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Updated: June 7, 2025
Woe to the nation whose king is thrall to women. The manner in which this momentous step was taken is characteristic of Louis. Two councils were held in Madame de Maintenon's room at Versailles; her advice was asked by the king, and apparently turned the scale in favour of acceptance.
At Marly and Versailles she was obliged to go to chapel on foot and without her stays, and seat herself near the femmes de chambre. At Madame de Maintenon's there was no observance of ranks; every one sat down there promiscuously; she did this for the purpose of avoiding all discussion respecting her own rank.
On Friday after the mass the King was with his confessor, and the length of their audiences was limited by nothing, and might last until dinner. At Fontainebleau on the mornings when there was no council, the King usually passed from mass to Madame de Maintenon's, and so at Trianon and Marly. It was the time for their tete-a-tete without interruption.
Some days afterwards Louvois, who had the fault of obstinacy, came as usual to work with the King in Madame de Maintenon's rooms.
Despite her affection for M. le Dauphin, she herself admitted that if Monseigneur had the airs of a gentleman, M. le Duc du Maine looked the very type of a king's son. The Duc du Maine, Madame de Maintenon's special pupil, was so well trained to all the exigencies of his position and his rank, that such premature perfection caused him to pass for a prodigy.
A person who had been for many years in immediate attendance upon the King, who had been engaged with him every evening at Maintenon's, and who must consequently have heard everything that was said, is one of my very good friends, and he has told me that although while the old lady was living he dare not say a word, yet, she being dead, he was at liberty to tell me that the King had always professed a real friendship for me.
He changed his dress again, and rested in his cabinet an hour or more, then went to Madame de Maintenon's, and on the way any one who wished might speak to him. At ten o'clock his supper was served. The captain of the guard announced this to him. A quarter of an hour after the King came to supper, and from the antechamber of Madame de Maintenon to the table again, any one spoke to him who wished.
She flattered the old people. She went on foot every day to sit for a couple of hours with Mme. du Bruel the elder while that lady was ill a Maintenon's stratagem which amazed du Bruel. And he admired his wife without criticism; he was so fast in the toils already that he did not feel his bonds.
"Than Mme. de Maintenon, no one ever better knew the evils of the world without having fallen prey to them," says Sainte-Beuve; "and no one ever satisfied and disgusted the world more, while charming it at the same time." Mme. de Maintenon's ideal methods of education were not immediately effective; there were many periods of hardship, apprehension, and doubt.
Chamillart, a pitiful creature of Madame de Maintenon's, sat in Colbert's place; gone were Turenne and Condé and Luxembourg; the armies of the descendant of St. Louis were led by the Duke of Vendôme, a foul lecher, whose inhuman vices went far to justify the gibe of Mephistopheles that men use their reason "um thierischer als jedes Thier zu sein."
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