Limited to Eight Hundred Numbered Sets, of which this is No. —— “ Madame ”...

“I am very frank and very natural, and I say all that I have in my heart.” That is the motto that ought to be placed upon the correspondence of Madame, which was chiefly written in German and published from time to time in voluminous extracts at Strasburg and beyond the Rhine. This correspondence, translated by fragments, was made into a volume and called, very improperly, the “Memoirs of Madame.” Coming after other memoirs of the celebrated women of the great century, it ran singularly counter

Sainte-Beuve, in his essay on Madame, suggested to the French editor of her letters that he should make a more complete collection of them. M. Brunet professes to have done so in the edition from which this translation is selected. [2] But when examined the additions prove very insignificant, and the arrangement, though apparently more chronological, interferes with the interest of the reader. Passages which seem to belong together are cut up into sentences and scattered singly over weeks and mo

To her sister Louise, Comtesse Palatine. Versailles , 1695. King James of England is not willing that we should wear mourning for his daughter [Mary]; he has vehemently insisted that nothing of the kind should be done. He is not at all moved by this death, which surprises me, for I should think a man could not forget his children, no matter what wrongs he has against them; blood must surely keep its strength. From the portrait they made me of Prince [King] William, I should not have thought he w

Fontainebleau , 1714. We are here since yesterday; having slept at the house of the Duc d’Antin, called Petit-Bourg, a charming residence; the gardens, especially, are magnificent. I did not come with the king, because two days before leaving Versailles I caught a bad cold in my head accompanied by a terrible cough, and I feared to disgust the king and make the young people laugh by spitting and blowing my nose; so I came in my own carriage with my ladies and dogs. Yesterday they hunted, but I c

Paris , 1717. M. le dauphin [Monseigneur] never really loved or hated, but he was malicious; his greatest pleasure was in giving pain; when he had a trick to play on any one he began by treating them graciously. In every respect he had the most inconceivable character that could be imagined. When one thought him angry he was often in the best humour; when he seemed content he was cross; never could we guess correctly. He had not heart enough to know what true friendship was; he loved only those

Saint-Cloud , 1718. Historians often tell lies. They say in the history of my grandfather, the King of Bohemia, that my grandmother, the queen, carried away by her ambition, never left her husband a moment’s peace until he declared himself king. There is not a single word of truth in all that. The queen thought of nothing but seeing comedies and ballets and reading novels. They also say in the history of the late king that it was from generosity he retired from Holland and consented to make peac

Paris , 1720. I have often walked about at night in the gallery of the château of Fontainebleau, where they say the ghost of the late king François I. appears; but the good man never did me the honour to appear to me; perhaps he does not think my prayers sufficiently efficacious to call him out of purgatory; and in that he may be right enough. I was very gay in my youth; that is why they called me in German Rauschen petten Knecht . I remember the birth of the King of England [George I.] as if it

Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie, Duchesse de Bourgogne, who was married to the grandson of Louis XIV. and was the mother of Louis XV., has left a very gracious memory behind her. She flitted through the world like one of those bright, rapid apparitions which the imagination of contemporaries delights to embellish. Born in 1685, daughter of the Duc de Savoie, who transmitted to her his ability and possibly his craft, grand-daughter by her mother of that amiable Henrietta of England (first wife of Monsie

I have just read a pleasing, sweet, simple, and even touching narrative, which rests and elevates the mind,—a narrative which all should read as I have done. It concerns, once more, Mme. de Maintenon; but Mme. de Maintenon taken this time on her practical side, which is least open to discussion, namely, her work and foundation of Saint-Cyr. M. le duc de Noailles had already given a brief but interesting account of it in his prelude to the “History of Madame de Maintenon,” but M. Théophile Lavall

To M. l’Abbé Gobelin [her confessor]. Chambord , October 10, 1685. I am very glad that you are satisfied with what you have seen at Noisy, and you will give me very great pleasure by going there again before the cold weather; but I would like you to confess, or at any rate converse in private with, all those who desire to enter our community. I have sent word to Mme. de Brinon to examine them all, and to begin nothing for the novitiate until my return. [This refers to the selection of mistresses

[The following reports were written down by the mistresses, occasionally by the pupils, and corrected by Mme. de Maintenon herself, in order to make them more worthy of being read and re-read by the mistresses in after days.]   Advice to the Young Ladies on the letters they write. Brevity and simplicity recommended. January, 1695. As you order us to write down what was said yesterday at recreation we shall do so as exactly and simply as we can. Mme. de Maintenon was good enough to come here expr

“I am,” Madame said to me [1705], “in great joy whenever I see the door closing behind me as I enter here; and I never go out of it without pain. Often, on returning to Versailles, I think: ‘This is the world, and apparently the world for which Jesus Christ would not pray on the eve of his death. I know there are good souls at Court, and that God has saints in all conditions; but it is certain that what is called the world is centred here; it is here that all passions are in motion,—self-interes