duchesse de Bourgogne knows how to do every kind of work; I am often astonished by it. I think she must have been brought up like our princes, and that some waiting-woman, to pay her court, taught her these things. She does not need to learn any of the handicrafts wherever she is, for she knows them all; you could teach her nothing. Also, would you believe it? she understands about fevers; she feels my pulse when she thinks I am ill, and what she says about me is sure to be the same that M. Fagon says afterwards. She knows how to spin wool, flax, silk, how to use a spinning-wheel, how to knit, and she has lately embroidered for herself a gown of yellow taffetas. I used to spin myself; to please my governess, I spun her a gown. M. de Louvois knew all sorts of trades; he had enormously thick fingers, almost as large as two of my thumbs, and yet he could take a watch to pieces with wonderful nicety, though there is nothing more delicate to handle. He could be shoemaker, mason, gardener, etc. One day when I was winding silk on two cards, or squares, of a pretty shape, while he worked with the king in my room, he was dying of curiosity to know how the pretty thing that I held was made. The king noticed this, and told me in a low voice. I showed it to him; he unwound the silk, examined the card, and put it together again most adroitly.
“There is nothing that we have not, sometime or other, a need to know. In the days when I brought up the princes [Louis XIV.’s children by Mme. de Montespan] it was necessary to keep them concealed; and for that purpose we were constantly changing our place of residence, and the tapestries had to be rehung each time. I used to mount the ladder myself, for I often had no one to help me and I dared not make the nurses do it; in that way I learned a trade I am sure I should never have learned otherwise.”
“It was because you had great energy,” said a mistress.
“It is true,” replied Madame, “that I did have energy in my youth.”
“That is just what is wanting to our young ladies,” said the mistress; “they are so tired with the least exertion that they can hardly walk round the garden without fatigue.”
“They ought not to sit still a moment,” said Madame; “it is good to run, jump, dance, and play at base, skittles, and other games; it makes them grow. Perhaps that is the reason they are so short. It is amazing that at their age they do not like to be active, and that they want to be always sitting down or leaning upon something. Mme. de Richelieu at seventy years of age had never leaned back in her coach, and I myself, old and ill as I am, I am always as erect as you see me. I am glad when I see you sweeping and rubbing the floors of the church, because it is good for your health; if I could, I would make you run about all the time; but you cannot be educated while running. I do not understand why you should object to sweeping; it makes you strong. You ought not to object to help a servant; I have never seen pride on that point among the nobility, except at Saint-Cyr. I can understand perfectly well that beggars reclothed [gueux revêtus, the term in those days for parvenus] should not venture to touch the ground with the tips of their fingers; but nobles do not think such things beneath them.”
“I think,” said a mistress, “that you had the goodness to tell us once that you taught your nurse to read.”
“Yes,” replied Madame, “and sometimes she said she would not learn. I used to follow that woman about, and often I spent whole days sifting flour through a hopper; she would set me up upon a chair to do it more conveniently. It is very fatiguing work; I only did it to oblige my nurse. Since then God has raised me to great fortune and given me great wealth; but I have never loved money except to share it. I do not put my happiness into having fine petticoats, as you may see by the gowns I wear, but I put it into giving pleasure to others. You know that one of the maxims I have taught you is: The greatest of all pleasures is to be able to give pleasure.”
Then she asked Mlle. de Brunet which was easier, to exact things from one’s self, or from others. Mlle. de Brunet answered, “From ourselves.” Several other young ladies were questioned and thought the same. “You are right,” said Mme. de Maintenon. “I cannot understand how any one can think otherwise, because it seems to me more just and appropriate that we should inconvenience ourselves rather than inconvenience others; we ought always to be occupied in avoiding whatever may give pain to other people. Mme. la Duchesse de Bourgogne undertook a piece of work, to execute which she sent for a woman who embroiders, and this woman spent the whole of yesterday with her without her ever thinking of giving her anything to eat. I asked the woman in the evening if she had eaten; she said no, and I made her dine and sup both. The king, who is wonderfully attentive, reproved Mme. la Duchesse de Bourgogne severely; she tried to laugh it off, but he told her that he could not laugh at such a matter. I am convinced that that poor woman was not much pleased to find that while she worked hard, those she worked for let her go hungry. If such a mark of inattention, which might be very pardonable in a young princess of sixteen, was rebuked by the king with such seriousness, how much more should girls like you who will have to spend all your lives in attentions to others need reproof if you neglect them.
“The king always astonishes me when he speaks of his own education. His governesses amused themselves, he says, all day, and left him in the hands of the maids without taking any care of him—you know that he began to reign when he was three and a half years old. He ate whatever he could lay hands on, without any attention being paid to the injury this was to his health; it was this that accustomed him to so much carelessness about himself. If they fricasseed an omelet he snatched bits of it, which Monsieur and he went off into a corner to eat. He relates sometimes that he spent his time mostly with a peasant girl, the child of a waiting-maid of the queen’s waiting-maid. He called her Queen Marie, because they played at the game, ‘à la madame,’ she taking the part of queen, and he serving her as page or footman, carrying her train, wheeling her in a chair, or marching with a torch in front of her. You can imagine whether little Queen Marie gave him good advice, and whether she was useful to him in any way.”
