The convent of the Carmelites of Compiègne had become her chosen refuge. It was there that, fleeing from grandeurs which had never dazzled her, she humbled herself, annihilated herself before the King of Kings, before Him who strengthens and consoles. This Queen to whom her son had said one day: “Do you know, mamma, you will end by quarrelling with Saint Teresa? Why do you want to be more fervent here than the most fervent Carmelites, and make still longer prayers than theirs?” This Queen, who would willingly have exchanged the royal mantle for a serge habit, had for her oratory a cell in no respect different from that of the nuns. She said she wanted to learn how to die to the world and to herself. Madame de Campan, who knew the four last daughters of Louis XV. so well, thus describes the salutary influence which the Queen exercised over their destiny: “Mesdames had in their august mother, Marie Leczinska, the noblest model of all the pious and social virtues; by her eminent qualities and her modest dignity, this princess veiled the wrongs with which, but too unfortunately, one was authorized to reproach the King; and so long as she lived, she guarded for the court of Louis XV. that dignified and imposing aspect which alone maintains the respect due to power. The princesses, her daughters, were worthy of her; and if some few vile creatures tried to launch the shafts of calumny against them, they fell at once, repelled by the high idea people entertained of the loftiness of their sentiments and the purity of their conduct.” The woman who had been able to preserve a remnant of decency in a corrupt society, and had thus saved the remnants of royal prestige, was surrounded by unmixed veneration. At this epoch, as at all others, one encountered types of honor and virtue, patriarchal and truly Christian existences, interiors which were sanctuaries. It will not do to judge the eighteenth century by the court and certain salons. Worthy people were still numerous, especially among the provincial nobility, the middle classes, and the people. In spite of Voltaire’s attacks, in spite of the building of that Tower of Babel called the Encyclopedia, Christianity continued to be what it had been for so many centuries: the soul of France. The attempts of the philosophers to create a morality independent of religion failed miserably, and all good minds recognized that the Voltairian school was leading the nation into ruin. The life of Marie Leczinska may be called the symbol of the religious and virtuous element. In the face of adultery, the pious sovereign had maintained the sacred rights of the family; in spite of his irregularities, Louis XV. would never have dared, like Louis XIV., to legitimate the children of his debaucheries and declare them eligible to the throne of France. The scandal was in the boudoir of the favorites, the edification by the hearth fire of the Queen.