long and searching intimacy, it is hard
to believe that he could have loved and honored her to his death if she
had not been worthy of his esteem. And when we remember that for nearly
forty years she escaped the scandals which made those times unique in
infamy, we are forced to concede that on the whole she must have been a
good woman. To retain such unbounded power for over thirty years is a
very remarkable thing to do.

Madame de Maintenon, however, though wise and virtuous, made many grave
mistakes, as she had many defects of character. Great as she was, she
has to answer for political crimes into which, from her narrow religious
prejudices, she led the King.

The most noticeable feature in the influence which Madame de Maintenon
exercised on the King was in inciting a spirit of religious intolerance.
And this appeared even long before Madame de Montespan had lost her
ascendency. For ten years before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
there had been continual persecution of the Protestants in France, on
the ground that they were heretics, though not rebels. And the same
persecuting spirit was displayed in reference to the Jansenists, who
were Catholics, and whose only sin was intellectual boldness. Anybody
who thought differently from the monarch incurred the royal displeasure.
Intellectual freedom and honesty were the real reasons of the disgrace
of Racine and Fenelon. For the King was a bigot in religion as well as a
despot on a throne. He fancied that he was very pious. He was regular in
all his religious duties. He was an earnest and conscientious adherent
to all the doctrines of the Catholic Church. In his judgment, a
departure from those doctrines should be severely punished. He was as
sincere as Torquemada, or Alva, or Saint Dominic. His wife encouraged
this bigotry, and even stimulated his resentments toward those who
differed from him.

At last, in 1685, the fatal blow was struck which decimated the
subjects of an irresponsible king. The glorious edict which Henry IV.
had granted, and which even Richelieu and Mazarin had respected, was
repealed. There was no political necessity for the crime. It sprang from
unalloyed religious intolerance; and it was as suicidal as it was
uncalled for and cruel. It was an immense political blunder, which no
enlightened monarch would ever have committed, and which none but a cold
and narrow woman would ever have encouraged. There was no excuse or
palliation for this ab