Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon

Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon (November 27, 1635 - April 15, 1719), the second wife of Louis XIV, was born in a prison at Niort.

Influence and legacy

Her political influence has probably been exaggerated, but it was supreme in matters of detail. The ministers of the day used to discuss and arrange all the business to be done with the king beforehand with her, and it was all done in her cabinet and in her presence, but the king in more important matters often chose not to consult her. Such mistakes as, for instance, the replacing of Catinat by Villeroi in 1701 may be attributed to her, but not whole policies - notably, according to Saint-Simon, not the policy with regard to the Spanish Succession. Even the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the dragonnades have been laid to her charge, but recent investigations have tended to show that in spite of ardent Catholicism, she at least opposed, if not very vigorously, the cruelties of the dragonnades, although she was pleased with the conversions they procured.

Related Topics:
Catinat - Villeroi - 1701 - Spanish Succession - Edict of Nantes - Dragonnades

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She was apparently afraid to imperil her great reputation for devotion, which had in 1692 obtained for her from Innocent XII the right of visitation over all the convents in France. Where she deserves blame is in her use of her power for personal patronage, as in compassing the promotions of Chamillart and Villeroi, and the frequent assistance given to her brother Comte Charles d'Aubigné. Her influence was on the whole a moderating and prudent force. Her social influence was not as great as it might have been, owing to her holding no recognized position at court, but she always exercised it on the side of decency and morality, and it must not be forgotten that from her former life she was intimate with the literary people of the day. Side by side with this public life, which wearied her with its shadowy power, occasionally crossed by a desire to be recognised as queen, she passed a nobler and sweeter private existence as the foundress of Saint Cyr. Mme de Maintenon was a born teacher; she had so won the hearts of her first pupils that they preferred her to their own mother, and was similarly successful later with the young and impetuous duchess of Burgundy, and she had always wished to establish a home for poor girls of good family placed in such straits as she herself had experienced. As soon as her fortunes began to mend she started a small home for poor girls at Rueil, which she afterwards moved to Noisy, and which formed the nucleus of the splendid institution of St. Cyr, which the king endowed in 1686, at her request, out of the funds of the Abbey of St. Denis. She was in her element there. She herself drew up the rules of the institution; she examined every minute detail; she befriended her pupils in every way; and her heart often turned from the weariness of Versailles or of Marly to her "little girls" at St. Cyr.

Related Topics:
1692 - Innocent XII - Chamillart - Charles d'Aubigné - Saint Cyr - Duchess of Burgundy - Rueil - Noisy - 1686 - Abbey of St. Denis - Versailles - Marly

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It was for them that Racine wrote his Esther and his Athalie, and it was because he managed the affairs of St. Cyr well that Chamillart became controller-general of the finances. The later years of her power were marked by the promotion of her old pupils, the children of the king and Mme de Montespan, to high dignity between the blood royal and the peers of the realm, and it was doubtless under the influence of her dislike for the duke of Orléans that the king drew up his will, leaving the personal care of his successor to the duke of Maine, and hampering the duke of Orléans by a council of regency. On or even before her husband's death in 1715 she retired to St Cyr, and had the chagrin of seeing all her plans for the advancement of the duke of Maine overthrown by means of the parliament of Paris. However, the regent Orléans in no way molested her, but, on the contrary, visited her at St. Cyr and continued her pension of 48,000 livres. She spent her last years at St. Cyr in perfect seclusion, but an object of great interest to all visitors to France, who, however, with the exception of Peter the Great, found it impossible to get an audience with her. On 15 April 1719 she died, and was buried in the choir at St. Cyr, bequeathing her estate at Maintenon to her niece, the only daughter of her brother Charles and wife of the maréchal de Noailles, to whose family it still belongs.

Related Topics:
Racine - Duke of Orléans - Duke of Maine - Regency - 1715 - Parliament of Paris - Peter the Great - 15 April - 1719 - Maréchal de Noailles

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La Beaumelle published the Lettres de Madame de Maintenon, but much garbled, in 2 vols. in 1752, and on a larger scale in 9 vols. in 1756. He also, in 1755, published Mémoires de Madame de Maintenon, in 6 vols., which caused him to be imprisoned in the Bastille. All earlier biographies were superseded by Théophile Lavallée's Histoire de St. Cyr, reviewed in Causeries du lundi, vol. viii., and by his edition of her Lettres historiques et édifiantes, etc., in 7 vols.

Related Topics:
La Beaumelle - 1752 - 1756 - 1755 - Bastille

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