The first instruction to draw from his failings was that it was not needful to waste time on women; "that the time devoted to love should never be taken to the prejudice of other duties." The second consideration was that in abandoning the heart it was necessary to remain absolute master of one's mind: that the tenderness of a lover should be separated from the resolutions of a sovereign; that the fair one who gives pleasure should never be permitted to speak of affairs, or of those who serve us, and that the two portions of life should be kept entirely apart. "You will remember how I have warned you on various occasions of the harmful influence of favourites; that of a mistress is still more dangerous." Louis XIV. insisted at length upon the mental weakness which makes women dangerous. He had studied them from an intimate point of view, and he judged "these animals" almost as did Arnolphe. "They are," said he to the Dauphin, "eloquent in their expressions, pressing in their prayers, obstinate in their sentiments. No secret can be safe with them. They always act with calculation, and consequently use 'cunning and artifice.' However much it may cost to a loving heart, a Prince cannot take too many 'precautions' with his mistresses. This is a duty imposed upon him by the throne itself." Poor La Valliere, so disinterested, so little of an intriguer! What grief if she had read these cruel pages! The counsels we have just read are very politic, very prudent; they have nothing to do with either morality or religion. The royal _Memoires_, in another part indeed, add that "the Prince should always be a perfect model of virtue," and also that it is a Christian duty to abstain from all illicit commerce, "which is _almost never innocent_." As a matter of fact, Louis XIV. had not extracted much in regard to moral discipline from a cult of which he knew only the forms. During his infancy, his mother had reserved to herself his religious education. She had led him at an early age into the churches, where she passed a portion of each day, and she had communicated to him a little of her narrow and mechanical piety. Louis XIV. never understood any other kind. He knew his catechism but little better than his Latin grammar. This ignorance was, perhaps, aggravated by the fact of his realising the need of a knowledge of Latin in order to read diplomatic despatches, while he could see no use whatever in knowing the facts of religion. He never changed in this respect; Mme. de Maintenon herself made vain efforts. The second Madame, La Palatine, did not succeed better. She wrote: "If he only believed that he should listen to his confessor and recite his _Pater Noster_, all would go well and his devotion would be perfect."[130]