Chapter IV (1)

I. The Regency--The Romance of Anne of Austria and
Mazarin--Gaston's Second Wife.--II. Mademoiselle's New Marriage
Projects.--III. Mademoiselle Would Be a Carmelite Nun--The Catholic
Renaissance under Louis XIII. and the Regency.--IV. Women Enter
Politics. The Rivalry of the Two Junior Branches of the House of
France--Continuation of the Royal Romance.

I

The day after the death of Louis XIII. Paris was in a tumult. The people were on duty, awaiting their young King, Louis XIV., a boy less than five years old.

The country had been notified that the King would enter Paris by the Chemin du Roule and the Faubourg Saint Honoré. Some of the people had massed in the streets through which the procession was to pass; the others were hurrying forward toward the bridge of Neuilly. "Never did so many coaches and so many people come out of Paris," said Olivier d'Ormesson, who, with his family, spent the day at a window in the Faubourg Saint Honoré, watching to see who would follow and who would not follow in the train of Anne of Austria.

Ormesson and his friends were close observers, who drew conclusions from the general behaviour; they believed that they could read the fate of the country in the faces of the courtiers. France hoped that the Queen would give the nation the change of government which had been vainly looked for when Richelieu died.

Anne of Austria was a determined, self-contained woman, an enigma to the world. No one could read her thoughts, but the courtiers were sure of one thing: she would have no prime minister. She had suffered too deeply from the tyranny of Richelieu. She would keep her hands free! There was enough in that thought to assure to the Queen the sympathy of the people, and to arouse all the ambitious hopes of the nobility.

The Parisian flood met the royal cortège at Nanterre and, turning, accompanied it and hindered its progress. "From Nanterre to the gates of the city the country was full of wains and chariots," wrote Mme. de Motteville, "and nothing was heard but plaudits and benedictions." When the royal mourners surrounded by the multitude entered the Chemin du Roule the first official address was delivered by the Provost of the Merchants. The Regent answered briefly that she should instruct her son "in the benevolence which he ought to show to his subjects."[87] The applause was deafening. The cortège advanced so slowly that it was six o'clock in the evening when Anne of Austria ascended the staircase of the Louvre, saying that she could endure no more, and that she must defer the reception of condolences until the following day.

Saturday, the 16th, was devoted to hearing addresses and to receiving manifestations of reverence. The following Monday the Queen led her son to Parliament, where, contrary to the intention expressed in the last will and testament of Louis XIII., she, Anne of Austria, was declared Regent "with full, entire, and absolute authority."

The evening of that memorable day a radiant throng filled the stifling apartments of the Louvre. The great considered themselves masters of France. Some of the courtiers were gossiping in a corner; all were happy. Suddenly a rumour, first whispered, then spoken aloud, ran through the rooms, _Mazarin had been made Chief of Council! The Queen had appointed him immediately after she returned to her palace from Parliament!_

The courtiers exchanged significant glances. Some were astounded, others found it difficult to repress their smiles. The great had helped Anne of Austria to seize authority because they had supposed that she would be incapable of using it. Now that it was too late for them to protect themselves she had come forth with the energy and the initiative of a strong woman. In reality, though possessed of reticence, she was a weak woman, acting under a strong influence, but that fact was not evident.

The Queen-mother was forty-one years old. Her hair was beautiful; her eyes were beautiful; she had beautiful hands, a majestic mien, and natural wit. Her education had been as summary as Mademoiselle's; she knew how to read and how to write. She had never opened a book; when she first appeared in Council she was a miracle of ignorance. She had always been conversant with the politics of France because her natural love of intrigue had taught her many things concerning many people. She had learned the lessons of life and the world from the plays presented at the theatre, and from the witty and erudite frequenters of the salons. She was enamoured of intellect, she delighted in eloquence, she was a serious woman and a devoted mother. While Louis XIII. lived she was considered amiable and indulgent to the failings of "low people," because her indifference made her appear complaisant. As soon as she assumed the Regency her manner changed and her real nature came to the surface. She astonished her deputies by the breathless resistance which she opposed to any hint of a suggestion adverse to her mandates. After the royal scream first startled Parliament there was hardly a man of the French State who did not shrink at sight of the Regent's fair flushed face and the determined glitter of her eye. Anne of Austria was acting under guidance; the delicate hand of the woman lay under the firm hand of a master, and her lover's will, not the judgment of the deputies, was her law.

The people had received false impressions of the character of the Queen; some had judged her too favourably (Mme. de Motteville considered her beautiful); others--Retz among them--failed to do her justice.

Anne of Austria was neither a stupid woman nor a great Queen, although she was called both "great" and "foolish." She was born a Spaniard, and in thought and in feeling she was a Spaniard to the end of her life. Like all her race, she was imaginative; she indulged in dreams and erected altars to her ideals. Her life had betrayed her illusions, therefore she longed for vengeance; and as she was romantic, her vengeance took a sentimental form. A study of her nature, as furnished by the histories of her early years, makes her after-life and her administration of the Regency comprehensible. Despite the latitude of her morals she exhibited piety so detailed and so persistent that the Parisians were displeased; one of her friends commented upon it sharply. "She partakes of the communion too often, she reveres the relics of the saints, she is devoted to the Virgin, and she offers the presents and the novenas which the devout consider effectual when they are trying to obtain favours from Heaven." This from a Parisian was critical judgment.

As the Queen was born to rule, she could not comprehend any form of government but absolute monarchy. Her Parliament was shocked when she interrupted its Councils by shrill screams of "_Taisez-vous!_" But her behaviour was consistent; she believed that she expressed the authority of her son's kingship when she raised her high falsetto and shouted to her deputies to hold their tongues.

The new Minister, Mazarin, was of Sicilian origin, and forty years of age. In Paris, where he had officiated two years (1634-1636), as Papal Nuncio, he was known by his original Italian name, Mazarini. When he was first seen at Court he entered without ceremony and installed himself with the natural ease of an habitué returned after a forced absence. No one knew by what right he made himself at home. Richelieu profited by his versatility and made use of him in various ways. Mazarin was gifted with artistic taste, and he wielded a fluent pen. His appointment as representative of the Holy See had proved his capacity and blameless character. Paris knew that Richelieu had written to him from his death-bed: "I give my book into your hands with the approbation of our good Master, so that you may conduct it to perfection."

Almost immediately after de Richelieu breathed his last the King called Mazarin to the palace, where he remained hard at work as long as the King lived. He had no special duties, but he lived close to the royal invalid, did everything that de Richelieu had done, and made himself in every way indispensable. To the wounds of the tired spirit whose peace the scorching splendour of the great Cardinal had withered the calm presence of the lesser Cardinal was balm. Mazarin employed his leisure as he saw fit; how he employed it the world knew later. He was seldom seen either in the palace or out of it. When Louis XIII. died and the people, little and great, thronged the streets and the highways and flocked to Parliament to witness the establishment of the Regent, Mazarin was not in evidence. When the Provost's address and the other addresses were read, and when the people welcomed their young King, Mazarin was not seen, and as he was not at the funeral of the King, and as no one had heard from him since the King's death, it was believed that he had returned to his own country.

Prominent Parisians who knew everything and every one had formed no opinion of Mazarin's character or of his personal appearance. He had been Nuncio; that was all that they knew of him. Olivier d'Ormesson, who went everywhere, knew every one of any importance in Paris, yet when Mazarin had been Prime Minister six months, d'Ormesson spoke of him as if he had seen him but once. In d'Ormesson's _Journal_ we read:

Saturday morning, 4 November (1643). M. le Cardinal, Mazarin, came
to the Council to-day. He was late. The Chancellor had been waiting
for him half an hour. Cardinal Mazarin took his place as Chief
of Council and was the first to sign the resolutions; he wrote:
Cardinal _Massarini_. At first, as he knew neither the order of
the Court nor the names of the members, he was somewhat confused.
Judging by appearances he knows nothing of financial affairs. He
is tall, he carries himself well, he is handsome. His eyes are
clear and spiritual, the colour of his hair is chestnut brown;
the expression of his face is very gentle and sweet. Monsieur the
Chancellor instructed him in the Parliamentary procedure and then
every one addressed him directly and before they addressed any one
else....

The new Chief of Council was as modest as the unobtrusive Cardinal who assumed the duties of the great de Richelieu. Mazarin found better employment for his talents than the exhibition of his pomp. His design was to render his position impregnable, and we know what means he selected for its achievement. In his pocket diary (which the National Library preserves) he employed three languages, French, Spanish, and Italian. Whenever the Queen is mentioned the language is Spanish. The ingenuous frankness with which the writer of the strange notes recorded his intentions enables us to follow him step by step through all the labyrinths of his relations with royalty. His reflections make it clear that his aim was the Queen's heart: in the record dated August, 1634, we read: "If I could believe what they tell me--that her Majesty is making use of me because she needs my services, and that she has no inclination for me,--I would not stay here three days."

Apropos of his enemies he wrote: "Well, they are laying their heads together and planning a thousand intrigues to lessen my chances with her Majesty."

(The Queen's friends had warned her that her Minister would compromise her.)

"The Abbess of the Carmelites has been talking to her Majesty. When she talked the Queen wept. She told the Abbess that in case the subject should be mentioned again she would not visit the convent."

Mazarin's diary conveys the impression that the man who edited it so carefully feared that he might forget something that he wished to say to the Queen. He made a note of everything that he meant to advise her to do, and of all the appeals and all the observations that he intended to make.

Following is a very simple reminder of words to be used when next he should see the Queen alone.

They tell me that her Majesty is forced to make excuses for her
manifestations of regard for me.... This is such a delicate subject
that her Majesty ought to pity me ... ought to take compassion
on me, even if I speak of it often ... I have no right to doubt,
since, in the excess of her kindness, her Majesty has assured me
that nothing can ever lower me from the place in her favour which
she has deigned to give me ... but in spite of everything because
Fear is the inseparable attendant of Love ... etc.

The "memorandum" which follows this last note gave proof of the speed of his wooing, and of his progress: "The jaundice caused by an excessive love...."

That Mazarin felt that he was strong was shown by the fact that he made suggestions to the Queen and offered her advice of a peculiarly intimate character. The note which follows covers the ground of one of the lines of argument used by him for the subjection of his royal lady and mistress:

"Her Majesty ought to apply herself to the winning over of all hearts to my cause; she should do so by making me the agent from whose hand they receive all the favours that she grants them."

