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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section eighteen of Women of Versailles. The Court of Louis
the fourteenth by Artour Leon Ambert de Saint Aman, translated
by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin. This librovox recording is in the
public domain. Read by Pamela and Agami, Chapter thirteen, Madame
de Mantinan's Letters. Madame de Mantinan is one of those
(00:26):
characters who requires to be patiently and conscientiously studied by
an observer who wishes to render an impartial judgment. At first,
Louis the fourteenth did not like the woman destined to
become the most serious and lasting affection of his life.
The King did not like me, she writes herself, and
(00:48):
long held me in aversion. He was afraid of me
as a wit. How was it that Louis the fourteenth
passed from repugnance to sympathy, from distrust to confidence, from
prejudice to admiration. It was by getting a nearer view
of moral qualities, which at first he saw only from
(01:09):
a distance. The same thing has happened to a majority
of the critics, who, having to speak of Madame de Mantineau,
have not been contented with superficial views, but have carefully
analyzed the life and character of this celebrated woman. What
has occurred to one of her principal defenders. Monsieur Teo
(01:31):
Fhio Lavalais, affords a proof of the foregoing observation. When
he brought out his east Ward de Francis, this writer
judged Madame de Mantineaon very severely. He accused her of
the most complete aridity of heart, of a spirit of
narrow devotion and mean intrigue. He reproached her for having
(01:55):
suggested fatal enterprises and wretched appointments to Louis the fourteenth.
She belittled him, He says, she forced mediocre and servile
people on him. She had, in fact the greatest share
in the errors and disasters of the end of the reign.
Some years later, Monsieur la Valais wrote his fine Eastward
(02:18):
delin Maison Royal de Saint Cyr. In this work he says,
Madame de Maintenon gave Louis the fourteenth none but salutary
and disinterested councils, useful to the state and to the
alleviation of the people. What had happened between the publication
of these two books, the author had studied devoting a
(02:44):
patient research to a work of prevailing interest. He had
succeeded in collecting the letters and writings of Madame de Mantinon,
thanks to communication with the dukes of Noai Mouchi Camvasis
from Messieurs Furie de Comte Montmercuie de Chevree Hoere Boname,
(03:04):
he had been able to increase the treasures of the
archives of Saint Cyr. Madame de Mantineau is one of
the historical personages who have written most her letters. If
she had not destroyed, a great number of them would
almost form a library. The Archives of Saint Cyr alone
contain forty volumes of them, and yet the most curious
(03:26):
of the letters have doubtless not been preserved. Always prudent,
Madame de Mantonaud burned her correspondence with Louis the fourteenth,
her husband, with Madame de Montchevrey, her most intimate friend,
with the Bishop of chart her director. The letters of
her youth are rare, nobody yet divined the future which
(03:50):
Providence was reserving for her. Monsieur Lavalaier's collection, necessarily incomplete,
is nevertheless an historical monument of very great value. Two
volumes of letters and familiar discourses on the education of girls,
two others of historical and edifying letters addressed to the
Ladies of Saint Cyr, four volumes of general correspondents, one
(04:15):
of conversations and maxims, another of miscellaneous writings, and a
final one which includes the souvenir Madame de Caelouse. The
memoirs of the Ladies of Saint Cyr and those of
Mademoiselle d'mals form the ensemble of a publication that has
fully illustrated a figure eminently curious to study. The collection
(04:40):
of La Beaumele Voltaire's Enemy contains, along with many authentic letters,
a great quantity of apocryphal ones. There are changes, interpolations, editions,
and suppressions. Fabricated bits have been inserted, containing clap trap phrases,
piquant reform, elections, maxims in the style of the eighteenth century.
(05:04):
Monsieur Lavalai has found the means whereby to distinguish the
wheat from the tares. Passing Labomel's collection through the sieve
of a sagacious criticism, he has succeeded in verifying the
text of the true letters and proving the apocryphal character
of those which are false. Like the connoisseurs in autographs,
(05:26):
he suspected the striking letters. Falsifiers are almost always imprudent.
They force the note, and when they set about inventing
a document, they want their invention to produce a profound impression.
The correspondence of celebrated persons is generally much more simple
(05:46):
far less studied than the pretended autographs attributed to them.
One needs to be always on his guard against letters
containing either finished portraits, profound judgments, or historical predictions. They
are often signs of falsification, and the more striking they seem,
the more carefully should their origin be examined. This is
(06:10):
one of the rules whose strict application would prevent many mistakes.
