Rheumatoid Arthritis Support

In her excursion with Madame de Neuillant, she met Paul Scarron. They corresponded with each other after the meeting. Scarron was 25 years older than Françoise and had acute rheumatoid arthritis that crippled him. This was hardly a good match that was envisioned, though as an impoverished girl, she had little choice. However, Scarron proposed either to pay her dowry so that she might enter a convent, or marriage. She accepted him, and became Madame Scarron in 1651. For nine years she was his wife, nurse, and a fixture in his social circle.

On the death of Scarron in 1660, Anne of Austria continued his pension to his widow, even increasing it to 2000 livres a year, thus enabling her to remain in literary society. Following the dowager queen's death in 1666, Louis XIV suspended the pension. Once again in straitened circumstances, Madame Scarron prepared to leave Paris for Lisbon as a lady-in-waiting to the new Queen of Portugal, Marie-Françoise de Nemours. Before setting off, however, she met Madame de Montespan, who was secretly already the king's lover. Madame de Montespan took such a fancy to Madame Scarron that she had the king reinstate her pension, an act which enabled the impoverished widow to stay in Paris and not move to Portugal.

In 1669, when Madame de Montespan's first child by Louis was born, she gave Madame Scarron a large income and staff of servants at Vaugirard to raise the child in secrecy. Françoise would take care to keep the house well guarded and discreet, even doing the domestic duties herself. Due to her hard work, the King rewarded her with a large sum of money, and she purchased a property at Maintenon.

In 1678, the king gave her the title of Marquise de Maintenon after the name of her estate. This allowed her to leave the name Scarron behind. Such favours incurred Madame de Montespan's jealousy. At court, she was now known as Madame de Maintenon. Madame de Montespan and Françoise would spar frequently over the children and their care.

"Madame de Maintenon knows how to love. There would be great pleasure in being loved by her." said the king. He probably asked her to become his mistress at that time. Though she later claimed she did not yield to his advances ("Nothing is so clever as to conduct one's self irreproachably." she wrote a friend), some historians doubt that she dared refuse the King at a time when her position remained very insecure. By the late 1670s the king spent much of his spare time with Madame de Maintenon, discussing politics, religion and economics.

In 1680, the king made Madame de Maintenon second Mistress of the Robes to his daughter-in-law, the Dauphine. Soon after, Madame de Montespan left the court. Madame de Maintenon proved a good influence on the king. His wife, Queen Marie-Thérèse, who had spent years being rudely treated by Madame de Montespan, openly declared she had never been so well treated as at this time.


Adapted from the Wikipedia article Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki