The language of Saint-Cyr has a tone apart amid that period of Louis XIV.; Mme. de Caylus was the mundane flower of it. We feel that "Esther" has passed that way, and Fénelon equally. The diction is that of Racine in prose, of Massillon, shorter and more sober,--a school, in fact, all pure, precise, and perfect (to which belonged the Duc du Maine); a charming source, more sparkling on the side of the women, though rather less fertile. At first it promised greater things; and to one of the Dames de Saint-Louis (Mme. de Chapigny) Mme. de Maintenon was able to write: "I have never read anything so good, so charming, so clear, so well arranged, so eloquent, so regulated, in a word, so wonderful as your letter." At the death of Louis XIV. and under the harsh contrast with times so changed, Saint-Cyr passed, almost in an instant, to a state of antiquity and royal relic. After Mme. de Maintenon's death worthy inheritors of her rule continued to maintain for a long time the culture of suavity and intelligence; but the Dames de Saint-Louis were faithful, above all, to the intention of their foundress in never making themselves talked of. Respected by all, little liked by Louis XV., who thought them, as was natural, too lofty and too worthy of honour, they vanish from sight in the continuance of duty and the uniformity of their quiet existence. A letter of Horace Walpole, who visits them as an antiquary, another from the Chevalier de Boufflers, are the only noticeable testimony that we have about them in the course of many years. When the revolution of '89 broke out, the astonishment in that valley so close to Versailles was great, much greater than elsewhere. Saint-Cyr had made itself so completely _immobile_ in its past that it fell abruptly from Mme. de Maintenon to Mirabeau. From that time, after the abolition of the titles of nobility, there seemed no uncertainty except as to the precise day on which the Institution should perish. Nevertheless, the Dames de Saint-Louis made a long and placid resistance, which maintained them in their House till 1793; they accomplished and verified to the letter Mme. de Maintenon's unconscious prediction when she said: "Your institution can never fail so long as there is a king in France." It perished on the morrow of the day when there was no king.