After Anne of Austria qualified the Cardinal by the exequatur of her love, Mazarin dictated the language of the State. In his diary we find, verbatim, the diplomatic addresses and suggestions which were to be delivered by the Queen.

While the Queen's lover was engaged in maintaining his position against determined efforts to displace him, France enjoyed a few delightful moments. The long-continued anxiety had passed, the tension of the nation's nerves had yielded to the beneficent treatment of the conscientious counsellors, and the peaceful quiet of a temporary calm gave hope to the light-minded and strength and courage to the far-sighted, who foresaw the coming storm. To the majority of the people the resplendent victory of Rocroy (19th May, 1643), which immediately followed the death of Louis XIII., seemed a proof that God had laid His protecting hand upon the infant King and upon his mother.

This belief was daily strengthened. War had been carried to a foreign country, and the testimony of French supremacy had come back from many a battle-field. In the eyes of the world we occupied a brilliant position. Success had followed success in our triumphant march from Rocroy to the Westphalian treaties. Our diplomacy had equalled our military strategy and the strength of our arms; and a part of our glory had been the result of the efforts of the Prime Minister who ruled our armies and the nation. In the opinion of our foreign enemies Mazarin had fully justified Richelieu's confidence and the choice of Anne of Austria.

His selection of agents had shown that he was in possession of all his senses; he had divined the value of the Duc d'Enghien and appointed him General-in-chief, though the boy was but twenty-two years old; he had sounded the character of Turenne; he had judiciously listed the names of the men to be appointed for the diplomatic missions, and he had proved that he knew the strength of France by ordering the ministers to hold their ground, to "stand firm," and not to concern themselves either with the objections or the resistance of other nations. The majority of the French people failed to recognise Cardinal Mazarin's services until the proper time for their recognition had passed, but Retz distinctly stated that Mazarin was popular in Paris during the first months of his ministry:

France saw a gentle and benignant Being sitting on the steps of
the throne where the harsh and redoubtable Richelieu had blasted,
rather than governed men. The harassed country rejoiced in its new
leader,[88] who had no personal wishes and whose only regret was
that the dignity of his episcopal office forbade him to humiliate
himself before the world as he would have been glad to do. He
passed through the streets with little lackeys perched behind his
carriage; his audiences were unceremonious, access to his presence
was absolutely free, and people dined with him as if he had been a
private person.

The arrest of the Duc de Beaufort and the dispersion of the Importants astonished the people, but did not affright them. Hope was the anchor of the National Soul. They who had formed the party of Marie de Médicis and the party of Anne of Austria hoped to bring about the success of their former projects, and to enforce peace everywhere; they hoped to substitute a Spanish alliance for the Protestant alliance. The great families hoped to regain their authority at the expense of the authority of the King. Parliament hoped to play a great political part. The people hoped for peace; they had been told that the Queen had taken a Minister solely for the purpose of making peace. The entire Court from the first Prince of the Blood to the last of the lackeys lived in hope of some grace or some favour, and as to that they were rarely disappointed, for the Administration "refused nothing." Honours, dignities, positions, and money were freely dispensed, not only to those who needed them, but to those who were already provided with them. La Feuillade said that there were but four words in the French language: "_The Queen is good!_"

So many cases of private and individual happiness gave the impression of public and general happiness. Paris expressed its satisfaction by entering heart and soul into its amusements. It played by day and it played by night, exhibiting the extraordinary appetite for pleasure which has always distinguished it.

"All, both the little and the great, are happy," said Saint Evremond; "the very air they breathe is charged with amusement and with love." Mademoiselle preserved a grateful memory of that period of joyous intoxication. "The first months of the Regency," she said in her memoirs, "were the most beautiful that one could have wished. It was nothing but perpetual rejoicing everywhere. Hardly a day passed that there were not serenades at the Tuileries or in the place Royale."

The mourning for the late King hindered no one, not even the King's widow, who passed her evenings in Renard's garden,[89] where she frequently supped with her friends. Though the return of winter drove the people from the public walks, the universal amusements went on. "They danced everywhere," said Mademoiselle, "and especially at my house, although it was not at all according to decorum to hear violins in a room draped with mourning." We note here that at the time Mademoiselle wrote thus she was regarded as a victim. It was rumoured in Paris that her liberty and her pleasures were restricted, and the indignation of the people seethed at thought of it. Mademoiselle had lost her indulgent friend and governess, Mme. de Saint Georges. Her new governess, Mme. de Fiésque, a woman of firm will who looked with disfavour upon her pupil's untrammelled ways, made attempts to discipline her. When Mme. de Fiésque exerted her authority the canaille formed groups and threatened the palace of the Tuileries. Mademoiselle was sixteen years old and the whole world knew it. The people thought, as she thought, that she was too old to be imprisoned like a child. She was quick to avenge her outraged dignity; the governess was headstrong. Slap answered slap and, after the combat, Mademoiselle was under lock and key six days.

But all that was forgotten.

Mademoiselle had in mind something more important than her childish punishment. The death of Louis XIII. had enabled Gaston to send for his wife. The Regency made but one condition,--the married pair were to be remarried in France. The Princess Gaston was on the way, travelling openly, entering France with the reputation of a heroine of romance. Mademoiselle revelled in the thought of a step-mother as young and as beautiful as an houri. They would dance together; they would run about like sisters!

Twelve years previous to the death of Louis XIII., when Marguerite de Lorraine committed the so-called "crime" which Richelieu's jurisconsults qualified by a name for which we shall substitute the less discouraging term "abduction," events separated the wedded pair at the church door. The sacrament of marriage had just been administered.

Madame fled before the minions of the law reached Nancy and found her way cut off by the French army. She donned the wig and garments of a man, besmirched her face with suet, crossed the French line in a cardinal's coach, covered twenty leagues on horseback, and joined Monsieur in Flanders. The world called her courageous, and when she exercised her impeccancy during a nine years' separation from her husband, conjugal fidelity rare enough at any time, and especially rare at that time, definitely ranged her among spectacular examples of virtue.

Handsome, brave, free from restraint, and virtuous! Paris was curious to see her.

At Meudon (27th May, 1643) the people made haste to reach the spot before she alighted from her carriage. They were eager to witness her meeting with the light-minded husband with whom France was at last to permit her to cast her lot and from whom she had been separated so long. Mademoiselle wrote:

I ran on ahead of them all so that I might be at Gonesse when she
arrived. From Gonesse she proceeded to Meudon without passing
through Paris. She did not wish to stop in Paris because she was
not in a condition to salute their Majesties. In fact, she could
not salute them, because she was not dressed in mourning. We
arrived at Meudon late, where Monsieur--having gone there to be
on the spot when she arrived--found her waiting in the courtyard.
Their first meeting took place in the presence of all who had
accompanied them. Every one was astonished to see the coldness with
which they met. It seemed strange! Monsieur had endured so much
persecution from the King, and from Richelieu, solely on account of
his marriage; and all his suffering had only seemed to confirm his
constancy to Madame, therefore coldness seemed unexpected.

Both Monsieur and Madame were much embarrassed; it was a trying thing to meet after a separation of nine years.

Monsieur had not materially changed, although he had acquired a habit of the gout which hindered him when he attempted to pirouette. Madame appeared faded and ill-attired, but that was but a natural consequence of the separation; it was to be expected.

When their marriage had been duly regulated and recorded in the Parish Register, the couple established themselves in Gaston's palace, and the Court found that it had acquired an hypochondriac. The romantic type of constancy habitually hung upon the gate of Death. Mme. de Motteville said:

She rarely left her home; she affirmed that the least excitement
brought on a swoon. Several times I saw Monsieur mock her; he told
the Queen that Madame would receive the sacrament in bed rather
than to go into her chapel, although the chapel was close by,--and
all that "though she had no ailment of any importance."

When Madame visited the Queen, as she did once in twenty-four months, she was carried in a sedan chair, as other ladies of her quality were carried, but her movements were attended by such distress and by so much bustle that her arrival conveyed the impression of a miracle. Frequently, when she had started upon a journey, or to pay a visit to the Queen, before she had gone three yards she declared that she had been suddenly seized by faintness, or by some other ill; then her bearers were forced to make haste to return her to the house. She lived in Gaston's palace in the Luxembourg. Mademoiselle's palace was in the Tuileries, and the royal family lived either in the palace of the Louvre, in the Palais Royal, or in the Château of Saint Germain.

Madame declared that her life had been one continuous agony. She announced her evils not singly but in clusters, and although none of them were evident to the disinterested observer, her diagnoses displayed so thorough a knowledge of their essential character that to harbour a doubt of their reality would be to confess a consciousness of uncertainty akin to the skepticism of the ignorant.

At the advent of Madame the spiritual atmosphere of the Luxembourg changed. The Princess was a moralist, and either because of her nervous anxiety for his welfare, or for some other reason, she harangued her husband day and night. The irresponsible Gaston was a signal example of marital patience; he carried his burden bravely, listened attentively to his wife's rebukes, sang and laughed, whistled and cut capers, pulled his elf-locks in mock despair, and, clumsily whirling upon his gouty heels, "made faces" behind Madame's drooping shoulders; but he bore her plaintive polemics without a murmur, and although he freely ridiculed her, he never left her side. "Madame loved Monsieur ardently," and Monsieur returned Madame's love in the disorderly manner in which he did everything. "One may say that he loved her, but that he did not love her often," wrote Mme. de Motteville. The public soon lost its interest in the spectacular household; Madame was less heroic than her reputation. Mademoiselle despaired when Madame urged Monsieur to be prudent; to her mind her father's prudence had invariably exceeded the proportions of virtue. Generally speaking, Madame's first relations with her step-daughter were cordial, but they were limited to a purely conventional exchange of civilities. Speaking of that epoch, Mademoiselle said: "I did all that I possibly could to preserve her good graces, which I should not have lost had she not given me reason to neglect them." Mademoiselle could not have loved her step-mother, nor could she have been loved by her; Madame and Mademoiselle were of different and distinct orders.

