1. On the methodology of the new history of education see Talbott, John E., “The History of Education,” Daedalus, C (1971), 133–50. Among recent studies which confront these issues with reference to male education are McConica, James K., “The Prosopography of the Tudor University,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, III (1973): 543–54; Hexter, J. H., “The Education of the Aristocracy in the Renaissance,” Reappraisals in History (New York, 1961), pp. 45–70; Jansen, Marius B. and Stone, Lawrence, “Education and Modernization in Japan and England,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, IX (1967): 208–32. Google Scholar

2. It is erroneous to say that Fénelon's innovation was the breadth of his curriculum. Thus, according to Kate Lupton the Treatise on the Education of Girls “has a decided historical interest, since it marks the beginning, in France at least, of a movement which resulted in giving to girls those intellectual advantages which had hitherto been denied them.” See “Introduction” to her translation of Fénelon, The Education of Girls (Boston, 1891), p. 3. To say this overlooks the powerful arguments for broad and deep female education formulated earlier in the seventeenth century by, among others, Jacques DuBosc, Madeleine de Scudéry, Marie de Gournay, François Poulain de la Barre, and Jacquette Guillaume. On Fénelon's precise innovation, see note 99 below.Google Scholar

3. François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, De l'Éducation des filles, ed. by Faguet, Emile (Paris, 1933), p. 18.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., p. 101.Google Scholar

5. Ibid., p. 18.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., p. 23. Elsewhere Fénelon wrote to a woman that if she did not go to court, “par là vous donnerez à vos affaires domestiques et aux exercices de piété tout ce que vous serez libre de leur donner.” “Instructions et avis sur divers points de la morale et de la perfection chrétienne,” in Fénelon, Oeuvres (Versailles, 35 vols 1820–30), XVIII, 204. Both Fénelon and Maintenon belong to the dévôt tradition. On the latter seventeenth-century dévôt campaign against polite society, see Chill, Emanuel S., “Tartuffe, Religion, and Courtly Culture,” French Historical Studies, III (1963), 151–83.Google Scholar

7. Although Fénelon's own political writings only began to appear in the 1680s, Fénelon's close associate and friend Claude Fleury had already formulated agrarian ideas against the mercantilist system of Colbert. On the links between Fleury and Fénelon see Rothkrug, Lionel, Opposition to Louis XIV: the political and social origins of the French Enlightenment (Princeton, 1965), ch. 5; Chérel, Albert, “L'Anti-Machiavélisme de Fénelon et la ‘conversion’ du Roi,” in Mélanges Albert Dufourcq: Etudes d'histoire religieuse (Paris, 1932); Goré, Jeanne Lydie, L'Itineraire de Fénelon: humanisme et spiritualité (Paris, 1957), pp. 252–56. For the similarity of Fleury's and Fénelon's ideas on the education of girls see Fleury's Traité du choix des études. On the consistency of Fénelon's thought over decades see Mousnier, Roland, “Les Idées politiques de Fénelon,” XVIIe siècle, no. 12 (1951): 190–206. Google Scholar

8. Rothkrug, p. 175. A recent study which relates Fénelon's vision of social reform to palace politics is Kanter, Sanford B., “Archbishop Fénelon's Political Activity: the Focal Point of Power in Dynasticism,” French Historical Studies, IV (1965–66): 320–34.Google Scholar

9. Agnès de la Gorce hints at the link between Fénelon's pedagogy and his sociopolitical views without developing its implications in Le Vrai visage de Fénelon (Paris, 1958), pp. 80–86, 42–47. Attention has focused on the pedagogy of the éducation attrayante: the gentle childrearing methods which rest upon the belief that the child is born potentially good, that studies should be pleasurable as well as adapted to the individual character and temperament of the pupil. See, for example, Chérel, Albert, Fénelon au XVIIIe siècle en France (1715–1820): son prestige, son influence (Paris, 1917); Compayré, Gabriel Fénelon et l'éducation attrayante (Paris, 1910); Daniélou, Madeleine, “Fénelon éducateur,” XVIIe siècle, No. 12 (1951): 181–189. Geo. Snyders, however, denies Fénelon's originality on this point, arguing that Fénelon had no more real confidence in the child than any of his contemporaries; see Pédagogie en France: XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1965), pp. 154–59. Google Scholar

