The Sun King (21 page)

The Saint-Cyr production of
Esther
in 1689 was a smashing success. Mme de Maintenon had always intended that it should be played to a small, intimate audience but the King, who went to the dress rehearsal with the Dauphin, thought the play so good that he wanted all the world to see it. He drew up a list of those to be invited; and came back early from hunting for the first night, which he attended with courtiers, ministers and members of the Paris Parlement. He stood with his stick across the door of the room which had been transformed into a theatre,
only lowering it for those who had really been asked. After that, everybody who was anybody had to see
Esther
. On the second night the Dauphin went with various members of the royal family and his own friends; the third was for Père de La Chaise and the clergy; but the last night was the most brilliant when the King came again with his cousins, the exiled King James of England and Queen Mary, who had just arrived in France. Three crowned heads! Mme de Sévigné went down from Paris with other friends of Mme de Maintenon's. Places had been kept for them just behind the duchesses. Mme de Sévigné thought the play sublime and touching. The King, who had an air of being the host which gave him an amiable sweetness, actually spoke to her:

‘Madame, it seems you are satisfied.'

‘Sire, I am charmed.'

‘Racine is a man of parts.'

‘Sire, indeed he is, but in truth the young ladies must take some credit.'

‘Ah! That is a fact!'

Then he went off, having made her an object of envy. After that she talked for a second with Mme de Maintenon, off like lightning after the King, and had a word with Bossuet. At a supper party in Paris later that evening she recounted her ‘little prosperities' to her friends.

Racine was covered with glory, and had to go and pray in the chapel that God would take away his pride. But of course, the French being what they are there was a good deal of irreverent joking about
Esther
. M. de Breteuil, the father of Voltaire's Mme du Châtelet, wrote satirical verses pointing out, what everybody had noticed, the identities of ‘Assuerus' and the others. Mme de Lafayette thought the play lamentable, only written to flatter Mme de Maintenon and crush Athénaïs. Furthermore she thought it was folly to keep all these pretty girls within a stone's throw of the Versailles gallants. Public opinion, on the whole, was shocked by the idea of innocent and well-born young women on the stage. Hérbert, the curé of Versailles, refused to attend the play, but Bossuet, Fénelon and the Jesuits were in favour of it. The Dutch gossip writers said that old Esther was establishing a seraglio at Saint-Cyr for Ahasuerus.

When the King got back to Versailles a particularly poignant piece of bad news awaited him. The Queen of Spain, charming, pretty daughter of Monsieur and the first Madame, had died after vomiting incessantly for two days. She was almost certainly poisoned, probably by the Comtesse de Soissons, in the interest of the Austrians, who wanted to remove a French influence at Madrid. The little Queen had longed very much to marry the Dauphin. When the King told her she was to be Queen of Spain he had added ‘I couldn't do more for my own daughter'. ‘But you could have done more for your niece', she remarked sadly. In 1679 she had left France in floods of tears and had thereafter never known a happy moment. Her letters worried everybody, but there was
nothing to be done. She was trapped in the ghastly etiquette of the Spanish court, not even allowed to speak to her old French groom, lonely and always frightened. She had duly informed the King of the one state secret entrusted to her, namely that King Charles II of Spain was impotent. All the same she had brought a ray of happiness into the life of that pathetic man. The Court went into deep mourning and there were no more performances of
Esther
.

The success of
Esther
had finished turning the heads of Mme de Maintenon's charges at Saint-Cyr. At the very first contact with the great world they had ceased to be simple little girls, and had become affected, ambitious women, all too reminiscent of everything she hated at Versailles. She blamed herself for her original conception of the place and decided she must begin again from the beginning, on an entirely new basis. Having envisaged Saint-Cyr as a sort of finishing school, where she would equip ardent young creatures to carry French civilization to the four corners of the provinces, the moment she came up against difficulties which were largely of her own making, she went into reverse. She began by forbidding literature lessons; there were to be no more poetry readings, dangerous for young women, and above all no more interesting conversation or the girls would be bored to death when they got back to their dull homes. Rather, let them love silence, suitable to the sex. Then she decided that it would be better not to educate them at all; women are too superficial; they never learn anything properly, and a little useless knowledge is apt to make them neglect their duties. So their books were taken away and intellectual studies replaced by household work. She told them that they had become absurdly coquettish and clean; a little dirt never did any harm. Of course they were all furious and miserable at this new state of affairs, so much so that two of the girls tried to poison a Dame who had thrown away make-up which she found on their dressing-table. They were caught, given a punishment which made the others tremble (we don't know what it was) and expelled.

The King took the girls' side as much as he could. He was so sorry for them that he sent his band to play in their courtyard, hoping to cheer them up. When the curriculum was changed he insisted that they should go on with their music; and he literally forced Mme de Maintenon, against her will, to allow them to give a performance of
Athalie
, with which Racine had followed up the success of his
Esther
. They did so, but it was not very amusing for them (if such a word could be used in the same breath as the horrifying
Athalie
) since they were allowed no costumes, no scenery and no audience, except the two old Kings, Louis and James.

All this was only the beginning — much worse things were in store. Mme de Maintenon talked a great deal to Fénelon about her problems, and he now set down some reflections for the young ladies. No other joys than our hopes of Eternal Bliss; no assemblies except to hear words of the Faith; no feast but that of the Lamb; no pleasure except the singing of psalms. Fénelon had taken Mme de Brinon's place as Mme de Maintenon's bosom friend, perfection in her eyes. It was a bad choice; Fénelon was not the man for her. In spite of a worldly appearance (his great charm, good looks and gentle manners making him seem almost like an
Abbé de Cour
) he never deviated from the teaching of Christ, so of course he was soon at odds with the temporal power, in other words the King, and finally, up to a point, with the Pope himself. But before the King grasped the intransigence of his nature, he had allowed himself to be persuaded by Mme de Maintenon to appoint the Abbé tutor of the precious grandsons, the Duc de Bourgogne and his brothers.