II

FROM AN OLD PRINT]

The routine requirements of Mademoiselle's periods of mourning diverted her mind from her marriage projects, but she soon resumed her efforts. She had no adviser, and no one cared for her establishment; Gaston was too well employed in spending her money to concern himself with her future, and, as the duties of daily life fatigued Madame, Mademoiselle could not hope for assistance from her step-mother; the Queen was her only hope, and the Queen's executor was jealously guarding her fine principalities and keeping close watch over her person. In 1644 the King of Spain, Philippe IV., the brother of Anne of Austria, became a widower. He was the enemy of France, and it would have been folly to give him a right to any portion of French territory; but Mademoiselle did not consider that fact; her political intuitions were not keen. All that she could see was that the King had a crown, and that it was such a crown as would adorn the title of her own nobility. For some occult reason which, as no one has ever located it, will probably remain enigmatical, Mademoiselle imagined that Philippe IV. desired to espouse her; and she passed her time forming plans and waiting for the Spanish envoy who was to come to France to ask her father for her hand. As it is difficult to believe that she ever could have dreamed the story that she tells in her memoirs, we must suppose that there was some foundation for her hopes. Possibly the expectations upon which she artlessly dilated sprang from the intriguing designs of her subalterns.[90]

The Queen bore witness to me that she passionately wished for the
marriage, and Cardinal Mazarin spoke of it in the same way; more
than that, he told me that he had received news from Spain which
had shown him that the affair was desired in that country. Both the
Queen and the Cardinal spoke of it repeatedly, not only to me but
to Monsieur. By feigned earnestness they impressed us with the idea
that they wished for the marriage. They lured us with that honour,
though they had no intention of obliging us; and our good faith was
such that we did not perceive their lack of sincerity. As we had
full belief in them, it was easy for them to elude the obligations
incurred by them when they aroused our expectations, and, in fact,
that was just what they did; having talked freely of it to us
during a certain period, they suddenly ceased to speak of it, and
everything thereafter was as it would have been had there been no
question of the marriage.

Mademoiselle's anxieties and hopes were fed alternately. To add to her distress, a Spaniard was caught on French soil and cast into the Bastille. Mademoiselle grieved bitterly over his fate; she supposed that the prisoner had been sent by the Spanish King to negotiate the marriage; it was her belief that Mazarin's spies had warned him (Mazarin) of the arrival of the envoy, and that the Cardinal had ordered the arrest to prevent the envoy from delivering his despatches; the interpretation was chimerical. Our knowledge is confined to the fact that nothing more was said of Mademoiselle's marriage, and that when the King was ready to marry he married an Austrian.

The troubles of England provided Mademoiselle with a more serious suitor. Queen Henriette, the daughter of Henry of Navarre, had fled to France, and France, in the person of the Regent, had installed her in the Louvre. Before that time Anne of Austria had moved from the Louvre to the Palais Royal, which was a more commodious residence, well fitted to the prevailing taste. Queen Henriette was ambitious, and she began to form projects for an alliance with France before she recovered from the fatigue of her journey.

Mademoiselle was a spirited Princess, very handsome, witty, and an ardent partisan. Such a wife would be a credit to any king, and the Montpensier estates were needed by the throne of England. Queen Henriette was sanguine; she ignored the fact that her son's future was dark and threatening. She made proposals to Mademoiselle and Mademoiselle received them coldly. Her ideas of propriety were shocked by the thought of such an alliance. The Queen of England was a refugee, dependent upon the bounty of France. There could be no honour or profit in marriage to her son!

Queen Henriette was the first of a series of exiled monarchs to whom France gave hospitality, and it must be said that her manner of opening a series was not a happy one. The sovereigns of former times were not familiar with revolutions, and their ignorance made them fearless; they despised precautions; they were improvident, they saved nothing for a rainy day; they scorned foreign stocks; they avoided business, and looked with contempt upon foreign bankers. If they lost their thrones they fled to foreign countries and sought refuge in the kingdoms of their friends, and there their comfort and their respectability were matters of chance; their friends might be in easy circumstances, and they might be on the verge of bankruptcy; a king's crown was not always accompanied by a full purse.

When Queen Henriette arrived in Paris she was received with honours and with promises. The courtiers donned their festive robes "broidered with gold and with silver,"[91] and went to Montrouge to meet her and escort her into Paris. Anne of Austria received her affectionately and seated her at her right hand at banquets. Mazarin announced that she was to draw a salary of twelve hundred francs per diem; in short, everything was done to flatter the English guest. The credulous Henriette accepted the flattery and the promises literally and she was dazed, when, awaking to the truth, she found that she was a beggar. Recording the history of that epoch, Mademoiselle said:

"The Queen of England had appeared everywhere in Paris attended
like a Queen, and with a Queen's equipage. With her we had always
seen her many ladies of quality, chariots, guards, and footmen.
Little by little all that disappeared and the time came when
nothing was more lacking to her dignity than her retinue and all
the pomps to which she had been accustomed."

Queen Henriette was obliged to sell her jewels and her silver dishes; debts followed debts, and the penniless sovereign had no way to meet them. The little court of the Louvre owed the baker and could not pay its domestic servants. Mme. de Motteville visited the Louvre and found Queen Henriette practically alone. She was sitting, dejectedly meditating, in one of the great empty salles; her unpaid servitors had abandoned her and her suite had gone where they could find nourishment.

FROM A STEEL ENGRAVING]

In her account of her visit Mme. de Motteville said:

She showed us a little golden cup, from which she habitually drank,
and she swore to us that that was all the gold of any kind that had
been left in her possession. She said that, more than that, all her
servants had demanded their wages and said that they would leave
her service if she refused to satisfy their demands; and she said
she had not been able to pay them.

