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.