"The 17th, Mademoiselle, aged nine years and three months, was baptised in the Louvre, in the Queen's chamber, by the Bishop of Auxerre, First Almoner to the King, having for godmother and godfather the Queen and the Cardinal Duke (Richelieu), and was named Anne Marie."
Mention of this little event is made in Retz's Mémoires. "M. le Cardinal was to hold at the font Mademoiselle, who, as you may judge, had been baptised long before; but the ceremonies of the baptism had been deferred."
This godfather, who was not a prince, was a humiliation to Mademoiselle, and to crown her distress he thought that he ought to make himself agreeable to his god-daughter.
By his intention to be amiable he "made her beside herself" because he treated her—at nine years!—as if she had been a little girl. "Every time that he saw me he told me that that spiritual alliance obliged him to take care of me, and that he would arrange a marriage for me (a discourse that he addressed to me, talking just as they do to children to whom they incessantly repeat the same thing)."
A journey through France, which she made in 1637, "put balm on the wounds of her pride." They chanted the Te Deum, the Army Corps saluted her, a city was illuminated, and the nobility offered her fêtes. She "swam in joy"; for thus she had always thought that the appearance of a person of her quality should be hailed. She ended her tour in Blois where Monsieur, the ever good father, desired that he, in person, should be the one to initiate his child in the morality of princes, which virtue in those aristocratic times had nothing in common with the bourgeois's morality. For the moment he was possessed of an insignificant mistress, a young girl of Tours called "Louison." Monsieur took his daughter to Tours so that he might present his mistress to her. Mademoiselle declared herself satisfied with her father's choice. She thought that Louison had "a very agreeable face, and a great deal of wit for a girl of that quality who had never been to Court." But Mme. de Saint Georges saw the new relations with an anxious eye; she submitted her scruples to Monsieur:
Madame de Saint Georges ... asked him if the girl was good, because, otherwise, though she had been honoured by his good graces, she should be glad if she would not come to my house. Monsieur gave her every assurance and told her that he would not have wished for the girl himself without that condition. In those days I had such a horror of vice that I said to her: "Maman (I called her thus), if Louison is not virtuous, even though my Papa loves her I will not see her at all; or if he wishes me to see her I will not receive her well." She answered that she was really a very good girl, and I was very glad of it, for she pleased me much—so I saw her often.
Mademoiselle did not suspect that there was anything comical in this passage; had she done so she would not have written it, because she was not one of those who admit that it is sometimes permissible to smile at the great.
On her return from her journey she resumed her ordinary life.
I passed the winter in Paris as I had passed my other winters. Twice a week I went to the assemblies given by Mme. the Countess de Soissons at the Hôtel de Brissac. At these assemblies the usual diversions were comedies [plays] and dancing. I was very fond of dancing and, for love of me, they danced there very often....