The spectacle of royal poverty and the tragical turn taken by English affairs gave Mademoiselle cause for serious thought. She saw that whatever the Prince might be in the future, he was not a desirable suitor at the epoch existent; and she spoke freely:

Were I to marry that boy I should have to sell everything that
I might possess and go to war! I should not be able to help it.
I could not rest until I had staked my all on the chance of
reconquering his kingdom! But as I had always lived in luxury, and
as I had been free from care, the thought of such an uncertain
condition troubled me.

Had the Prince of Wales been a hero of the type of the _Cid_, Mademoiselle would have thrown prudence to the winds. Personal attraction, the magnetism of love, the arguments used by Lauzun would have called her from her dreams of the pomp becoming her rank, and she would have confronted poverty gaily; her whole career proved that she was not of a calculating mind. The Prince of Wales was by three years her junior; he was awkward and bashful, and so ignorant that he had no conception of his own affairs. He lounged distractedly through the vast, empty Louvre, absorbed in purposeless thought, and, goaded by his mother, he frequented the Tuileries and besieged the heart of his cousin, whom he amazed by the sluggish obstinacy of his attentions. He paid his court with the inconsequent air of a trained parrot; the details of his love-making were ordered by his mother, and when, tormented by personal anxieties, the Queen of England forgot to dictate his discourse, he sat before Mademoiselle with lips closed. He talked so little that it was said he "opened his teeth only to devour fat meat." At one of the banquets of the Queen of France he refused to touch the ortolans, and falling upon an enormous piece of beef and upon a shoulder of mutton he "ate as if there had been nothing else in the world, and as if he had never eaten before."

"His taste," mused Mademoiselle, "appeared to me to be somewhat indelicate; I was ashamed because he was not as good in other respects as he bore witness that he was in his feeling for me."

After the banquet at which the Prince refused the ortolans, the cousins were left alone, and, commenting upon the fact later, Anne-Marie-Louise said: "It pleases me to believe that on that occasion his silence resulted from an excess of respect for me rather than from lack of tenderness; but I will avow the truth; I would have been better pleased had he shown less stolidity and less deficiency in the transports of the love-passion." It is but fair to say in behalf of the timid suitor that, according to his feeble light, he acquitted himself conscientiously; he gazed steadfastly in his cousin's pretty face, he held the candle when her hair-dresser coiffed her hair; but as he was only a great boy, just at the age of dumb stupidity, he had few thoughts which were not personal, and few words to express even those. He was neither _Chérubin_, _Fortunio_, nor _Rodrigue_. "He had not an iota of sweetness," declared Mademoiselle. Worse than that, he had none of the exalted sentiments by means of which the heroes of Corneille manifested their identity, and to Mademoiselle that was a serious matter. As the awkward suitor became more insistent Mademoiselle was seized by a determination to be rid of him. Her records fix the date of her adverse inspiration. "In 1647 toward the end of winter[92] a play followed by a ball was given at the Palais Royal [the trago-comedy, _Orpheus_, in music and Italian verse]." Anne of Austria, who had no confidence in her niece's taste, insisted that the young lady should be coiffed and dressed under her own eye. Mademoiselle said:

They were engaged three whole days arranging my coiffure; my robe
was all trimmed with diamonds and with white and black carnation
tufts. I had upon me all the stones of the Crown, and all the
jewels owned by the Queen of England [at that time she still
possessed a few]. No one could have been more magnificently bedight
than I was for that occasion, and I did not fail to find many
people to tell me of my splendour and to talk about my pretty
figure, my graceful and agreeable bearing, my whiteness, and the
sheen of my blonde hair, which they said adorned me more than all
the riches which glittered upon my person.

After the play a ball was given on a great, well-lighted stage. At the end of the stage was a throne raised three steps high and covered by a dais; according to Mademoiselle's account:

Neither the King nor the Prince of Wales would sit upon the throne,
and as I, alone, remained upon it, I saw the two Princes and all
the Princesses of the Court at my feet. I did not feel awkward or
ill at ease, and no one of all those who saw me failed to tell me
that I had never seemed less constrained than then, that I was of a
race to occupy the throne, and that I should occupy my own throne
still more freely and more naturally when the time came for me to
remain upon it.

Seen from the height of the throne, the Prince of Wales seemed less of a man than he had ever seemed before, and from that day Mademoiselle spoke of him as "that poor fellow." She said: "I pitied him. My heart as well as my eyes looked down upon him, and the thought entered my mind that I should marry an emperor." The thought of an emperor entered her mind the previous year when Ferdinand III. became a widower. Monsieur's favourite, the Abbé Rivière,--with a view to his own interests, and possibly with some hope of adding to his income,--announced the welcome tidings of the Empress's death as soon as he received them; and Mademoiselle said:

"M. de la Rivière told me that I must marry either the Emperor or his brother. I told him that I should prefer the Emperor."

