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.