10. Fénelon, , “Examen de conscience sur les devoirs de la royauté,” in Oeuvres ed. by Martin, Aimé (Paris, 3 vols., 1882), III, 337. Fénelon also expressed this view in his Dialogue des morts, ch. LXIV. In a dialogue between Louis XII (whom Fénelon revered) and François I, François boasted of the grandeur of his reign, especially his court. “J'y ai mis la magnificence, la politesse, l'érudition et la galanterie: avant moi tout était grossier, ignorant, gaulois. Enfin je me suis fait nommer le père des lettres.” To this Louis XII replied: “j'aimerois encore mieux que vous eussiez été le père du peuple que le père des lettres,” and proceeded to accuse François of bleeding the people to provide magnificence for his court, attacking especially the role of women in the court: “je parie que vos maîtresses y ont eu une plus grande part que les meilleurs officiers d'armée.” Google Scholar

11. Ibid. Google Scholar

12. Ibid. Google Scholar

13. Fénelon, , “Lettre à Louis XIV,” in Urbain, Ch., ed., Ecrits et lettres politiques de Fénelon (Paris, 1920), passim. For a review of the debate over the authenticity of Fénelon's letter to Louis XIV see Chas. Read, , “Vauban, Fénelon, et le due de Chevreuse sur la tolérance et le rappel des Huguenots,” Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire du protestantisme français, XXXIX, 113–28. Google Scholar

14. See Fénelon, , “Lettre au duc de Chevreuse, 3 août 1710” in Oeuvres, ed. by Martin, , III, 646–49 and “Plans de gouvernement concertés avec le due de Chevreuse, pour être proposés au due de Bourgogne,” in Oeuvres, ed. by Martin, , III, 430–36. Google Scholar

15. For a discussion of contemporary usage of the term “la cour et la ville“ and the social fusion underlying it see Auerbach, Erich, “La Cour et la ville,” in Vier Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der französischen Bildung (Bern, 1951), pp. 12–50.Google Scholar

16. p. 144, 149. In his famous letter to Maintenon in which he outlined the good influence she could have on the king, Fénelon stressed among the principal reforms the diminution of the luxury of the court. See Oeuvres complètes de Fénelon, ed. by Gosselin, J. E. A. (Paris, 10 vols., 1848–52), VIII, 483–87, no. 40.Google Scholar

17. Télémaque, Book XVII.Google Scholar

18. Fénelon, , “Examen de conscience,” III, 436. Fénelon was a leading opponent of the view that France would profit from the development of luxury manufactures. See Rothkrug, ch. 5.Google Scholar

19. Fénelon, , “Avis à une dame de qualité sur l'éducation de sa fille,” in De l'Edution des filles, ed. by Faguet, , p. 134. Fénelon believed French society was being increasingly bifurcated horizontally into rich and poor with increasing pauperization and a growing distance between the upper and lower strata of society. On the expression of these ideas in the seventeenth century see Bendix, Reinhard, “Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, IX (1967), 292–346. Fénelon's paternalism included his desire to teach his girls “compassion [pour] les misères affreuses des pauvres” (“Avis,” p. 134) and was an attempt to reassert vertical links through the social strata, to revive both the old alliance between the greater and lesser nobility independent of the king and the paternalist link between seigneur and peasant. Google Scholar

20. “Avis,” p. 133.Google Scholar

21. See Ford, Franklin L., Robe and Sword: The Regrouping of the French Aristocracy after Louis XIV (Cambridge, 1953), pp. 222–29; Doyle, William, “Was there an Aristocratic Reaction in Pre-Revolutionary France?”, Past and Present, no. 57 (1972), 97–122. Google Scholar

22. Fénelon, , “De la Monarchic modérée par 1'aristocratie,” in Oeuvres, ed. by Martin, , III, 384.Google Scholar

23. Ibid., III, 385.Google Scholar

24. Fénelon, , “Examen de conscience,” III, 351.Google Scholar

25. Fénelon, , “Plans de gouvernement,” III, 430–36.Google Scholar

26. “Examen de conscience,” III, 338.Google Scholar

27. pp. 96–97.Google Scholar

28. p. 118.Google Scholar

29. Ibid. Google Scholar

30. p. 100.Google Scholar

31. p. 104: “La force et le bonheur d'un Etat consistent, non à avoir beaucoup de provinces mal cultivées, mais à tirer de la terre qu'on possède tout ce qu'il faut pour nourrir aisément un peuple nombreux.” Fénelon does not discuss population issues with reference to women in De l'Education des filles, although his stress on the family role of women was certainly compatible with his belief in the importance of large population as the basis of national prosperity. See Télémaque, Book XIV; Spengler, Joseph John, French Predecessors of Malthus: A Study in eighteenth-century wage and population theory (Durham, N.C., 1942), pp. 29–31. On the other hand, large families created a problem for French nobles. See Meyer, Jean, “Un Problème mal posé: la noblesse pauvre,” Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, XVIII (1971): 175–84. Google Scholar