Paris heard of the project that same evening. Mademoiselle did not receive proposals from the Emperor at that time or at any other time, but the idea that she was to be an Empress haunted her mind, and as she was very frank, she told her hopes freely. La Rivière and others like him, taking advantage of her public position and of her accessibility, told her flattering tales and suggested alliances; she was informed that the Court of Vienna, the Court of Germany, and in fact all the Courts, desired alliance with her, and she believed all that was said. The evening of the ball, Anne of Austria declared, by Mademoiselle's own account, that she "wished passionately that the marriage with the Emperor might be arranged, and that she should do all that lay in her power to bring it about." Mademoiselle did not believe in the Regent's promises, but she listened to them and shaped her course by them. Gaston told her (in one of the rare moments when he remembered that she was his daughter) that the Emperor was "too old," and that she would not be happy in his country. Mademoiselle answered that she cared more for her establishment than for the person of her suitor. Gaston reflected upon the statement and promised to do everything possible for the furtherance of her schemes. Mademoiselle recorded his promise with the comment: "So after that I thought of the marriage continually and my dream of the Empire so filled my mind that I considered the Prince of Wales only as an object of pity." This folly, while it gave free play to other and similar follies, clung to her mind with strange tenacity, and long after the Emperor married the Austrian Mademoiselle said archly: "The Empress is _enceinte_; she will die when she is delivered, and then--." The Empress did die, either at the moment of her deliverance or at some other moment, and Mademoiselle took the field, determined to march on to victory. One of her gentlemen (of the name of Saujon) whom she fancied "because he was half crazy," secretly placed in her hand a regularly organised correspondence treating of her marriage. Mademoiselle received all the letters, read them, approved of them, and appointed Saujon chargé of her affairs. By her order Saujon travelled to Germany to bring about the marriage. No one had ever heard of a royal or a quasi-royal alliance negotiated by a private individual, but Saujon boldly entered upon his mission. Incidentally he revised Mademoiselle's despatches; adding and eliminating sentences according to his own idea of the exigencies of the case. One of his letters was intercepted and he was arrested and cast into prison. It was rumoured that he had made an attempt to abduct the Princess so that she might marry the Archduke Leopold.

At first Mademoiselle laughed at the rumours. She declared that people knew her too well to think that she could do anything so ridiculous.

Mazarin cross-questioned Saujon,--and no one knew better than he how to conduct an inquest,--but turn his victim as he might the Cardinal could not wring from Saujon anything but the truth. Saujon insisted that Mademoiselle had not known anything concerning the intercepted letter.

Anne of Austria, seconded by Monsieur, feigned to take the affair seriously, and a violent scene ensued.

One evening (May 6, 1648, according to d'Ormesson) the Abbé de la Rivière met Mademoiselle in the corridor of the Palais Royal, and casually informed her that the Queen and Monsieur were angry. Almost at the same instant Monsieur issued from the room adjoining the corridor and ordered his daughter to enter the Queen's room.

Then [said Mademoiselle] I went into the Queen's gallery. Mlle.
de Guise, who was with me, would have followed me, but Monsieur
furiously shut the door in her face. Had not my mind been free from
all remorse I should have been frightened, but I knew that I was
innocent, and I advanced toward the Queen, who greeted me angrily.
She said to the Cardinal: "We must wait until her father comes; he
must hear it!" I went to the window, which was higher than the rest
of the gallery, and I listened with all the pride possible to one
who feels that her cause is just. When Monsieur arrived the Queen
said to me sharply: "Your father and I know all about your dealings
with Saujon. We know all your plans!" I answered that I did not
know to what plans she had reference, and that I was somewhat
curious to know what her Majesty meant.

Anne of Austria was angry, and her shrill falsetto conveyed an impression of vulgarity. Mademoiselle, calmly contemptuous, on foot and very erect, stood in the embrasure of the long window; Monsieur, who dreaded his daughter's anger, had drawn close to the Queen; directly behind Monsieur was Mazarin, visibly amused.

Mademoiselle listened to her accusers, and answered with a sneer that she had nothing to do with it, that she was not interested in it, that such a scheme was worthy of low people.

"This concerns my honour," she said coldly; "it is not a question
of the head of Cinq-Mars, nor of Chalais, whom Monsieur delivered
to death. No; nor is it an affair to be classed with the
examinations to which Richelieu subjected your Majesty!"

"It is a fine thing," screamed Anne of Austria, "to recompense a
man for his attachment to your service by putting his head upon the
block!"

"It would not be the first head that had visited the block, but it
would be the first one that I had put there," retorted Mademoiselle.

"Will you answer what you are asked?" demanded the Queen. I
obeyed [said Mademoiselle]. I told her that as I had never been
questioned, I should be embarrassed to answer. Cardinal Mazarin
listened to all that I said, and he laughed.... The discussion
seemed long to me. Repetitions which are not agreeable always
produce that effect. The conversation had lasted an hour and a
half. It bored me, and as I saw that it would never end if I did
not go away, I said to the Queen: "I believe that your Majesty
has nothing more to say to me." She replied that she had not. I
curtsied and went out from the combat, victorious, but very angry.
As I abandoned the field, the Abbé de la Rivière tried to address
me. I halted, and discharged my anger at him; then I went to my
room, where I was seized by fever.

