Madame de Maintenon was a woman of much wit, which the good company, in which she had at first been merely suffered, but in which she soon shone, had much polished; and ornamented with knowledge of the world, and which gallantry had rendered of the most agreeable kind.  The various positions she had held had rendered her flattering, insinuating, complaisant, always seeking to please.  The need she had of intrigues, those she had seen of all kinds, and been mixed up in for herself and for others, had given her the taste, the ability, and the habit of them.  Incomparable grace, an easy manner, and yet measured and respectful, which, in consequence of her long obscurity, had become natural to her, marvellously aided her talents; with language gentle, exact, well expressed, and naturally eloquent and brief.  Her best time, for she was three or four years older than the King, had been the dainty phrase period;—­the superfine gallantry days,—­in a word, the time of the “ruelles,” as it was called; and it had so influenced her that she always retained evidences of it.  She put on afterwards an air of importance, but this gradually gave place to one of devoutness that she wore admirably.  She was not absolutely false by disposition, but necessity had made her so, and her natural flightiness made her appear twice as false as she was.

The distress and poverty in which she had so long lived had narrowed her mind, and abased her heart and her sentiments.  Her feelings and her thoughts were so circumscribed, that she was in truth always less even than Madame Scarron, and in everything and everywhere she found herself such.  Nothing was more repelling than this meanness, joined to a situation so radiant.

Her flightiness or inconstancy was of the most dangerous kind.  With the exception of some of her old friends, to whom she had good reasons for remaining faithful, she favoured people one moment only to cast them off the next.  You were admitted to an audience with her for instance, you pleased her in some manner, and forthwith she unbosomed herself to you as though you had known her from childhood.  At the second audience you found her dry, laconic, cold.  You racked your brains to discover the cause of this change.  Mere loss of time!—­Flightiness was the sole reason of it.

Devoutness was her strong point; by that she governed and held her place.  She found a King who believed himself an apostle, because he had all his life persecuted Jansenism, or what was presented to him as such.  This indicated to her with what grain she could sow the field most profitably.

The profound ignorance in which the King had been educated and kept all his life, rendered him from the first an easy prey to the Jesuits.  He became even more so with years, when he grew devout, for he was devout with the grossest ignorance.  Religion became his weak point.  In this state it was easy to persuade him that a decisive and tremendous blow struck against the Protestants would give his name more grandeur than any of his ancestors had acquired, besides strengthening his power and increasing his authority.  Madame de Maintenon was one of those who did most to make him believe this.