The majority of historical documents resembles certain inheritances. They should
not be accepted unless on condition of not becoming liable
to debts in excess of the assets. Madame de Maintenon's
(06:32):
letters deserve the trouble that has been taken to establish
their dates and authenticity with exactness. Baron Wolkenayer, the biographer
of Madame de Sevignier, assigns to them the highest rank
without hesitation Madame de Mantinean, he says, is a more
finished model of a pistolary style than Madame de Savigner.
(06:54):
The latter seldom writes, except when she feels the need
of conversing with her daughter or other person whom she loves,
in order to say everything, to tell the whole story.
Madame de Mantineau, on the contrary, has always a distinct
end in view in writing. The cleverness, proportion, elegance, and
(07:14):
justice of her thoughts, the subtlety of her reflections enable
her to attain pleasantly the goal she aims at. Her
progress is straight and unfaltering. She follows the road without
striking against the bushes, without deviating to right or left.
Such was also the opinion of the First Napoleon. He
(07:38):
greatly preferred the letters of Madame de Mantineau to those
of Madame de Savignier, which were, according to him, snow
eggs with which one could surfeit himself without overloading his stomach.
In citing Napoleon's preference, Monsieur Desaree Nissar accepts it with
some reservations. When Madame de Mantineau's left utters are full
(08:00):
of matter, says the eminent critic one shares the opinion
of the great Emperor. They possess to the highest degree
a certain nameless quality of discretion, simplicity, efficacy. They do
not dazzle by means of feminine versatility, and the naturalness
of them pleases all the more because it proceeds rather
(08:22):
from the reason which disdains mere prettiness, without desiring to
dispense with real graces, than from the wit which plays
with nothings. But when matter is lacking, these letters are short, dry, constrained.
If Madame de Mantineau had had literary preoccupations, if she
(08:45):
had imagined that she was writing for posterity, she would
have produced letters still more remarkable. There is neither studied
refinement nor pretension in her correspondence. She writes to edify,
to invert, and to console, far more than to please.
Her notes to the ladies and young girls of Saint
(09:06):
Cyr do not outstep this pious limit. Often Madame de
Mantinon does not take the pen herself, but while spinning
or knitting she dictates to the young girls who act
as her secretaries. To Mademoiselle de Lubert, Mademoiselle de Saint etienne,
Mademoiselle dosment or Mademoiselle do MARDs. But in the least
(09:28):
of these innumerable notes are always found those qualities of style, sobriety, proportion, conciseness,
perfect harmony between the thought and its expression, which have
been admired by the best judges. The two women of
the seventeenth century whose letters are most celebrated, Madame de
(09:49):
Savignier and Madame de Mantineau, felt for each other both
sympathy and esteem. We take supper every evening with Madame Scarrot,
wrote Madame de Sevignier in sixteen seventy two. Her disposition
is amiable and marvelously upright. One can fancy what conversation
(10:11):
might be between these choice women, both so superior, so
well instructed, so witty, complimenting each other by their very diversities.
Madame de Savignier a strong and richly endowed nature, a
young and beautiful widow, virtuous but with a free and
(10:32):
dauntless humor, A dazzling celemene sister Ti Moliere, as sent
Beauve calls her, a woman whose character's speech in writing
are alike. Intense justifies what was said to her by
her friend Madame de Lafayette, You seem born for pleasures,
and they seem to have been made for you. Your presence, augments,
(10:56):
entertainments and entertainments augment your beauty when your surroundings. In
a word, joy is the true condition of your soul,
and chagrin is more contrary to you than to anyone else.
Her image, sparkling like her wit, appears to us in
the midst of those fetes which her pen brings to
(11:17):
life again, like the wand of a magician. What shall
I tell you? Magnificences, illuminations all France, worn out coats
and gold brocade, ones, jewels, braziers of fire and of flowers,
heaps of carriages, cries in the streets, lighted torches, carriages backing,
(11:40):
and people run over in fine a whirl, dissipation, questions
without answers, compliments without knowing what one says, civilities without
knowing to whom one is speaking, feet tangled in trains.
Madame de Savigner, whose letters passed from hand to hand
(12:01):
in drawing rooms and chateau, wrote for the galleries somewhat.
She says herself, My style is so negligent that it
needs a naturally worldly mind to put up with it,
but that does not prevent her from understanding the worth
of it when she lets her pen trot with the
(12:21):
bridle hanging loose, when she pleases herself by giving her
daughter the top of all the panniers, that is to say,
the freshness of her wit, her head, her eyes, her pen,
her inkstand, and the rest goes as it can. She
very well knows that society dotes on this style, in
(12:41):
which all the graces and marvels of the great century
are reflected as in a looking glass. Her letters are
the model of conique. To employ an expression used in
existing journalism in the nineteenth century as in the seventeenth,
it is a woman who carries off the palm for
this species of literature which demands so much wit. Madame
(13:06):
Emil de Giardin has been the sauvignier of our epoch.
