Latest / Women of Versailles: The Court of Louis XIV / Ch. 13: Madame de Maintenon's Letters

Transcript

Ch. 13: Madame de Maintenon's Letters · Women of Versailles: The Court of Louis XIV

• 0:00
  Section eighteen of Women of Versailles. The Court of Louis the fourteenth by Artour
• 0:05
  Leon Ambert de Saint Aman, translated by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin. This librovox recording
• 0:13
  is in the public domain. Read by Pamela and Agami, Chapter thirteen,
• 0:19
  Madame de Mantinan's Letters. Madame de Mantinan is one of those characters who requires
• 0:27
  to be patiently and conscientiously studied by an observer who wishes to render an impartial
• 0:33
  judgment. At first, Louis the fourteenth did not like the woman destined to
• 0:39
  become the most serious and lasting affection of his life. The King did not
• 0:45
  like me, she writes herself, and long held me in aversion. He
• 0:50
  was afraid of me as a wit. How was it that Louis the fourteenth
• 0:56
  passed from repugnance to sympathy, from distrust to confidence, from prejudice to admiration.
• 1:03
  It was by getting a nearer view of moral qualities, which at first
• 1:07
  he saw only from a distance. The same thing has happened to a majority
• 1:12
  of the critics, who, having to speak of Madame de Mantineau, have
• 1:18
  not been contented with superficial views, but have carefully analyzed the life and character
• 1:23
  of this celebrated woman. What has occurred to one of her principal defenders.
• 1:30
  Monsieur Teo Fhio Lavalais, affords a proof of the foregoing observation. When he
• 1:36
  brought out his east Ward de Francis, this writer judged Madame de Mantineaon very
• 1:42
  severely. He accused her of the most complete aridity of heart, of a
• 1:49
  spirit of narrow devotion and mean intrigue. He reproached her for having suggested fatal
• 1:56
  enterprises and wretched appointments to Louis the fourteenth. She belittled him, He says,
• 2:02
  she forced mediocre and servile people on him. She had, in fact
• 2:07
  the greatest share in the errors and disasters of the end of the reign.
• 2:14
  Some years later, Monsieur la Valais wrote his fine Eastward delin Maison Royal de
• 2:19
  Saint Cyr. In this work he says, Madame de Maintenon gave Louis the
• 2:24
  fourteenth none but salutary and disinterested councils, useful to the state and to the
• 2:31
  alleviation of the people. What had happened between the publication of these two books,
• 2:39
  the author had studied devoting a patient research to a work of prevailing interest.
• 2:46
  He had succeeded in collecting the letters and writings of Madame de Mantinon,
• 2:52
  thanks to communication with the dukes of Noai Mouchi Camvasis from Messieurs Furie de Comte
• 3:00
  Montmercuie de Chevree Hoere Boname, he had been able to increase the treasures of
• 3:06
  the archives of Saint Cyr. Madame de Mantineau is one of the historical personages
• 3:12
  who have written most her letters. If she had not destroyed, a great
• 3:16
  number of them would almost form a library. The Archives of Saint Cyr alone
• 3:22
  contain forty volumes of them, and yet the most curious of the letters have
• 3:27
  doubtless not been preserved. Always prudent, Madame de Mantonaud burned her correspondence with
• 3:35
  Louis the fourteenth, her husband, with Madame de Montchevrey, her most intimate
• 3:39
  friend, with the Bishop of chart her director. The letters of her youth
• 3:46
  are rare, nobody yet divined the future which Providence was reserving for her.
• 3:53
  Monsieur Lavalaier's collection, necessarily incomplete, is nevertheless an historical monument of very great
• 4:00
  value. Two volumes of letters and familiar discourses on the education of girls,
• 4:05
  two others of historical and edifying letters addressed to the Ladies of Saint Cyr,
• 4:12
  four volumes of general correspondents, one of conversations and maxims, another of miscellaneous
• 4:18
  writings, and a final one which includes the souvenir Madame de Caelouse. The
• 4:25
  memoirs of the Ladies of Saint Cyr and those of Mademoiselle d'mals form the ensemble
• 4:31
  of a publication that has fully illustrated a figure eminently curious to study. The
• 4:39
  collection of La Beaumele Voltaire's Enemy contains, along with many authentic letters, a
• 4:46
  great quantity of apocryphal ones. There are changes, interpolations, editions, and
• 4:53
  suppressions. Fabricated bits have been inserted, containing clap trap phrases, piquant reform,
• 5:00
  elections, maxims in the style of the eighteenth century. Monsieur Lavalai has
• 5:04
  found the means whereby to distinguish the wheat from the tares. Passing Labomel's collection
• 5:12
  through the sieve of a sagacious criticism, he has succeeded in verifying the text
• 5:16
  of the true letters and proving the apocryphal character of those which are false.
