Maintenon, Madame de
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
man-teh-non', Madame de (1635-1719), the second wife of Louis XIV . Her father was a well born but profligate man. She was born in prison. At her mother's death she was left penniless and dependent on an aunt, who brought her up like a peasant girl, placing her in charge of the poultry. A famous pamphleteer and man of letters by the name of Scarron, being attracted by her wit and cheerful disposition, offered to pay for her education in a convent or take her for his wife. She chose the latter alternative and made his home the center of the literary people of Paris. In 1660 Scarron died leaving his wife in poverty. She was recommended to Madame de Montespan, the mistress of Louis XIV, as a suitable person to educate her children. In visiting his children, Louis made the acquaintance of Madame Scarron. She was given a fine home and a liberal income, and was made Marquise de Maintenon. Despite the jealousy of the queen, Madame de Maintenon acquired and maintained an influence over the king, and conducted herself in such a way amid the frivolities of a dissolute court as to win the respect of all who knew her. It is said she favored the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In 1685, two years after the death of the queen, Madame de Maintenon was married to the king privately. He did not acknowledge her as the queen. It was well understood, however, that she was for many years the power behind the throne. According to all accounts, she did what she could to restrain the debauchery of a licentious court, and exercised her influence always on the side of decency. While it is impossible for a woman to hold the relation that she did to a king without creating gossip, it may be said truthfully that she came through it all with a reputation unblemished. She survived the king four years. She spent the latter part of her life in a school for girls at St. Cyr. This was a school that Madame Maintenon, ever mindful of the trials of her girlhood, had established in the days of her prosperity for the daughters of good families that found themselves in reduced circumstances. See Pompadour
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The facts Aiton's set out in 1910 still hold: Françoise d'Aubigné was born in a Niort prison in 1635, married the satirist Paul Scarron, entered court as governess to Madame de Montespan's children by Louis XIV, and founded the school at Saint-Cyr, where she died in 1719. Two points have shifted. Historians now place the secret marriage to Louis in late 1683 or early 1684, within months of Queen Maria Theresa's death in July 1683, rather than in 1685 as Aiton's has it; and where the 1910 entry hedges that "it is said she favored the revocation of the Edict of Nantes," modern work generally treats the 1685 revocation as Louis's own policy, while not excusing her approval of forced Protestant conversions. Her surviving letters and the Saint-Cyr papers, now available in critical editions, have also made her a standard subject in the history of girls' education rather than merely a figure of court gossip.
Written for this edition, 2026.