Madame de Maintenon could not or would not aspire to
this holy worldly glory. Far from aiming at effect, she
voluntarily diminishes that which she produces, Like a true devitee
who tones down the brilliancy of her glances. She moderates
(13:29):
her style and tempers her wit. She sacrifices, brilliant qualities
to solid ones, too much imagination, too much fervor, alarm.
Her sassire must not resemble the Hotel d'albre or the
Hotel d Richelieu. One must not speak to nuns as
(13:50):
one would to bluestockings. Enjoyment, gallic animation, good tempered gaiety
fall to the lot of Madame de Sevigni. What marks
Madame de Mantinon is experience, reason, profundity. The one laughs
from ear to ear, the other barely smiles. The one
(14:13):
has illusions about everything, admirations which border on naivete ecstasies
when in the presence of the royal sun. The other
never allows herself to be fascinated either by the King
or the court, by men, women or things. She has
seen human grandeurs too close at hand not to understand
(14:34):
their nothingness, and her conclusions bear the imprint of a
profound sadness. Madame de Savignier also has attacks of melancholy
at times, but the cloud passes quickly and she is
again in broad sunshine. Gaiety, frank, communicative, radiant gaiety is
(14:55):
the basis of the character of this woman. More witty deductive,
amusing than any other. Madame de Savignier shines by imagination,
Madame Dementinon by judgment. The one permits herself to be
dazzled and ebriated. The other always preserves her indifference. The
(15:18):
one exaggerates the splendors of the court, the others seize
them as they are. The one is more of a woman,
the other more of a saint. To those who still
feel an antipathy to Madame de Maintenon, we venture to
offer a word of counsel. It is to read before judging.
(15:39):
The letters of this calumniated woman are an autobiography which
shows us every fold of her heart, and are not
less interesting from the psychological than from the historical point
of view. More reflection than vivacity, more wisdom than passion,
more gravity than charm, more authority than grace, more solidity
(16:02):
than brilliancy. Such are the characteristics of a correspondence which
might justify the expression The style is the woman. End
of Section eighteen.
Section eighteen of Women of Versailles. The Court of Louis
the fourteenth by Artour Leon Ambert de Saint Aman, translated
by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin. This librovox recording is in the
public domain. Read by Pamela and Agami, Chapter thirteen, Madame
de Mantinan's Letters. Madame de Mantinan is one of those
(00:26):
characters who requires to be patiently and conscientiously studied by
an observer who wishes to render an impartial judgment. At first,
Louis the fourteenth did not like the woman destined to
become the most serious and lasting affection of his life.
The King did not like me, she writes herself, and
(00:48):
long held me in aversion. He was afraid of me
as a wit. How was it that Louis the fourteenth
passed from repugnance to sympathy, from distrust to confidence, from
prejudice to admiration. It was by getting a nearer view
of moral qualities, which at first he saw only from
(01:09):
a distance. The same thing has happened to a majority
of the critics, who, having to speak of Madame de Mantineau,
have not been contented with superficial views, but have carefully
analyzed the life and character of this celebrated woman. What
has occurred to one of her principal defenders. Monsieur Teo
(01:31):
Fhio Lavalais, affords a proof of the foregoing observation. When
he brought out his east Ward de Francis, this writer
judged Madame de Mantineaon very severely. He accused her of
the most complete aridity of heart, of a spirit of
narrow devotion and mean intrigue. He reproached her for having
(01:55):
suggested fatal enterprises and wretched appointments to Louis the fourteenth.
She belittled him, He says, she forced mediocre and servile
people on him. She had, in fact the greatest share
in the errors and disasters of the end of the reign.
