Françoise d'Aubigné marquise de MAINTENON. 1635-1719. Secret - Lot 223

Françoise d'Aubigné marquise de MAINTENON. 1635-1719. Secret wife of Louis XIV, former governess of the king's natural children. P.A. (signed twice with her initials). S.l.n.d. 1 pp. in-4. Reflection by the Marquise de Maintenon on a passage from Guarini's Pastor fido (...) I thought he meant that our freedom is a gift from heaven which does not force those whom it seems to force, and that this is the sentiment of St. Augustine on the effect of victorious Grace in our hearts (...). Then follows the relevant extract, which she "paraphrases": When (...) the heavenly power draws in spite of us the homage of our hearts (...) We have no reason to pity our fate / Which holds liberty captive under these laws / Never do we feel it less submissive and more united / Than when this sweet tiran, by an amiable effort / And this art so divine, impossible to any other / pressed for us by his goodness / makes us silence his will / by letting us think that we are doing our own.