Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/521

Rh her felicity: she led a retired life, excluded from all social intercourse with her friends; and its invariable assiduity not only produced lassitude, but excited disgust. It is to be lamented, that her fear of rendering Lewis uneasy by contradiction prevented her from doing all the good she might have done, and all she wished to do; yet, by an unwise exertion of power, she engaged him to acknowledge the son of James II. as king of England, in opposition to the treaty of Ryswick; and, after the dreadful defeat of the French at Blenheim, was the only one who had sufficient courage to inform the king he was no longer invincible.

He bought for her the lands of Main tenon in 1679, which was the only estate she ever had, though in the height of favour, which afforded her the means of making purchases to what value she pleased. Here she had a magnificent castle, in a delightful country, not more than fourteen leagues distant from Paris, and ten from Versailles. The king seeing her wonderfully pleased with her estate, called her publicly Madame de Maintenon, and this change of name stood her in much greater stead than she could have imagined, yet her elevation was to her only a retreat. Shut up in her apartment, which was on the same floor with the king's, she confined herself to the society of two or three ladies as retired as herself, and even those she saw but seldom. Lewis went there every day after dinner, before and after supper, and staid till midnight. Here he did business with his ministers, while she employed herself in reading or needle work, never shewing any forwardness to talk of state affairs, and carefully avoiding all appearance of cabal and intrigue. She studied more to please him who governed than to govern, and preserved her credit by employing it with the utmost circumspection. Her brother, count D'Aubigné, a lieu-