Some years later, Monsieur la Valais wrote his fine Eastward
(02:18):
delin Maison Royal de Saint Cyr. In this work he says,
Madame de Maintenon gave Louis the fourteenth none but salutary
and disinterested councils, useful to the state and to the
alleviation of the people. What had happened between the publication
of these two books, the author had studied devoting a
(02:44):
patient research to a work of prevailing interest. He had
succeeded in collecting the letters and writings of Madame de Mantinon,
thanks to communication with the dukes of Noai Mouchi Camvasis
from Messieurs Furie de Comte Montmercuie de Chevree Hoere Boname,
(03:04):
he had been able to increase the treasures of the
archives of Saint Cyr. Madame de Mantineau is one of
the historical personages who have written most her letters. If
she had not destroyed, a great number of them would
almost form a library. The Archives of Saint Cyr alone
contain forty volumes of them, and yet the most curious
(03:26):
of the letters have doubtless not been preserved. Always prudent,
Madame de Mantonaud burned her correspondence with Louis the fourteenth,
her husband, with Madame de Montchevrey, her most intimate friend,
with the Bishop of chart her director. The letters of
her youth are rare, nobody yet divined the future which
(03:50):
Providence was reserving for her. Monsieur Lavalaier's collection, necessarily incomplete,
is nevertheless an historical monument of very great value. Two
volumes of letters and familiar discourses on the education of girls,
two others of historical and edifying letters addressed to the
Ladies of Saint Cyr, four volumes of general correspondents, one
(04:15):
of conversations and maxims, another of miscellaneous writings, and a
final one which includes the souvenir Madame de Caelouse. The
memoirs of the Ladies of Saint Cyr and those of
Mademoiselle d'mals form the ensemble of a publication that has
fully illustrated a figure eminently curious to study. The collection
(04:40):
of La Beaumele Voltaire's Enemy contains, along with many authentic letters,
a great quantity of apocryphal ones. There are changes, interpolations, editions,
and suppressions. Fabricated bits have been inserted, containing clap trap phrases,
piquant reform, elections, maxims in the style of the eighteenth century.
(05:04):
Monsieur Lavalai has found the means whereby to distinguish the
wheat from the tares. Passing Labomel's collection through the sieve
of a sagacious criticism, he has succeeded in verifying the
text of the true letters and proving the apocryphal character
of those which are false. Like the connoisseurs in autographs,
(05:26):
he suspected the striking letters. Falsifiers are almost always imprudent.
They force the note, and when they set about inventing
a document, they want their invention to produce a profound impression.
The correspondence of celebrated persons is generally much more simple
(05:46):
far less studied than the pretended autographs attributed to them.
One needs to be always on his guard against letters
containing either finished portraits, profound judgments, or historical predictions. They
are often signs of falsification, and the more striking they seem,
the more carefully should their origin be examined. This is
(06:10):
one of the rules whose strict application would prevent many mistakes.
The majority of historical documents resembles certain inheritances. They should
not be accepted unless on condition of not becoming liable
to debts in excess of the assets. Madame de Maintenon's
(06:32):
letters deserve the trouble that has been taken to establish
their dates and authenticity with exactness. Baron Wolkenayer, the biographer
of Madame de Sevignier, assigns to them the highest rank
without hesitation Madame de Mantinean, he says, is a more
finished model of a pistolary style than Madame de Savigner.
(06:54):
The latter seldom writes, except when she feels the need
of conversing with her daughter or other person whom she loves,
in order to say everything, to tell the whole story.
Madame de Mantineau, on the contrary, has always a distinct
end in view in writing. The cleverness, proportion, elegance, and
(07:14):
justice of her thoughts, the subtlety of her reflections enable
her to attain pleasantly the goal she aims at. Her
progress is straight and unfaltering. She follows the road without
striking against the bushes, without deviating to right or left.
Such was also the opinion of the First Napoleon. He
(07:38):
greatly preferred the letters of Madame de Mantineau to those
of Madame de Savignier, which were, according to him, snow
eggs with which one could surfeit himself without overloading his stomach.
In citing Napoleon's preference, Monsieur Desaree Nissar accepts it with
some reservations. When Madame de Mantineau's left utters are full
(08:00):
of matter, says the eminent critic one shares the opinion
of the great Emperor. They possess to the highest degree
a certain nameless quality of discretion, simplicity, efficacy. They do
not dazzle by means of feminine versatility, and the naturalness
of them pleases all the more because it proceeds rather
(08:22):
from the reason which disdains mere prettiness, without desiring to
dispense with real graces, than from the wit which plays
with nothings. But when matter is lacking, these letters are short, dry, constrained.
If Madame de Mantineau had had literary preoccupations, if she
(08:45):
had imagined that she was writing for posterity, she would
have produced letters still more remarkable. There is neither studied
refinement nor pretension in her correspondence. She writes to edify,
to invert, and to console, far more than to please.
