A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Liancour, (Jane, Duchess de)
His daughter, who showed from her infancy the happiest disposition, was early accustomed to business. Her father acquainted her with his most important affairs, often made her read to him negociations and treaties; dictated dispatches to her, and sometimes desired her to make them, as an exercise.
She thus became accustomed to great affairs, and had a taste even for the most abstract sciences, which her extreme facility made a pleasure to teach her. She possessed also great facility in learning languages, and a talent for painting and poetry, which last she exerted only upon religious subjects.
At the age of twenty she married the duke de Liancour, who was only twenty-two. He was a dissipated young man; but sincerely loved and esteemed his wife, who made no other use of her power over him than to fix in his mind the principles of religion, which he held too lightly. They lived together fifty-four years, and the duke's levity during the first eighteen never made the least alteration in their affection for each other. She mourned in secret for his ill conduct; but her kindness never abated, and her patience, her good counsel, and her prayers, were at length heard, and a ray of wisdom beamed on the heart of her husband. Twice had he been attacked by infectious diseases, during which she assiduously attended him, not only ministering to his complaints, but exhorting and instructing upon the vanity and nothingness of this life, and the wisdom of living for eternity.
To draw him from the societies which perverted his principles, she beautified his country seat, so that it surpassed every thing then in France. She designed the gardens and buildings, and presided over them herself. She invited to it men of literature and agreeable talents, and by little and little enticed him from a court, where he had not strength of mind to live virtuously. They had but one son, who fell in battle, leaving an only daughter, over whose education Madame de Liancour watched with much solicitude. This young lady was sought in marriage for a nephew of cardinal Mazarine's; but she had been already promised to another, and her grandmother was resolute to refuse an offer which would again lead them into the great world. It was suggested to her, that in that sphere they might be of great use by the influence of example; but she answered, it was not for them to play the saint, but the penitent.
But in 1656, she lost her grand-daughter, and about the same time her brother, with whose widow she was obliged to have a law suit, of which she did not live to see the end; yet she contested with her as a friend, and always looked over the writings of her counsel, that nothing personally bitter or unpleasant might be introduced. Another time, a poor gentleman, who had a law suit against her, not having the means to be at Paris to carry it on, she gave him money for that purpose.
She suffered much indisposition, pain, and trouble, during the last years of her life, but she bore all with constancy and patience. She wished to be buried at Liancour, and went there fifteen days before her death on that account. She died 1674, and the duke survived her but six weeks.
They found amongst her papers, beside the writings mentioned above, Advice to her Grand-daughter, which is highly extolled for the piety and wisdom it discovers. This was printed at Paris, under the title of Réglement donné par une Dame de Haute Qualité à Mad.—, sa Petite-Fille, pour sa Conduite, et pour celle de sa Maison. The editor Boileau, canon of St. Honoré, at Paris, who was acquainted with Madame de Liancour, has added her life to it, and some rules for her own conduct, written by herself.
We will finish this article by a trait of her generosity. A servant who had robbed her, and afterwards in anger at being dismissed, had attempted to set fire to the house, being fallen into sickness and poverty, she sent him every assistance necessary without his knowing the hand it came from, till she considered that perhaps this knowledge might abate the hate he had conceived against her, and make him repent his fault.