32. “Lettre à Louis XIV,” p. 149; Télémaque, Books X and XIV.Google Scholar

33. See Rothkrug, , ch. 5.Google Scholar

34. p. 149.Google Scholar

35. Fénelon, , De l'Education des filles, p. 113. An early draft of De l'Education des filles offers a longer portrait of the ideal woman which appears in abridged form in the published treatise and shows how a hard-working wife insures there will be “toujours l'abondance dans la maison.” See Fénelon, Oeuvres, Versailles edition, XVII, xiv, 113–115. For a second portrait of Fénelon's ideal woman, see Antiope in Télémaque, Book XVII. Fénelon assumed, of course, that the household constituted a unit of production as well as consumption. Ironically he wrote at a time when this was increasingly untrue and the French law increasingly limited women's rights to function in the manner Fénelon prescribed. See Brissaud, Jean, A History of French Private Law (Paris, 1912); Timbal, P. C., “L'Esprit du droit privé au 17e siècle,” XVIIe siècle, no. 58–59 (1963), 30–39. Google Scholar

36. Ibid., p. 102.Google Scholar

37. Ibid., p. 104. In his Dialogues des morts, ch. XLV, the dialogue between Caesar and Pompey cites the corruption of women as one vehicle of tyranny: “corrompre toutes les femmes pour entrer dans le secret le plus intime de toutes les families.” Fénelon's preference for republican Rome contrasts with the imperial Roman tradition used to glorify the Versailles court. See Ranum, Orest, “The Court and Capital of Louis XIV: Some Definitions and Reflections,” in Rule, John C., ed., Louis XIV and the Craft of Kingship (Columbus, O., 1969), pp. 265–85.Google Scholar

38. Ibid. Google Scholar

39. Ibid., p. 103.Google Scholar

40. Ibid., p. 118. Elsewhere Fénelon expressed the most severe form of the work ethic: “depuis les premiers instances de notre être jusqu'au dernier moment de notre vie Dieu n'a point pretendu nous laisser de temps vide et qu'on puisse dire qu'il ait abandonné à notre discretion, ni pour le perdre.” (“Instructions et avis,” XVIII, 194).Google Scholar

41. Ibid., p. 126.Google Scholar

42. Fénelon, , “Examen de conscience,” III, 346.Google Scholar

43. Fénelon, , “Lettre spirituelle #34: Dangers de la mollesse et de l'amusement. Regles de conduite pour les combattre et les surmonter,” in Oeuvres, ed. by Martin, , I, 467.Google Scholar

44. Fénelon, , De l'Education des filles, p. 19.Google Scholar

45. Emile Faguet's introduction to his edition of Fénelon, , De l'Education des filles, p. viii.Google Scholar

46. Fénelon, , De l'Education des filles, p. 18.Google Scholar

47. Fénelon, , “Avis,” p. 132.Google Scholar

48. Fénelon, , “Du Sacrement du marriage: Exhortation aux nouveaux mariés,” in Oeuvres, ed. by Martin, , I, 93. Google Scholar

49. See Lavallée, Théophile, Madame de Maintenon et la maison royale de Saint-Cyr (1686–1793) (Paris, 1862), pp. 128–29; Cognet, L., Crépuscle des mystiques (Tournai, 1958), p. 136. Google Scholar

50. See the writings “attributable” to Fénelon in Langlois, Marcel, ed., Fénelon. Pages nouvelles pour servir à l'étude des origines du Quiétisme avant 1694 (Paris, 1934), especially Maintenon's letters testifying to Fénelon's influence at Saint-Cyr, pp. 147–60. For an exact chronology of Maintenon-Fénelon relations as seen through their correspondence see Langlois, Marcel, “Les ‘petits livres secrets’ de madame de Maintenon,” Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, XXXV (1928): 359–65; Masson, M., “La correspondance spirituelle de Fénelon avec Madame de Maintenon,” Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, XIII (1906): 51–72. Google Scholar

