Then came Madame de Maintenon who, with her discreet and temperate
nature, restored order, and was, for years, the living symbol of a
changed condition in the Court in which piety and religious observance
displaced licentious and voluptuous pleasure. And, along with this
"wisdom of a repentant age," as Saint-Amand observes, "this reaction of
austerity against pleasure, there was still the contrast of youth." It
was the Duchess of Burgundy who was the living embodiment of this
protest of joy against sadness, of springtime against cold winter, of
licentiousness against the exacting restrictions of etiquette. Affairs
in the Court had reached a turning point, and it was the logical mind
of Madame de Maintenon that saw it. When Madame de Montespan was in
the ascendancy, the Court had reached a condition of voluptuous
indulgence that could not continue long. The Princess Palatine, wife
of the brother of Louis XIV, wrote: "I hear and see every day so many
villainous things that it disgusts me with life. You have good reason
to say that the good Queen is now happier than we are, and if any one
would do me, as to her and her mother, the service of sending me in
twenty-four hours from this world to the other, I would certainly bear
him no ill will."
However we may question the soul sincerity of Madame de Maintenon, to
her at least we must give credit for checking the corrupt tendencies of
the Court and, with correcting finger, pointing the way toward better
things.
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