Before she "abandoned the field" Mademoiselle rated Monsieur, who had imprudently attempted to interpose a word in favour of the Queen. Mme. de Motteville, to whom Anne of Austria told the story, reported that Mademoiselle reproached her father bitterly because he had not married her to the Emperor, when he "might easily have done so." She told him that it was shameful for a man not to defend his daughter "when her glory appeared to be attacked." The courtiers assembled in the adjoining room, though unable to distinguish the words of the discussion, had listened with curiosity. Mme. de Motteville said:

We could not hear what they were saying, but we heard the noise
of the accusations and we heard Mademoiselle's calm defence. The
Queen's Minister avoided showing that he was interested in it in
any way. Although there were but three voices there was so great
a clamour that we were anxious to know the result and the meaning
of the quarrel. Mademoiselle came out of the gallery looking more
haughty than ashamed, and her eyes shone with anger rather than
with repentance. That evening the Queen did me the honour to tell
me that had she been possessed of a daughter who had treated her as
Mademoiselle had treated Monsieur, she would have banished her and
never permitted her to return,--and that she should have shut her
up in a convent.

The day after the discussion guards were mounted at the door of Mademoiselle's apartments. The Abbé de la Rivière visited Mademoiselle to tell her that her father forbade her to receive any one--_no matter whom_--until she was ready to confess what she knew of the intercepted letter. Mademoiselle remained firm in her denial of any knowledge of it.

Though sick from grief, she held her ground ten days. Murmurs were heard among the canaille, and little groups approached the palace, looked threateningly into the courtyard, and gazed at Mademoiselle's closed windows. It was known that Mademoiselle was in prison and the people resented it. How long could she hold out? How would it end? "It was known," wrote Olivier d'Ormesson, "that the Queen had called her 'an insolent girl' in the presence of her own father, and it was known that she had indignantly repudiated all knowledge of the intercepted letter; it was known that she had defended herself bravely." As the hours passed the people's murmurs increased, the aspect of the canaille became so menacing that the terrified Gaston sought counsel of Mazarin. Mazarin favoured clemency; he believed that Mademoiselle had been disciplined enough. By the advice of the angry Queen, Monsieur waited one day longer; then word was sent to Mademoiselle that she was free and that she might receive visits, and in an hour all the people of the under-world of Paris were hurrying to the palace, laughing, shouting, crying to each other in broken voices. They surged past the sentinel and entered the courtyard; men wept, women, holding their children above their heads, pointed to the open window where Mademoiselle, emaciated by her ten days' trial, but still haughty and determined, looking down into the upturned faces, smiled a welcome. Public sympathy and the sympathy of both the Court and the city endorsed Mademoiselle's conduct and condemned the conduct of Monsieur. According to contemporary judgment Monsieur had betrayed his own flesh and blood: he had been given an opportunity to prove himself a man and he had refused it. Innocent or culpable, the custom of the day commanded the father to defend his child.

I said to the Queen [said the worthy Motteville] that Mademoiselle
was justified in refusing to avow it. I said that, whether it were
true or untrue, Monsieur had not the right to forsake her. A girl
is not to blame for thinking of her establishment, but it is not
right to let it be known that she is thinking of it, nor is it
proper to confess that she is working to accomplish it.

All Monsieur's motives were known and they increased the contempt of the people. When Mademoiselle attained her majority she expressed a wish to take possession of her inheritance. She asked her father for an accounting and her father accused her of indelicacy and undutiful conduct. He continued to administer her fortune and to give her such sums as he considered suitable for the maintenance of her home. In justification of his conduct he alleged that he had no money of his own, and that it was impossible to turn her property into funds. "Several times," said Mme. de Motteville, "I have heard him say that he had not a sou that his daughter did not give him. 'My daughter possesses great wealth,' he used to ejaculate; 'were it not for that I should not know where to go for bread.'" People remembered that he had received a million of revenue when he married[93] and they judged his conduct severely, but they were not astonished. "No one can hope much from the conduct of Monsieur," wrote Olivier d'Ormesson.

After the quarrel the first meeting between father and daughter took place in the gallery of the Luxembourg. Monsieur hung his head.

He changed colour [wrote Mademoiselle]; he appeared abashed; he
tried to reprimand me; he began as people begin such things, but he
knew that he ought to apologise to me rather than to blame me; and
in truth that was what he did; he apologised,--though he did not
seem to know that he was doing it.

As they talked Monsieur's eyes filled with tears and Mademoiselle wept freely. To all appearances they were on the best of terms when they parted.

Having appeased her father, Mademoiselle went to the Palais Royal hoping to pacify the Queen. Anne of Austria greeted her with icy reserve and Mademoiselle never could forget it. She had looked upon Anne of Austria as children look upon an elder sister. Thenceforth, feeling that she had no hope of support from her own family, she bent every effort to the difficult task of finding a suitable husband and of establishing her life on a firm and independent basis. Mazarin's unswerving determination to prevent Mademoiselle's marriage was classed among the most important of the causes which contributed to the Fronde. The dangers attendant upon his conduct were real and serious; practically he was Mademoiselle's only guardian, and Mademoiselle was not only the favorite of the people but the Princess of the reigning house. As the director of a powerful nation Mazarin had duties which no State's minister is justified in ignoring. There were times when many of his other errors were so represented as to appear pardonable, but there never was a time when he was not blamed for the humiliation of the haughty Princess who, by no fault of her own, had been left upon the shores of life, isolated, hopeless of establishment, an object of ridicule to the unobservant who failed to see the pathetic loneliness of her position. The Parisians, high and low, thought that the Queen's Minister had done Mademoiselle an irreparable wrong, and it was thought that she knew that he had done her a wrong. It was believed that she would be a dangerous adversary in the day when the French people called him to account.