row in the scope of her affections, and
meanly intriguing. She suggested fatal enterprises and inappropriate
appointments; she forced mediocre and servile persons upon the king;
she had, in fine, the major share in the errors and disasters of the
reign of Louis XIV." A few years later he wrote, in his _Histoire de
la maison royale de Saint-Cyr_: "Mme. de Maintenon gave Louis XIV.
none but salutary and disinterested counsels which were useful to
the state and instrumental in making less heavy the burdens of the
people."

Opinion in general, especially French opinion, has been very bitter
toward her. History has even reproached her with having been a
usurper, a tyrant, and a selfish master. The great preacher, Fenelon,
wrote to her:

"They say you take too little part in affairs. Your mind is more
capable than you think. You are, perhaps, a little too distrustful
of yourself, or, rather, you are too much afraid to enter into
discussions contrary to the inclination you have for a tranquil and
meditative life."

Is this picture, left by Emile Chasles and accepted by M. Saint-Amand,
truthful? "This intelligent woman, far from being too much heeded,
was not enough so. There was in her a veritable love for the public
welfare, a true sorrow in the midst of our misfortunes. To-day, it is
necessary to retrench much from the grandeur of her worldly power and
add a great deal to that of her soul." M. Saint-Amand believes her
sincere when she wrote to Mme. des Ursins:

"In whatever way matters turn, I conjure you, madame, to regard me
as a person incapable of directing affairs, who heard them talked too
late to be skilful in them, and who hates them more than she ignores
them.... My interference in them is not desired and I do not desire
to interfere. They are not concealed from me, but I know nothing
consecutively and am often badly informed."

The opinions of her contemporaries are not always flattering, but
such are possibly due to envy and jealousy or to some purely personal
prejudice. Thus, when the Duchess of Orleans, the Princesse
Palatine, calls her "that nasty old thing, that wicked devil, that
shrivelled-up, filthy old Maintenon, that concubine of the king," and
casts upon her other gross aspersions that are unfit to be repeated,
one must remember that the calumniator was a German, the daughter of
the Elector Palatine Charles-Louis, a woman honest in her morals, but
shameless in her speech, who loved the beauties of