Les beaux messieurs de Bois-Doré Vol. 1 (of 2)

MARIO COMFORTS MADAME DE BREUVE.
He knelt on the edge of the cushion on which she had placed her feet, and gazed at her speechless. At last he ventured to take her hands.
Among the numerous protégés of the favorite Concini, one of the least remarked, yet one of the most remarkable by reason of his wit, education, and the distinction of his manners, was Don Antonio d'Alvimar, a Spaniard of Italian origin, who styled himself Sciarra d'Alvimar. He was a very pretty cavalier, whose face denoted a man of no more than twenty years, although at that time he confessed to thirty. Rather short than tall, muscular without seeming to be so, skilful in all manly exercises, he was certain to interest the ladies by the gleam of his bright and penetrating eyes and by the charm of his conversation, which was as light and agreeable with the fair sex as it was solid and substantial with serious-minded men. He spoke the principal languages of Europe almost without accent, and was no less versed in the ancient languages.
Despite all these appearances of merit, Sciarra d'Alvimar formed no scheme for his own advancement amid the constant intriguing at the court of the Regent; at all events, any that he may have dreamed of came to nothing. He confessed afterward, in the strictest privacy, that he had aspired to make himself agreeable to no less a personage than Marie de Médicis herself, and to replace his own master and patron, Maréchal d'Ancre, in that queen's good graces.
But the balorda , as Leonora Galigai called her, paid no attention to the humble Spaniard, and saw in him only a paltry adventurer—a subaltern without future prospects. Did she even notice Monsieur d'Alvimar's real or feigned passion? That is something that history does not divulge and that D'Alvimar himself never knew.
It is not an unreasonable supposition that he would have been capable of pleasing the Regent by his wit and the charms of his person, had not her thoughts been occupied by Concini. The favorite was of even lower origin, and was not half so intelligent as he. But D'Alvimar had within himself an obstacle to his attainment of the exalted fortune enjoyed by the successful courtiers of the day—an obstacle which his ambition could not overcome.