On never omitting either labour or pains.
July, 1703.
I am very much pleased, my dear children [of class Yellow], to find in you as much docility and the same simplicity that there is in the younger classes; and for this I give you great praise. I wish to talk with you now on the precautions which you take to avoid too much labour and trouble. It seems that some of you think you can exempt yourselves from the common lot and avoid suffering the slightest discomfort; but you will find that what you have to suffer now is nothing at all in comparison with what you will meet with in the world. There is no one who does not suffer. I have long had the honour of seeing the king very closely; if any one could shake off the yoke and have no cares or troubles it would surely be he; and yet he has them continually. Sometimes he spends the whole day in his cabinet going over his accounts; I often see him cracking his brains over them, beginning them over and over again, and not leaving them till he has finished them all; and this duty he never devolves upon a minister. He relies on no one but himself for the regulation of his armies; he possesses a knowledge of the number of his troops and regiments in detail, like that which I possess of the divisions in your classes. He holds several councils a day, where business that is often vexatious and always wearisome is transacted; such as that of war, pestilence, famine, and other afflictions. He has now the government of two great kingdoms; for nothing is done in Spain except by his order. The King of Spain has no money, because of the laziness of his subjects; their land is much more extensive than that of France, but it brings in nothing because it is not cultivated. All this is an additional care to our king; he can scarcely take any pleasure; business absorbs all his time. And yet if there is a condition which might be supposed exempt from toil and fatigue, it is that of royalty. The ministers, whose places are so coveted and envied (though without reason), well deserve the profits of their offices from the pains and fatigues they have to endure in them. M. de Chamillart is working perpetually; there is no longer even a question of relaxation for him, still less of pleasure; he cannot see his family, whom he loves passionately, because he has not a moment to give it, being from morning till night engaged in disagreeable affairs and trying, for example, to make out whether Peter or John is in the right. People fear he will fall ill, and he is very much changed; he sent for his daughter, to marry her, but he cannot even see her. Yet that is a man whom everybody thinks fortunate.
On marriage.
1705.
Mme. de Maintenon, having married Mlle. de Normanville (who had stayed with her some years after leaving Saint-Cyr) to M. le Président Brunet de Chailly, did her the honour to be present at the wedding. The next day she mentioned to the Dames de Saint Louis that M. l’Abbé Brunet had made an excellent exhortation in marrying them, in which he rebuked the over-delicate modesty of those who blamed priests for opening their lips in church about a sacrament there administered, which Jesus Christ has instituted, which Saint Paul declares to be great and honourable; while at the same time their ears are not too scrupulous to listen outside of the church to love-songs, and speeches of questionable meaning. “This false delicacy is one of the blunders,” she said, “that I do not wish to see you fall into, my dear daughters. Nearly all nuns dare not utter the word ‘marriage’; Saint Paul had no such scruple, and speaks of it very openly. I have noticed this weakness in you, and I should like to destroy it once for all.”
“It is true,” said Mme. de Jas, “that we usually pass over that article in the Catechism; we consulted the Superior to know if we should use it; we did not even mention it in the choir until you told us we ought to speak of it as of all other matters in the Catechism, when occasion offered.”
“Do you not see, my dear daughters,” resumed Mme. de Maintenon, “that it is a notion quite unsustainable in a house like this that you cannot venture to speak of a state which many of your young ladies must enter, which is approved by the Church, which Jesus Christ himself honoured by his presence? How will you make them capable of properly fulfilling the duties of the several states to which God calls them if you never speak of them; and (what is worse) if you let them see the difficulty which you feel in speaking of such things? There is certainly less modesty and propriety in such feelings than in speaking seriously and in a Christian manner of a holy state which has great obligations to meet. Fear only that the omissions your pupils make through ignorance of the duties of that state may fall on you who have failed to instruct them in it.”
“Have the kindness, Madame,” said Mme. de Jas, “to tell us a little in detail what it is proper for us to say to them on that subject.”
“You cannot preach to them too much,” replied Mme. de Maintenon, “about the edification that each will owe to her husband; also the support, the attachment to his person and all his interests, the service and cares that depend upon her; above all, the sincere and discreet zeal for his salvation, of which so many virtuous women have set an example, as well as of that of patience; also the care of the education of children which extends so far into the future; and that of servants and household; all of which are much more indispensable duties for mothers of families than prayers of supererogation, which many of them have been taught to make, to the injury of the more important duties of their condition. When you speak of marriage to your young ladies in this way, they will see that there is nothing in it to laugh about. Nothing can be more serious than such an engagement. Establish it, therefore, as a system, to speak to them on this subject when it presents itself; and do not permit that, under a pretence of modesty and perfection, the name of marriage shall not be mentioned; that silly affectation, if I may venture to so express myself, will cast you down very low into the pettiness I have taken such pains to make you avoid.”
On the virtues called cardinal.
June, 1705.
Mme. de Maintenon, being in class Blue, talked to the young ladies of the cardinal virtues, but first she said that the word “cardinal” was taken from a Latin word signifying hinge, because, just as a door turns on its hinges, so the whole conduct of our lives should turn on the four virtues which include all others. She exhorted them to love them, and not think it was enough to know how to define them, but to practise them, in order all the sooner to gain merit.