• 5:23
  Like the connoisseurs in autographs, he suspected the striking letters. Falsifiers are almost
• 5:30
  always imprudent. They force the note, and when they set about inventing a
• 5:34
  document, they want their invention to produce a profound impression. The correspondence of
• 5:42
  celebrated persons is generally much more simple far less studied than the pretended autographs attributed
• 5:48
  to them. One needs to be always on his guard against letters containing either
• 5:54
  finished portraits, profound judgments, or historical predictions. They are often signs of
• 6:01
  falsification, and the more striking they seem, the more carefully should their origin
• 6:08
  be examined. This is one of the rules whose strict application would prevent many
• 6:13
  mistakes. The majority of historical documents resembles certain inheritances. They should not be
• 6:21
  accepted unless on condition of not becoming liable to debts in excess of the assets.
• 6:30
  Madame de Maintenon's letters deserve the trouble that has been taken to establish their
• 6:34
  dates and authenticity with exactness. Baron Wolkenayer, the biographer of Madame de Sevignier,
• 6:43
  assigns to them the highest rank without hesitation Madame de Mantinean, he says,
• 6:48
  is a more finished model of a pistolary style than Madame de Savigner.
• 6:54
  The latter seldom writes, except when she feels the need of conversing with her
• 6:58
  daughter or other person whom she loves, in order to say everything, to
• 7:02
  tell the whole story. Madame de Mantineau, on the contrary, has always
• 7:08
  a distinct end in view in writing. The cleverness, proportion, elegance,
• 7:14
  and justice of her thoughts, the subtlety of her reflections enable her to attain
• 7:19
  pleasantly the goal she aims at. Her progress is straight and unfaltering. She
• 7:27
  follows the road without striking against the bushes, without deviating to right or left.
• 7:33
  Such was also the opinion of the First Napoleon. He greatly preferred the
• 7:39
  letters of Madame de Mantineau to those of Madame de Savignier, which were,
• 7:43
  according to him, snow eggs with which one could surfeit himself without overloading his
• 7:48
  stomach. In citing Napoleon's preference, Monsieur Desaree Nissar accepts it with some reservations.
• 7:58
  When Madame de Mantineau's left utters are full of matter, says the eminent
• 8:01
  critic one shares the opinion of the great Emperor. They possess to the highest
• 8:07
  degree a certain nameless quality of discretion, simplicity, efficacy. They do not
• 8:15
  dazzle by means of feminine versatility, and the naturalness of them pleases all the
• 8:20
  more because it proceeds rather from the reason which disdains mere prettiness, without desiring
• 8:26
  to dispense with real graces, than from the wit which plays with nothings.
• 8:33
  But when matter is lacking, these letters are short, dry, constrained.
• 8:39
  If Madame de Mantineau had had literary preoccupations, if she had imagined that she
• 8:46
  was writing for posterity, she would have produced letters still more remarkable. There
• 8:52
  is neither studied refinement nor pretension in her correspondence. She writes to edify,
• 8:58
  to invert, and to console, far more than to please. Her notes
• 9:03
  to the ladies and young girls of Saint Cyr do not outstep this pious limit.
• 9:09
  Often Madame de Mantinon does not take the pen herself, but while spinning
• 9:13
  or knitting she dictates to the young girls who act as her secretaries. To
• 9:18
  Mademoiselle de Lubert, Mademoiselle de Saint etienne, Mademoiselle dosment or Mademoiselle do MARDs.
