Fenelon's "Telemaque" was thought
dangerous.
The Comtesse de Granville loved her daughters sufficiently to wish to
make them angels after the pattern of Marie Alacoque, but the poor
girls themselves would have preferred a less virtuous and more amiable
mother. This education bore its natural fruits. Religion, imposed as a
yoke and presented under its sternest aspect, wearied with formal
practice these innocent young hearts, treated as sinful. It repressed
their feelings, and was never precious to them, although it struck its
roots deep down into their natures. Under such training the two Maries
would either have become mere imbeciles, or they must necessarily have
longed for independence. Thus it came to pass that they looked to
marriage as soon as they saw anything of life and were able to compare
a few ideas. Of their own tender graces and their personal value they
were absolutely ignorant. They were ignorant, too, of their own
innocence; how, then, could they know life? Without weapons to meet
misfortune, without experience to appreciate happiness, they found no
comfort in the maternal jail, all their joys were in each other. Their
tender confidences at night in whispers, or a few short sentences
exchanged if their mother left them for a moment, contained more ideas
than the words themselves expressed. Often a glance, concealed from
other eyes, by which they conveyed to each other their emotions, was
like a poem of bitter melancholy.
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