xtraordinary and gifted woman, although I know that
she is not a favorite with historians. She is not endeared to the heart
of the nation she indirectly ruled. She is positively disliked by a
large class, not merely for her narrow religious intolerance, but even
for the arts by which she gained so great an influence. Yet, liked or
disliked, it would be difficult to find in French history a greater or
more successful woman.

AUTHORITIES.

Henri Martin's History of France; Biographic Universelle; Miss Pardoe's
History of the Court of Louis XIV.; Lacretelle's History of France; St.
Simon's Memoires; Voltaire's Siecle de Louis XIV.; Guizot's History of
France; Early Days of Madame de Maintenon, Eclectic Magazine, xxxii. 67;
Life and Character of Madame de Maintenon, Quarterly Review, xcvi. 394;
Fortnightly Review, xxv. 607; Temple Bar, Iv. 243; Fraser, xxxix. 231;
Memoires of Louis XIV., Quarterly Review, xix. 46; James's Life and
Times of Louis XIV.; James's Life of Madame de Maintenon; Secret
Correspondence of Madame de Maintenon; Taine on the Ancien Regime;
Browning's History of the Huguenots, Edinburgh Review, xcix. 454;
Butler's Lives of Fenelon and Bossuet; Abbe Ledieu's Memoire de Bossuet;
Bentley, Memoirs de Madame de Montespan, xlviii. 309; De Bausset's Life
of Fenelon.

SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.

* * * * *

A.D. 1660-1744.

THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD.

In the career of Madame de Maintenon we have seen in a woman an
inordinate ambition to rise in the world and control public affairs. In
the history of the Duchess of Marlborough, we see the same ambition, the
same love of power, the same unscrupulous adaptation of means to an end.
Yet the aim and ends of these two remarkable political women were
different. The Frenchwoman had in view the reform of a wicked court, the
interests of education, the extirpation of heresy, the elevation of men
of genius, the social and religious improvement of a great nation, as
she viewed it, through a man who bore absolute sway. The Englishwoman
connived at political corruptions, was indifferent to learning and
genius, and exerted her great influence, not for the good of her
country, but to advance the fortunes of her family. Madame de Maintenon,
if narrow and intolerant, was unselfish, charitable, religious, and
patriotic; the Duchess of Marlborough was selfish, grasping,
avaricious, and worldly in all her aspirations. Both were
ambitio