51. On Maintenon's actual political role see Baudrillart, Alfred, “Madame de Maintenon: son role politique pendant les dernières années du règne de Louis XIV, 1700–1715,” Revue des questions historiques, XLVII (1890): 101–61.Google Scholar

52. See Oeuvres complètes de Fénelon, ed. by Gosselin, , VIII, 483–87, no. 40.Google Scholar

53. On Maintenon's complicity see Rothkrug, p. 269; Griselle, Eugène, “Bibliographic de Fénelon,” Revue Fénelon, III (1912), no. 3: 181–82; Lavallée, Théophile, ed., Correspondance générale de Madame de Maintenon (Paris, 4 vols; 1865–66), IV: 45,54. Google Scholar

54. For a resumé of this controversy, see Cordelier, Jean, Madame de Maintenon: une femme du grand siècle (Paris, 1955), pp. 383–437.Google Scholar

55. Maintenon, , “A la classe jaune,” quoted in Snyders, p. 161.Google Scholar

56. See “Constitutions de la communauté de St. Louis établie à St. Cyr par Me de Maintenon,” Bibliothèque Nationale, Fonds François, nouvelle acquisition, MS 10677, pp. 58–59; “il faut leur aprendre les devoirs d'une honnête femme dans son ménage à l'égard de son mary de ses enfans et de ses domestiques.” See also Recueil des instructions que Madame de Maintenon a données aux demoiselles de Saint-Cyr. D'après un manuscrit original et inédit appartenant à la comtesse de Grammont d'Aster (Paris, 1908), pp. 31–32, in which she says their role was conservation and augmentation of family funds.Google Scholar

57. “Conversations and Instructions of Madame de Maintenon at Saint-Cyr,” quoted in The Correspondence of Madame, Princess Palatine, Mother of the Regent; Marie-Adelaide de Savoie, Duchesse de Bourgogne; and of Madame de Maintenon, in relation to Saint-Cyr, trans, by Wormeley, Katharine Prescott (London, 1899), p. 283.Google Scholar

58. Maintenon, , quoted in [Paul] Duc de Noailles, Saint-Cyr: Histoire de la Maison Royale de Saint-Louis établie à Saint-Cyr pour l'éducation des demoiselles nobles du Royaume (Paris, 1843), p. 78.Google Scholar

59. de Maintenon, Madame, Lettres historiques et édifiantes adressées aux dames de Saint-Louis (Paris, 2 vols., 1856), I, p. 70.Google Scholar

60. Maintenon quoted in Lavallée, Théophile, Histoire de la maison royale de Saint-Cyr (1686–1795) (Paris, 1856), pp. 332–33.Google Scholar

61. L'Esprit de l'Institut des filles de saint Louis (Paris, 1699), p. 22.Google Scholar

62. de Maintenon, Madame, Lettres et entretiens sur l'éducation des filles, ed. by Lavallée, Théophile (Paris, 2 vols., 1861), I, p. 64.Google Scholar

63. “Maximes p. la conduite de la M. de St-Cyr, par Mme de Maintenon,” (1690), Bibliothèque Nationale, Fonds Français, nouvelle acquisition, MS 11646, p. 93.Google Scholar

64. Lettres historiques et édifiantes, I, p. 70.Google Scholar

65. Ibid., I, pp. 12–13, 176.Google Scholar

66. Maintenon, , “Sur le bon esprit entre huit demoiselles,” MS 10677, pp. 46–48. See also Maintenon's “Conversation sur l'amour propre entre cinq demoiselles,” MS 10677, pp. 48–52. In Fénelon's writings the denigration of gloire for duty was a recurring theme; salvation came not from extraordinary actions but from fulfilling the ordinary duties of one's station. See “Instructions et avis,” XVIII, p. 206.Google Scholar

67. Quoted by Souvenirs d'une Bleue élève à Saint-Cyr: Marguerite-Victoire de la Maisonfort à Geneviève de Colombe (October 1688-Février 1691) (Paris, 1897), p. 304.Google Scholar

68. Ibid. Google Scholar

69. Maintenon, , quoted in Lavallée, Histoire, p. 101.Google Scholar

70. Maintenon, , “Lettres aux dames de Saint Cyr,” MS 11646, p. 18. Langlois attributed this quotation to Fénelon, see Pages nouvelles, p. 196.Google Scholar

