Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/325

Rh M A I M A I wlien Madame de Sevigno wrote, and of which many authentic examples are extant. As a wife she is wholly admirable ; she had to entertain a man who would not be amused, and had to submit to that terribly strict court etiquette of absolute obedience to the king s inclina tions which Saint-Simon so vividly describes, and yet be always cheerful, and never complain of weariness or ill- health. Her political influence has probably been over stated, but it was supreme in matters of detail. The ministers of the day used to discuss and arrange all the business to be done with the king beforehand with her, and it was all done in her cabinet and in her presence, but the king in more important matters often chose not to consult her. Such mistakes as, for instance, the replacing of Catinat by Villeroi may be attributed to her, but not whole policies, notably, according to Saint-Simon, not the policy with regard to the Spanish succession. Even the revocation of the edict of Nantes and the Dragonnades have been laid to her charge, but there can be no doubt that, in spite of ardent Catholicism, she retained a liking for her father s religion, and opposed, if not very vigorously, the cruelties of the Dragonnades. She was probably afraid to say much, or peril her great reputation for devotion, which had in 1692 obtained for her from Innocent XII. the right of visitation over all the convents in France. Where she deserves blame is in her use of her power for personal patronage, as in compassing the promotions of Chamillart and Villeroi, and the frequent assistance given to her brother Comte Charles d Aubigne. Her influence was on the whole a moderating and prudent force, and the king, when he wanted her advice, used to say, &quot; Qu en pensez votre Solidite 1 &quot; or &quot; Consultons la Raison.&quot; Her social influence was not as great as it might have been owing to her holding no recognized position at court, but it was always exercised on the side of decency and morality, and it must not be forgotten that from her former life she was intimate with the literary people of the day, and never deserted her old friends. Side by side with this public life, which wearied her with its shadowy pawer, occasionally crossed by a desire to be recognized as queen, she passed a nobler and sweeter private existence as the foundress of St Cyr. Madame de Maintenon w r as a born teacher ; she had so won the hearts of her first pupils that they preferred her to their own mother, and was similarly successful later with the young and impetuous Duchesse de Bourgogne, and she had always wished to establish a home for poor girls of good family placed in such straits as she herself had experienced. As soon as her fortunes began to mend she started a small home for poor girls at Ruel, which she afterwards moved to Noisy, and which was the nucleus of the splendid institution of St Cyr, which the king had endowed in 1G86 at her request out of the funds of the Abbey of St Denis. She was in her element there. She herself drew up the rules of the institution; she examined every minute detail; she befriended her pupils in every way; ami her heart often turned from the weariness of Versailles or of Marly to her &quot; little girls &quot; at St Cyr. It was for the girls at St Cyr that Racine wrote his Esther and his Athalie, and it was because he managed the affairs of St Cyr well that Chamillart became controller-general of the finances. The later years of her power were marked by the promotion of her old pupils, the children of the king and Madame de Montespan, to high dignity between the blood royal and the peers of the realm, and it was doubtless under the influence of her dislike for the Due d Orleans that the king drew up his will, leaving the personal care of his successor to the Due de Maine, and hampering the Due d Orleans by a council of regency. On or even before her husband s death she retired to St Cyr, and had the chagrin of seeing all her plans for the advancement of the Due de Maine 305 overthrown by means of the parlement of Faris. However, the regent Orleans in no way molested her, but on the contrary visited her at St Cyr, and continued her pension of 48,000 livres. She spent her last years at St Cyr in perfect seclusion, but an object of great interest to all visitors to France, who, however, with the exception of Peter the Great, found it impossible to get an audience with her. On April 15, 1719, she died, and was buried in the choir at St Cyr, bequeathing her estate at Maintenon to her niece, the only daughter of her brother Charles, and wife of the Mardchal de Noaillcs, to whose family it still belongs. Such was the life of the extraordinary woman who kept till the last the heart of Louis XIV., marked by a virtue almost amounting to prudeiy, in strong contrast to the generations which preceded and followed her, by a love of power, and a use of it which can indeed be excused by her early life, but which w T as not exercised for the good of France, and by a religious devotion which was narrow, if not violently fanatical, but sweetened throughout by her ardent love for her &quot; little girls,&quot; whom she had saved from the difficulties of life, and whoju she loved with all a mother s love. published Memoircs de Madame dc Maintenon, in 6 vols., which caused him to be imprisoned in the Bastille. Next must be noted Madame dc Maintenon peintc par die mSme, by Madame Suard, 1810 ; Histoire de Madame de Main- tenon, by Lafont d Aussonne, 1814 ; Lcttrcs inedites de Madame de Maintenon ct la princcsse dcs Ursins, 1826, reviewed by Sainte- Beuve, Causerics dti Limdi, vol. v. ; and Histoire de Madame de Maintenon, by the Due de Noailles, 1848-58. All materials for her life have, however, been superseded by Theophile Lavallee s His toire de St Cyr, reviewed in Causerics du Lundi, vol. viii., and by his edition of her Lettres historiqucs ct tdifiantcs, &c. , in 7 vols., and of her C(yfrespondance Generate, in 4 vols., which latter must, however, be read with the knowledge of many forged letters, noticed in P. Grimblot s Faux Autographies de Madame dc Main- tenon. Saint-Simon s fine account of the court in her day and of her career is contained in the twelfth volume of Chcrud and Regnier s edition of his Memoircs. (H. M. S.) MAIXZ, or MENTZ (in French, MAYENCE), the largest town in the grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, one of the strongest fortresses in Germany, and formerly the seat of an archbishop and elector, is situated on a rising ground on the left bank of the lihiue, nearly opposite the influx of the Main. The fortifications, which consist of three enceintes with a series of outlying forts, embrace the small town of Castel on the opposite bank, and have recently been widened so as to admit of a large extension of the town. Mainz is connected with Castel by a bridge of boats, and the Rhine is also spanned there by a railway bridge. The interior of the town consists chiefly of narrow and irregular streets, but the oldest part of all, to the west, was almost entirely destroyed by the explosion of a powder- magazine in 1857, and has been rebuilt in a much improved style. There are also several handsome modern streets on the side next the Rhine, which is bordered by a fine quay, upwards of 300 feet in breadth. To the south lies the Neue Anlage, a park laid out on the site of the chateau of Favorite, where the duke of Brunswick signed his famous manifesto to the French people in 1792. The principal object of historical and architectural interest in Mainz is the grand old cathedral, an imposing Romanesque edifice with numerous Gothic additions and details. It was originally erected between 975 and 1009, but has since been repeatedly burned down and rebuilt, and in its present form dates chiefly from the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries.. The largest of its six towers is 300 feet in height. The whole building was restored by order of Napoleon in 1814, and another thorough renovation has been recently in pro gress. The interior contains the tombs of Boniface, the first archbishop of Mainz, of Frauenlob the minnesinger, XV. - 39