Saint-Cyr, in its completed idea, was not only a girls' school, then a convent for young ladies of rank, a good work and recreation for Mme. de Maintenon; it was something more loftily conceived, a foundation worthy in all respects of Louis XIV. and his epoch. Under Louis XIV., and especially during the second half of his reign, France, even in times of peace, was compelled to maintain its imposing military attitude and a powerful army of 150,000 men under arms. Louvois introduced a system of modern organization into that great body; though the essentially modern base, the regular and equal contribution of all to military service, was still lacking. The nobility, which was, and continued to be, the soul of war, found itself for the first time subjected to strict rules and obligations which offended its spirit and greatly aggravated its burdens. Consequently, royalty contracted towards it fresh duties. Louis XIV. saw this, and had the heart to meet his obligation,--first, by founding the Hôtel des Invalides, a part of which was reserved for old or wounded officers; secondly, by forming companies of Cadets, exercised at the frontier forts, in which four thousand sons of nobles were brought up; and thirdly (as soon as Mme. de Maintenon suggested to him the idea), by the foundation of the royal house of Saint-Cyr, intended for the education of two hundred and fifty noble but impoverished young ladies. The establishment in the succeeding century of the École Militaire, was the necessary complement of these monarchical foundations; it added all that was insufficient in the companies of Cadets. The first thought of Saint-Cyr in Mme. de Maintenon's mind did not rise to this height. Mme. de Maintenon was sincerely religious. She was no sooner drawn from indigence by the bounty of the king than she said in her own mind that she ought to shed something of that bounty on others as poor as she herself had once been. This idea of succouring poor young ladies and preserving them from dangers through which she herself had passed was a very old and very natural thing in her; she regarded it as a debt and an indemnity before God for her great fortune. Her first step was to gather a number of young ladies, for whose education she paid, at Montmorency, then at Rueil; at which latter place she gave more development to her good intention. She had always had a great taste for bringing up children, for teaching them, reproving and reprimanding them; it was one of her particular and prominent talents. From Rueil the Institution was transferred to Noisy, where it continued to increase, Mme. de Maintenon devoting to it every instant she could steal from the Court. She soon began to congratulate herself on its success. "Fancy my pleasure," she writes to her brother, "when I return along the avenue, followed by the hundred and eighty-four young ladies who are here at the present time."