Maria Theresa was a perfect example of the self-sacrificing mother and devoted wife.  Her feelings toward the king are best expressed by the Princesse Palatine:  “She had such an affection for the king that she tried to read in his eyes whatever would give him pleasure; providing he looked kindly at her, she was happy all day.”  Mme. de Caylus wrote:  “That poor princess had such a dread of the king and such great natural timidity that she dared neither to speak to him nor to run the risk of a tete-a-tete with him.  One day, I heard Mme. de Maintenon say that the king having sent for the queen, the latter requested her to go with her so that she might not appear alone in his presence:  but that she (Mme. de Maintenon) conducted her only to the door of the room and there took the liberty of pushing her so as to make her enter, and that she observed such a great trembling in her whole person that her very hands shook with fright.”

From about 1680, especially after the death of Mlle. de Fontanges, his last mistress, Louis XIV. began to look with disfavor upon the women of doubtful morality and to advance those who were noted for their conjugal fidelity.  He became more attentive to the queen—­a change of attitude which was due partly to the influence of Mme. de Maintenon and partly to the fact that he was satiated with the excesses of his debauches, by which his physical system had been almost wrecked.  He would not have dared to legitimatize his bastard children, had he not been so thoroughly idolized by his greatest heroes and most powerful ministers.  As an illustration, it may be remarked that the Great Conde proposed the marriage of his son to the king’s daughter by Mlle. de La Valliere.

The queen became so religious that she derived more enjoyment from praying at the convents or visiting hospitals than from remaining at her magnificent apartments.  She waited upon the sick with her own hands and carried food to them; she never meddled in political affairs or took much interest in social functions.

Timidity, an instinctive shrinking from the slanders, calumnies, and intrigues of the court, appeared to be the most pronounced characteristic of queens who seemed to believe themselves too inferior to their husbands to dare to offer any political counsel.  While none of them were superior intellectually, they possessed dignity, good sense, and tact, “a reverential feeling for the sanctity of religion and the majesty of the throne,” an admirable resignation, a painful docility and submission—­qualities which might have been turned to the advantage of their owners and the state, had the former been more self-assertive.

The infidelities of their husbands caused the queen-consorts constant torture; they were forced to behold the kings’ favorites becoming part of their own households and were compelled to endure the presence, as ladies in waiting, of those who, as their rivals, caused them to suffer all possible torments of jealousy and outraged conjugal love.