FOOTNOTES:
[92] Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, vol. i. p. 375.
[93] Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section France, 5. There exists, amongst others, a letter of January 10, 1637, in which Louis XIII. writes to Richelieu “that he will have the Queen come to Saint-Germain, the evenings there being very long without company.”
[94] Dulaure, Histoire de Paris; Simonde Sismondi, Histoire des Français; Dufey de l’Yonne, Histoire de la Bastille; The Chevalier de Cubières, Voyage à la Bastille.
[95] The Old Pretender.—Trans.
[96] M. Topin is in error. William was, in fact, remonstrated with by the Whigs for having publicly acknowledged a birth which the great majority of the English people at that time believed to be a feigned one.—Trans.
[97] The child was said to have been brought in in a warming-pan.
[98] Journal d’Héroard, September 26, 27, 1601.
[99] Corps Universel Diplomatique du Droit des Gens, of Dumont, Supplement, vol. iv. p. 176. Letter from Chavigny to the Cardinal de Richelieu, September 6, 1638. Despatch from Louis XIII. to M. de Bellièvre, his ambassador in England, September 5, 1638.—Manuscripts of the Imperial Library, fonds Saint-Germain, Harlay, 364²⁷, fol. 170.
[100] “The King was present all the time, and his two attacks of fever have not in any way diminished his strength,” writes Chavigny in the letter in which he relates to Richelieu, then absent from the court, the birth of the Dauphin. This precise statement destroys that of M. Michelet, who, from an anonymous Life of Madame de Hautefort, says that “Louis XIII. would have consoled himself without difficulty at seeing his Spaniard die, and that during the pains he had history read to him to find an example of a King of France having married his subject.”—M. Michelet, Histoire de France, vol. xii. p. 211.
[101] Dumont, Corps Diplomatique du Droit des Gens, vol. iv. p. 176.
[102] Letter from Chavigny to the Cardinal de Richelieu, September 6, 1638. Louis XIII. made his brother a present of six thousand crowns, “which consoled him a little,” says Chavigny.
[103] Letters of Louis XIII.:—Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section France, 5. Journal d’Héroard. Lettres Missives d’Henri IV., vol. v. p. 507.
[104] It is generally believed that the famous vow of Louis XIII., placing his kingdom under the protection of the Virgin, was made on account of Anne of Austria’s pregnancy. It was not so. The Queen’s condition was manifest in January, 1638, and “the declaration for the protection of the Virgin” is of December, 1637. It was made “on account of gratitude for so many evident favours accorded to the King.”—Lettres et Papiers de Richelieu, vol. v. p. 908.
[105] Richelieu left Ruel at the end of July, and went successively to Amiens, Abbeville, Ham, and Saint-Quentin. It was in this last town that he learnt the happy event and went at once to the church with a grand cortège. “He heard mass sung there by his chaplain, then the Te Deum and the Domine salvum.” He then wrote to the King and Queen to congratulate them.—Gazette de France, p. 535; Lettres et Papiers de Richelieu, vol. vi. p. 75, et seq. The 2nd October, Richelieu left the army to return to Saint-Germain. “The King arrived on Wednesday at Saint-Germain, whither the Cardinal-duke repaired from our armies the same day and almost the same hour as his Majesty, whom he found in the room of Monseigneur the Dauphin, where the Queen also was. It would be difficult to express with what transports of joy his eminence was seized on seeing between the father and the mother this admirable child, the object of his desires and the limit of his content.”—Gazette de France, p. 580.
[106] At this part of his work, M. Topin has thought it necessary for his argument to dwell on certain medical details, which, out of delicacy to English readers, I have preferred to suppress.—Trans.
[107] In the account we have reproduced in Chap. I. See p. 15 ante.