hide Matching Documents

Browsing named entities in George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 2, 17th edition.. You can also browse the collection for Maintenon or search for Maintenon in all documents.

Your search returned 1 result in 1 document section:

George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 2, 17th edition., Chapter 13: (search)
artfully employed for their own selfish purposes, led the vanity of the monarch to seek, in making proselytes to the church, a new method of gaining glory, and an atonement for the voluptuous profligacy of his life. Louis was not naturally cruel, but was an easy dupe of those in whom he most confided—of priests, and of a woman. The daughter of an adventurer,—for nearly ten years of childhood a resident in the West Indies, educated a Calvinist, but early converted to the Roman faith,—Madame de Maintenon, had, in the house of a burlesque poet, learned the art of conversation, and, in the intimate society of Ninon de l'enclos, had studied the mysteries of the passions. Of a clear and penetrating mind, of a calculating judgment, which her calm imagination could not lead astray, she never forgot her self-possession in a generous transport, and was never mastered even by the passions which she sought to gratify. Already advanced in life when she began to attract the attention of the kin<