ollege of Beauvais at Paris; but
it is in the next century that we come upon the most interesting
case. In the days of Louis XIV. the girls' school at St. Cyr, of which
Madame de Maintenon was patroness, was, in one way and another, the
object of much public attention. Mademoiselle de Caylus, niece of
Madame de Maintenon, who became famous among the women of charming wit
and grace who distinguished the time, was a pupil at St. Cyr, and in
her memoirs gives a pleasant sketch of her school life. With the rest,
"Madame de Brinon," she says,

first superior of St. Cyr, loved verse and the drama;
and in default of the pieces of Corneille and Racine,
which she did not dare to have represented, she
composed plays herself. It is to her, and her taste
for the stage, that the world owes _Esther_ and
_Athalie_, which Racine wrote for the girls of St.
Cyr. Madame de Maintenon wished to see one of
Madame de Brinon's pieces. She found it such as
it was, that is to say, so bad that she begged to
have no more such played, and that instead some
beautiful piece of Corneille or Racine should be
selected, choosing such as contained least about
love. These young girls, therefore, undertook the
rendering of _Cinna_, quite passably for children who
had been trained for the stage only by an old nun.
They then played _Andromaque_; and, whether it was
that the actresses were better chosen, or gained in
grace through experience, it was only too well
represented for Madame de Maintenon, causing her to
fear that this amusement would fill them with sentiments
the reverse of those which she wished to inspire.
However, as she was persuaded that amusements
of this sort were good for youth, she wrote
to Racine, begging him to compose for her, in his
moments of leisure, some sort of moral or historic
poem, from which love should be entirely banished,
and in which he need not believe that his reputation
was concerned, since it would remain buried at St.
Cyr. The letter threw Racine into great agitation.
He wished to please Madame de Maintenon. To
refuse was impossible for a courtier, and the
commission was delicate for a man who, like him, had
a great reputation to sustain. At last he found in
the subject of Esther all that was necessary to
please the Court.

So far Mademoiselle de Caylus. A French historian of literature draws
a pleasing picture of the old Racine superintendi