Her notes to the ladies and young girls of Saint
(09:06):
Cyr do not outstep this pious limit. Often Madame de
Mantinon does not take the pen herself, but while spinning
or knitting she dictates to the young girls who act
as her secretaries. To Mademoiselle de Lubert, Mademoiselle de Saint etienne,
Mademoiselle dosment or Mademoiselle do MARDs. But in the least
(09:28):
of these innumerable notes are always found those qualities of style, sobriety, proportion, conciseness,
perfect harmony between the thought and its expression, which have
been admired by the best judges. The two women of
the seventeenth century whose letters are most celebrated, Madame de
(09:49):
Savignier and Madame de Mantineau, felt for each other both
sympathy and esteem. We take supper every evening with Madame Scarrot,
wrote Madame de Sevignier in sixteen seventy two. Her disposition
is amiable and marvelously upright. One can fancy what conversation
(10:11):
might be between these choice women, both so superior, so
well instructed, so witty, complimenting each other by their very diversities.
Madame de Savignier a strong and richly endowed nature, a
young and beautiful widow, virtuous but with a free and
(10:32):
dauntless humor, A dazzling celemene sister Ti Moliere, as sent
Beauve calls her, a woman whose character's speech in writing
are alike. Intense justifies what was said to her by
her friend Madame de Lafayette, You seem born for pleasures,
and they seem to have been made for you. Your presence, augments,
(10:56):
entertainments and entertainments augment your beauty when your surroundings. In
a word, joy is the true condition of your soul,
and chagrin is more contrary to you than to anyone else.
Her image, sparkling like her wit, appears to us in
the midst of those fetes which her pen brings to
(11:17):
life again, like the wand of a magician. What shall
I tell you? Magnificences, illuminations all France, worn out coats
and gold brocade, ones, jewels, braziers of fire and of flowers,
heaps of carriages, cries in the streets, lighted torches, carriages backing,
(11:40):
and people run over in fine a whirl, dissipation, questions
without answers, compliments without knowing what one says, civilities without
knowing to whom one is speaking, feet tangled in trains.
Madame de Savigner, whose letters passed from hand to hand
(12:01):
in drawing rooms and chateau, wrote for the galleries somewhat.
She says herself, My style is so negligent that it
needs a naturally worldly mind to put up with it,
but that does not prevent her from understanding the worth
of it when she lets her pen trot with the
(12:21):
bridle hanging loose, when she pleases herself by giving her
daughter the top of all the panniers, that is to say,
the freshness of her wit, her head, her eyes, her pen,
her inkstand, and the rest goes as it can. She
very well knows that society dotes on this style, in
(12:41):
which all the graces and marvels of the great century
are reflected as in a looking glass. Her letters are
the model of conique. To employ an expression used in
existing journalism in the nineteenth century as in the seventeenth,
it is a woman who carries off the palm for
this species of literature which demands so much wit. Madame
(13:06):
Emil de Giardin has been the sauvignier of our epoch.
Madame de Maintenon could not or would not aspire to
this holy worldly glory. Far from aiming at effect, she
voluntarily diminishes that which she produces, Like a true devitee
who tones down the brilliancy of her glances. She moderates
(13:29):
her style and tempers her wit. She sacrifices, brilliant qualities
to solid ones, too much imagination, too much fervor, alarm.
Her sassire must not resemble the Hotel d'albre or the
Hotel d Richelieu. One must not speak to nuns as
(13:50):
one would to bluestockings. Enjoyment, gallic animation, good tempered gaiety
fall to the lot of Madame de Sevigni. What marks
Madame de Mantinon is experience, reason, profundity. The one laughs
from ear to ear, the other barely smiles. The one
(14:13):
has illusions about everything, admirations which border on naivete ecstasies
when in the presence of the royal sun. The other
never allows herself to be fascinated either by the King
or the court, by men, women or things. She has
seen human grandeurs too close at hand not to understand
(14:34):
their nothingness, and her conclusions bear the imprint of a
profound sadness. Madame de Savignier also has attacks of melancholy
at times, but the cloud passes quickly and she is
again in broad sunshine. Gaiety, frank, communicative, radiant gaiety is
(14:55):
the basis of the character of this woman. More witty deductive,
amusing than any other. Madame de Savignier shines by imagination,
Madame Dementinon by judgment. The one permits herself to be
dazzled and ebriated. The other always preserves her indifference. The
(15:18):
one exaggerates the splendors of the court, the others seize
them as they are. The one is more of a woman,
the other more of a saint. To those who still
feel an antipathy to Madame de Maintenon, we venture to
offer a word of counsel. It is to read before judging.
(15:39):
The letters of this calumniated woman are an autobiography which
shows us every fold of her heart, and are not
less interesting from the psychological than from the historical point
of view. More reflection than vivacity, more wisdom than passion,
more gravity than charm, more authority than grace, more solidity
(16:02):
than brilliancy. Such are the characteristics of a correspondence which
might justify the expression The style is the woman. End
of Section eighteen.
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