The pain I feel about the daughters of Saint-Cyr can only be relieved by time and by a total change in the education we have given them up to this time. It is very just that I should suffer because I have contributed to the harm more than any one; I shall be happy if God does not punish me more severely. My pride has been in everything concerning the establishment; and its depth is so great it carries the day against my own good intentions. God knows that I wanted to establish virtue at Saint-Cyr, but I have built on sand,--not having that which alone can make a firm foundation. I wanted that the girls should have intelligence, that their hearts should be uplifted, their reason formed. I have succeeded in my purpose: they have intelligence, and they use it against us; their hearts are uplifted, and they are prouder and more haughty than is becoming in the greatest princesses--speaking as the world thinks; we have formed their reason, and we have made them disputatious, presumptuous, inquisitive, bold, etc. Thus it is that we succeed when the desire of excelling [shining] makes us act. A simple, Christian education would have made good girls, out of whom we could have made good wives and good nuns; we have made _beaux-esprits_, whom we ourselves who made them cannot endure: there is our blame, in which I have a greater share than any one. Let us come to the remedy; for we must not be discouraged. I have already proposed some to Balbien [Mme. de Maintenon's waiting-maid mentioned in "Saint-Simon" as Nanon]. They may seem to you rather petty, but I hope, by the grace of God, they will not be without effect. As many little things have fomented pride, so many little things will subdue it. Our girls have been too much considered, too petted, too often deferred to. They must now be ignored in their classes; they must be made to keep the rules of the day; and little else must be talked of. They should not be forced to feel that I am angry with them; it is not their grief that I want; I am more to blame than they; I desire only to repair by another line of conduct the harm that has been done. The best girls have done more to show me the excess of pride which we must now correct than the bad ones; I have been more alarmed at seeing their self-conceit and the arrogance of Mlles. de ----, de ----, and de ---- than at all that I have heard of the insubordinate members of the class. These are girls of good intentions who wish to be nuns, but with that desire they have a language and manners too proud and haughty to be tolerated at Versailles among young ladies of the highest rank. You see by this that the evil has sunk into their natures, so that they are not themselves aware of it. Pray God, and make others pray that He will change their hearts, and give us all humility. But, madame, do not discourse to them too much. All Saint-Cyr is turning to discourses; much is said there just now of simplicity; they seek to define it, to