71. Fénelon inédit: un projet de communauté, ed. by Griselle, Eugène (n.p., n.d.), p. 12. Maintenon echoed this statement nearly verbatim in her letter to Madame de la Viefville, 20 December 1705; see Maintenon, , Lettres et entretiens, II, 127. Likewise, in his “Sermon sur les avantages et les devoirs de la vie religieuse” delivered at Saint-Cyr 1 March 1692 Fénelon counseled the teachers to limit their pupils' reading: “car les femmes n'ont pas moins de penchant à être vaines par leur esprit que par leurs corps. Souvent les lectures qu'elles font, avec tant d'empressement, se tournent en parures vaines et en ajustements immodestes de leur esprit; souvent elles lisent, par vanité, comme elles se coiffent. Il faut faire de l'esprit comme du corps; tout superflu doit être retranché; tout doit sentir la simplicité et l'oubli de soi-même. Oh, quel amusement pernicieux, dans qu'on appelle lectures les plus solides? On veut tout savoir, juger de tout, se faire valoir sur tout. Rien ne ramène tant le monde vain et faux dans les solitudes, que cette vaine curiosité des livres.” (Pages nouvelles, p. 240) See also Esprit, pp. 33ff. Google Scholar

72. Maintenon, , Lettres historiques et édifiantes, I, pp. 388–94.Google Scholar

73. Ibid., I, 392.Google Scholar

74. Ibid., I, 213.Google Scholar

75. “Edit d'établissement de la Communauté de Saint-Louis établie à Saint-Cyr,” MS 10677, p. 70.Google Scholar

76. Quoted in Lavallée, , Maintenon et Saint-Cyr, p. 81.Google Scholar

77. “Avis … à une demoiselle qui sortit de Saint-Cyr,” in Lavallée, , Histoire, pp. 334–35.Google Scholar

78. MS 10677, p. 70.Google Scholar

79. “Preuves de noblesse des demoiselles reçues dans la maison de St-Louis à St. Cir. par Charles et Louis-Pierre d'Hozier, 1685–1766,” Bibliothèque Nationale, Fonds Français, MS 32118–36.Google Scholar

80. de Caylus, Madame, Souvenirs, ed. by Noel, Bernard (Paris, 1965), p. 92: “je l'ai vue toujours choquée de ce qu'excepté certains grands noms, on confondoit trop à la cour la noblesse avec la bourgeoisie.” Google Scholar

81. On the importance of identical distinctions in later aristocratic reform movements see Bien, David D., “La Réaction aristocratique avant 1789: l'exemple de l'armée,” Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations (forthcoming, 1974); Lucas, Colin, “Nobles, Bourgeois and the Origins of the French Revolution,” Past and Present, no. 60 (August 1973): 84–126. CrossRefGoogle Scholar

82. “Lettre patent du roi, portant reglement pour la maison et communauté de s. Louis à saint Cyr. 3 mars 1694,” Bibliothèque Nationale, Fonds Français, MS 22290, fol. 10.Google Scholar

83. Among others, Tessereau, Abraham, Histoire chronologique de la grande chancellerie de France (Paris, 2 vols., 1710); [Nicolas Viton de] Saint-Allais, , Nobiliaire universel de France, ou Recueil general des généalogies historiques des maisons nobles de ce royaume (Paris, 21 vols., 1872–75); de la Chesnaye des Bois, François-Alexandre Aubert, Dictionnaire de la noblesse (Paris, 2d ed., 15 vols., 1770–78); Hozier, Louis-Pierre and de Sérigny, d'Hozier, Armorial général, ou Régistres de la noblesse de France (Paris, 10 vols., 1738–68); de Genouillac, Henri Gourdon, Dictionnaire des anoblis: 1270–1868 (Paris, 1875); de Genouillac, Gourdon, Dictionnaire des fiefs, seigneuries, chatellenies, etc. de l'ancienne France, contenant les noms des terres et ceux des families qui les ont possédées, leur situation provinciale, les dates de possession, de transmission ou d'érection en terres titrées, etc. (Paris, 1862); Griselle, Eugene, Etat de la Maison du Roi Louis XIII, de celles de sa mère, Marie de Médicis; des ses soeurs, Chrestienne, Elisabeth et Henriette de France; de son frère, Gaston d'Orléans, comprenant les années 1601 à 1665 (Paris, 1912); Bluche, François, Les Magistrats du Parlement de Paris au XVIIIe siècle, 1715–1771 (Paris, 1960); Bluche, , L'Origine des magistrats du Parlement de Paris au XVIIIe siècle (1715–1771): Dictionnaire généalogique (Paris, 1956). Google Scholar