Mme de Maintenon was looking for a spiritual director. Fénelon would have liked the post; and she longed to have him but gave striking proof of how little she understood human beings (and nobody has ever understood them less than she) by deciding that he would line the path to heaven with too many flowers. She made overtures to Bourdaloue, but he was beginning to practise what he preached and to devote himself to poor people and those in prison. He had no time for Mme de Maintenon. Meanwhile Fénelon wrote her a letter, summing up her character. He said she was dry, cold and often tactless; she liked people too much at first, and when they turned out to be less than perfect she was cruel to them. Greater submission to God was needed, to make her more understanding of others. She was too proud and egotistic, though naturally good and confiding. As for the King, she must touch, instruct and open his heart but it was useless to tire him by returning to the charge and always bringing up the big guns. She should make him long for peace and to relieve his people, and also give him a horror of despotic actions, but above all she must choose the best moment to implant these truths.

Then Fénelon wrote a similar letter to the King, full of disagreeable observations — we are told every day that you are the delight of your people but an unjust war ruins the nation; you reward those who deserve to be punished; glory, which hardens your heart, is dearer to you than justice; you neither know nor love God — whereupon Mme de Maintenon, in her turn, accused him of tactlessness and not choosing the best moment to implant home truths, which only irritated and discouraged the King. These two letters were the beginning of the end of Fénelon's career as a courtier.

Mme de Maintenon finally chose Godet des Marais, Bishop of Chartres, to be her confessor. He was a strait-laced man, more like a monk than a Prince of the Church. He took over the lady and her school which, in double quick time, he turned into a convent. Six priests of the
order of St Vincent de Paul, noted for their humility and obscurity, were installed at Saint-Cyr as regular confessors. Then the Bishop of Chartres sent for the Dames whom he interviewed in private, one by one. He told them they were at liberty to leave Saint-Cyr, either to go back to the world or to join other convents, but if they stayed there they must become nuns. There is a French proverb: ‘Where the goat is tied up, there she must browse'; this was their situation. Most of them had been at the school, either at Rueil or at Saint-Cyr for years. Their homes were like a faraway dream and in many cases held no place for them any more. It would be pointless to go to an unknown convent. Only one of them left, to be married; the others, with great repugnance, decided to obey the Bishop. He made them sign a document accepting his direction and, begging them to tranquillize their souls, he took his leave.

The new nuns of the Community of St Augustine could hardly grasp the full horror of what had befallen them. They found themselves belonging to a particularly severe order; they were never again to leave Saint-Cyr, even in mortal illness (a little hut was built in the garden for smallpox patients, where twelve girls and Dames once died in a single week); they must never receive letters or visits, except from members of the royal family. Having taken the vow of poverty, they must live in miserable discomfort, with no warmth in winter, nightly vigils and not one moment, ever, to themselves. When food ran short, the children must have what there was; it did nobody any harm to fast, they were told, and they could live on vegetables, of which a delicious list was appended to the rules. The King greatly regretted this new state of affairs but was talked into accepting it by Mme de Maintenon and Bossuet. The Pope now, in 1692, gave Mme de Maintenon a signal honour, the right of visitation in all French convents.

Everything at Saint-Cyr appeared to be in order, but another storm was brewing. By far the most attractive of the Dames was Elise de La Maisonfort, described by Mme de Maintenon as devout, absent-minded, adorably giddy and brilliantly intelligent. She had brought a little sister to be a pupil; Mme de Maintenon talked to Elise, thought her charming and made her stay herself, as a Dame. She had come to Paris from her native Berry, hoping to obtain the post of lady-in-waiting to one of the princesses. Soon she was Mme de Maintenon's particular
protégée
; the King, too, had a great fancy for her, sought her company, and gave her a small estate and an income for life. Most of the girls were in love with her. ‘It is my destiny to be loved', she used to say. But she had no religious vocation and had taken simple vows with the greatest reluctance. She suffered from doubts, which she could only overcome in moments of religious ecstasy; worse still, she loved (or thought she loved, for she had never sampled it) the World. She had a horror of being bored. She was the recipient of Mme de Maintenon's famous letter:

Mme de La Maisonfort was not convinced. At the age of twenty-three she no doubt thought it would be quite all right to be at rest with God when she was an old lady like Mme de Maintenon, meanwhile she had a passionate desires for the pleasures of this life. Mme de Maintenon, the Bishop of Chartres and Fénelon had the greatest trouble in persuading her to take perpetual vows. Finally they almost dragged her to the altar (1692). Mme de Maintenon was delighted with this outcome because she planned eventually to make Mme de La Maisonfort the superior of Saint-Cyr; she told her how lucky she was to belong only to herself and thus to be able to offer herself up as a sacrifice. Fénelon preached a moving sermon on the joys of monasticism. But the new nun seemed more dead than alive.

Now Mme de La Maisonfort had a cousin called Mme Guyon (who was also, oddly enough, related to Fénelon and the d'Arnaulds of Port-Royal). This widow was entirely given over to piety and when she heard of Mme de La Maisonfort's doubts she went to Saint-Cyr to try and help her resolve them. Mme de La Maisonfort, with her craving for religious stimulus, fell an easy victim to Quietism, the brand of poetic mysticism which Mme Guyon preached. The pure love of God, according to her, should be influenced neither by fear of hell nor by hope of heaven: deeds were nothing; love alone ought to count. Mary was a hundred times better than Martha.