ng the highest goal open
to a woman. Marly, Versailles, Fontainebleau were only different names
for the same servitude. When she had attained her desire, she thought
her repose assured; instead, her ennui, her disgust of life and
the world, only increased; realizing this, she began to direct her
thoughts entirely toward God and her aspirations toward things not
of this earth--hence the almost complete absence of her influence in
politics.

She was never happy, and that her life was a disappointment to her may
be gathered from the following words from her pen: "Flee from men as
from your mortal enemies; never be alone with them. Take no pleasure
in hearing that you are pretty, amiable, that you have a fine voice.
The world is a malicious deceiver which never means what it says; and
the majority of men who say such things to young girls, do it hoping
to find some means of ruining them."

Her most intense desire seemed to be to please, and be esteemed--to
receive the _honneur du monde_, which appeared to be her sole motive
for living. When in power, she did not use her influence as the
intriguing women of the epoch would have done, because she did
not possess their qualities--taste, breadth of vision, and selfish
ambitions. Her objects in life were the reform of a wicked court,
the extirpation of heresy, the elevation of men of genius, and the
improvement of the society and religion of France. After the death of
the king (in 1715), she retired to Saint-Cyr, and spent the remainder
of her life in acts of charity and devotional exercises.

After the king's death she dismissed all her servants and disposed of
her carriages as well, "unable to reconcile herself to feeding horses
while so many young girls were in need," as she said. For almost four
years she peacefully and happily lived in a very modest apartment. She
seldom went out and then only to the village to visit the sick and the
poor. On June 10, 1717, when she was eighty-one years old, Peter the
Great went to Saint-Cyr for the purpose of seeing and talking to
the greatest woman of France. He found her confined to her bed; the
chamber being but dimly lighted, he thrust aside the curtain in order
to examine the features of the woman who had ruled the destinies of
France for so many years. The Czar talked to her for some time, and
when he asked Madame de Maintenon from what she was suffering, she
replied: "From great old age." She died on August 15, 1719, and was
bur