84. See Table 1.Google Scholar

85. “Tarif contenant la distribution des classes et le règlement des taxes de la capitation générale, avec les trois suppléments des 12 et 26 février 1695 et 31 janvier 1696, distribés chacun à leur classe,” in Boislisle, A.M. and Depping, G.B., eds., Correspondance des contrôleurs généraux des finances, avec les intendants desprovinces, 1683–1715 (Paris, 3 vols., 1874–97), I, pp. 568–74.Google Scholar

86. See Table 1. For the similar profile of the provincial cohort of girls from Auvergne who entered Saint-Cyr during the reign of Louis XIV, see Table 3. The information for this paper concerns only the fathers of the Saint-Cyr girls. A major concern, however, of the ongoing study of which this paper is a part is the intergenerational mobility pattern of these families since 1500. Suggestive in this regard is the fact that while none of the fathers of the 35 Auvergne girls held high military or court offices, the fourth generation paternal ancestor in sixteen cases (46 percent) held either high military office (colonel, maréchal de camp) or court office in the royal households (five were gentilshommes de la chambre du Roi).Google Scholar

87. Meyer, Jean, “Un Problème mal posé.” Google Scholar

88. See Table 2. Yet, suggestive of the not insubstantial character of the families is the fact that no fewer than 13 (9 percent) of the girls in the inaugural class had a brother, first cousin, or uncle who was a general officer in the army.Google Scholar

89. de Maintenon, Madame, Lettres sur l'éducation des filles, ed. by Lavallée, Théophile (Paris, 1854), p. 357.Google Scholar

90. Ibid. Google Scholar

91. Ibid., p. 314.Google Scholar

92. See Maintenon, , “Discours sur l'éducation” (1686), MS 11646, p. 70.Google Scholar

93. d'Aubigné, Théodore Agrippa, “A mes filles, touchant les femmes doctes de nostre siècle,” in Oeuvres complètes, ed. by Réaume, Eug. and de Caussade, F. (Paris, 6 vols., 1873–92), I, p. 449.Google Scholar

94. MS 11646, p. 92.Google Scholar

95. Fénelon, , “Entretien sur les avantages et les devoirs de la vie religieuse,” in Langlois, , ed., Pages nouvelles, p. 211. Quoted by Maintenon in “Avis aux maîtresses des classes,” MS 11646, p. 34.Google Scholar

96. See, for example, Sombart, Werner, Le Bourgeois: contribution à l'histoire morale et intellectuelle de l'homme économique moderne (Paris, 1926), p. 133; Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In contrast, the portrait of the provincial noble painted by Robert Forster confirms the practical basis for indoctrination of nobles with “bourgeois” values; see Forster, Robert, “The Provincial Noble: A Reappraisal,” American Historical Review, LXVIII (1962–63): 681–91. Google Scholar

97. Faguet, , p. viii.Google Scholar

98. Daniélou, Madeleine, Madame de Maintenon, éducatrice (Paris, 1946), pp. 11, 17. Dantélou posited a contrast between Fénelon's aristocratic curriculum and Maintenon's bourgeois precepts to support her contention that Fénelon had little to do with Saint-Cyr (p. 117).Google Scholar

99. The related question of Fénelon's precise innovation in educational theory is also important. The duties he ascribed to women were in one sense thoroughly traditional: medieval French noble women filled important roles in estate management. See Power, Eileen, “The Position of Women,” in Crump, C.G. and Jacob, E.F., eds., The Legacy of the Middle Ages (New York, 1926), pp. 403–44; Herlihy, David, “Land, Family and Women in Continental Europe, 701–1200,” Traditio, XVIII (1962): 89–120. Christine de Pizan, too, assigned women a broad role in estate management and insisted that they be educated for that role. Fénelon's innovation was the reassertion of this traditional outlook against the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century development of polite society which pulled women out of their domestic roles. Fénelon thus forms a link between medieval social practice and the modern ethic of domesticity. Google Scholar

100. Noailles, , Saint-Cyr, pp. 201–2; Pouliot, M., Une Succursale de Saint-Cyr à Poitiers au XVIIie siècle (Poitiers, 1920). Google Scholar

101. Quoted in Léonard, Émile, “La Question sociale dans l'armée française au XVIIIe siècle,” Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations, III (1948): 148.Google Scholar

102. See Chérel, Albert, Fénelon au XVIIIe siècle, pp. 314–21, 393–400, 471–74, 568–74.Google Scholar