scobar." Bossuet and Bourdaloue were equal oracles with Moliere and
Racine. Great preachers were all the fashion. The court became very
decorous, if it was hypocritical. The King interested himself in
theological discussions, and became as austere as formerly he was gay
and merry. He regretted his wars and his palace-building; for both were
discouraged by Madame de Maintenon, who perceived that they impoverished
the nation. She undertook the mighty task of reforming the court itself,
as well as the morals of the King; and she partially succeeded. The
proud Nebuchadnezzar whom she served was at last made to confess that
there was a God to whom he was personally responsible; and he was
encouraged to bear with dignity those sad reverses which humiliated his
pride, and drank without complaint the dregs of that bitter cup which
retributive justice held out in mercy before he died. It was his wife
who revealed the deceitfulness, the hypocrisy, the treachery, and the
heartlessness of that generation of vipers which he had trusted and
enriched. She was more than the guardian of his interests; she was his
faithful friend, who dissuaded him from follies. So that outwardly Louis
XIV. became a religious man, and could perhaps have preached a sermon on
the vanity of a worldly life,--that whatever is born in vanity must end
in vanity.

It is greatly to the credit of Madame de Maintenon that she was
interested in whatever tended to improve the morals of the people or to
develop the intellect. She was one of those strong-minded women who are
impressible by grand sentiments. She would have admired Madame de Stael
or Madame Roland,--not their opinions, but their characters. Politics
was perhaps the most interesting subject to her, as it has ever been to
very cultivated women in France; and it was with the details of cabinets
and military enterprises that she was most familiar. It was this
political knowledge which made her so wise a counsellor and so necessary
a companion to the King. But her reign was nevertheless a usurpation.
She triumphed in consequence of the weakness of her husband more than by
her own strength; and the nation never forgave her. She outraged the
honor of the King, and detracted from the dignity of the royal station.
Louis XIV. certainly had the moral right to marry her, as a nobleman may
espouse a servant-girl; but it was a _faux-pas_ which the proud
idolaters of rank could not excuse.

And for this usurpation Mad