• 9:26
  But in the least of these innumerable notes are always found those qualities of
• 9:31
  style, sobriety, proportion, conciseness, perfect harmony between the thought and its
• 9:39
  expression, which have been admired by the best judges. The two women of
• 9:45
  the seventeenth century whose letters are most celebrated, Madame de Savignier and Madame de
• 9:50
  Mantineau, felt for each other both sympathy and esteem. We take supper every
• 9:56
  evening with Madame Scarrot, wrote Madame de Sevignier in sixteen seventy two. Her
• 10:03
  disposition is amiable and marvelously upright. One can fancy what conversation might be between
• 10:11
  these choice women, both so superior, so well instructed, so witty,
• 10:18
  complimenting each other by their very diversities. Madame de Savignier a strong and richly
• 10:26
  endowed nature, a young and beautiful widow, virtuous but with a free and
• 10:31
  dauntless humor, A dazzling celemene sister Ti Moliere, as sent Beauve calls her,
• 10:39
  a woman whose character's speech in writing are alike. Intense justifies what was
• 10:45
  said to her by her friend Madame de Lafayette, You seem born for pleasures,
• 10:50
  and they seem to have been made for you. Your presence, augments,
• 10:56
  entertainments and entertainments augment your beauty when your surroundings. In a word,
• 11:03
  joy is the true condition of your soul, and chagrin is more contrary to
• 11:07
  you than to anyone else. Her image, sparkling like her wit, appears
• 11:13
  to us in the midst of those fetes which her pen brings to life again,
• 11:18
  like the wand of a magician. What shall I tell you? Magnificences,
• 11:24
  illuminations all France, worn out coats and gold brocade, ones, jewels,
• 11:31
  braziers of fire and of flowers, heaps of carriages, cries in the
• 11:37
  streets, lighted torches, carriages backing, and people run over in fine a
• 11:43
  whirl, dissipation, questions without answers, compliments without knowing what one says,
• 11:50
  civilities without knowing to whom one is speaking, feet tangled in trains. Madame
• 11:58
  de Savigner, whose letters passed from hand to hand in drawing rooms and chateau,
• 12:03
  wrote for the galleries somewhat. She says herself, My style is so
• 12:09
  negligent that it needs a naturally worldly mind to put up with it, but
• 12:13
  that does not prevent her from understanding the worth of it when she lets her
• 12:18
  pen trot with the bridle hanging loose, when she pleases herself by giving her
• 12:24
  daughter the top of all the panniers, that is to say, the freshness
• 12:30
  of her wit, her head, her eyes, her pen, her inkstand,
• 12:35
  and the rest goes as it can. She very well knows that society
• 12:39
  dotes on this style, in which all the graces and marvels of the great
• 12:43
  century are reflected as in a looking glass. Her letters are the model of
• 12:48
  conique. To employ an expression used in existing journalism in the nineteenth century as
• 12:56
  in the seventeenth, it is a woman who carries off the palm for this
• 13:01
  species of literature which demands so much wit. Madame Emil de Giardin has been
• 13:07
  the sauvignier of our epoch. Madame de Maintenon could not or would not aspire
• 13:13
  to this holy worldly glory. Far from aiming at effect, she voluntarily diminishes
• 13:20
  that which she produces, Like a true devitee who tones down the brilliancy of
• 13:26
  her glances. She moderates her style and tempers her wit. She sacrifices,
• 13:33
  brilliant qualities to solid ones, too much imagination, too much fervor, alarm.
• 13:39
  Her sassire must not resemble the Hotel d'albre or the Hotel d Richelieu.
• 13:48
  One must not speak to nuns as one would to bluestockings. Enjoyment, gallic
• 13:54
  animation, good tempered gaiety fall to the lot of Madame de Sevigni. What
• 14:01
  marks Madame de Mantinon is experience, reason, profundity. The one laughs from
• 14:07
  ear to ear, the other barely smiles. The one has illusions about everything,
• 14:15
  admirations which border on naivete ecstasies when in the presence of the royal sun.
• 14:22
  The other never allows herself to be fascinated either by the King or the
• 14:26
  court, by men, women or things. She has seen human grandeurs too
• 14:31
  close at hand not to understand their nothingness, and her conclusions bear the imprint
• 14:37
  of a profound sadness. Madame de Savignier also has attacks of melancholy at times,
• 14:45
  but the cloud passes quickly and she is again in broad sunshine. Gaiety,
• 14:52
  frank, communicative, radiant gaiety is the basis of the character of this
• 14:56
  woman. More witty deductive, amusing than any other. Madame de Savignier shines
• 15:05
  by imagination, Madame Dementinon by judgment. The one permits herself to be dazzled
• 15:13
  and ebriated. The other always preserves her indifference. The one exaggerates the splendors
• 15:20
  of the court, the others seize them as they are. The one is
• 15:24
  more of a woman, the other more of a saint. To those who
• 15:30
  still feel an antipathy to Madame de Maintenon, we venture to offer a word
• 15:33
  of counsel. It is to read before judging. The letters of this calumniated
• 15:41
  woman are an autobiography which shows us every fold of her heart, and are
• 15:46
  not less interesting from the psychological than from the historical point of view. More
• 15:52
  reflection than vivacity, more wisdom than passion, more gravity than charm, more
• 15:58
  authority than grace, more solidity than brilliancy. Such are the characteristics of a
• 16:06
  correspondence which might justify the expression The style is the woman. End of Section eighteen.