Mazarin convoked the ministers to submit this argument. The discussion lasted "three or four hours." Finally, Mademoiselle gained her cause, although the King himself was rather against her. The important question of "trains" gave also some embarrassment to the Cardinal. A duke had offered to bear the train of Mademoiselle in the nuptial cortége. Mazarin was obliged to seek two other dukes for the younger sisters of Mademoiselle, two children whom the lady of honour of their mother had led to the marriage. He could only find a marquis and a count; the dukes hid themselves. The lady of honour uttered loud protests; "her Princesses must have 'tail-bearers' as titled as those of their tall sister, or they should not go at all." "I will do what I can," replied the Cardinal; "but no one wishes the task."
Mademoiselle had the good grace to sacrifice her duke, and Mazarin believed the affair terminated, when the Princess Palatine[81] caused a novel incident, upon the day of the ceremony, and even when the last moment was approaching. She appeared in the Queen's chamber, wearing a train, to which, being a foreign Princess, she had no right. La Palatine had counted upon the general confusion to smuggle herself in and to create a precedent. It was needful to delay matters. The train had been reported to Mademoiselle, and no marriage should prevent her protest. The Cardinal and after him the King were forced to listen to a discourse upon the limitations of foreign princesses. "I believe," writes Mademoiselle, "that I was very eloquent." She proved herself at least very convincing, for La Palatine received the order to take off her train.
But it is necessary to retrace our steps; trains have carried us too far. The relations between the two monarchs had been regulated with a minutia worthy of Asiatic courts. They met only in a hall, built expressly for the purpose upon the Isle des Faisans, and on horseback upon the frontier. The building was half in French, half in Spanish territory. The decorations of the two sides were different. Louis XIV. must walk upon French carpets, Philip IV. upon Spanish ones. The one must only sit upon a French chair, write only upon a French table with French ink, seek the time only from a French clock, placed in his half of the hall; the other guarded himself with the same care from every object not Spanish. Two opposite doors gave passage at precisely the same instant. An equal number of steps led them to the place where the red carpet of France joined the gold and silver one of Spain; and the two Kings addressed each other and embraced over the frontier. Thus demanded the laws of ceremonial monarchy. Their rigour commenced to astonish the good people of France. The interviews upon the Isle des Faisans became legendary. La Fontaine has alluded to them in one of his last fables, Les Deux Chèvres,[82] in which he has found no better comparison for the solemnity with which the two goats, equally "tainted" with their rank, equally curbed, advanced towards each other upon the fragile and narrow bridge.
Je m'imagine voir, avec Louis le Grand,
Philippe quatre qui s'avance
Dans l'isle de la Conférence[83]
Ainsi s'avançaient pas à pas,
Nez à nez, nos aventurières.
When all was arranged, on June 3rd, neither the bride and bridegroom nor their parents having seen each other, the King of France, represented by Don Luis de Haro, was married by proxy in the church of Fontarabia to the Infanta Marie-Thérèse.
This was the expedient which saved the dignity of the two crowns. After the ceremony, the new Queen returned to her father. She wrote the next day a letter of official compliment to her husband. We possess the response of Louis XIV., in which he has well performed a somewhat difficult task.
Saint-Jean-de-Luz, June 4, 1660.
To receive at the same time a letter from your Majesty, and the news of the celebration of our marriage, and to be on the eve of seeing you, these are assuredly causes of indelible joy for me.
My cousin, the Duke of Créqui, first gentleman of my chamber, whom I am sending expressly to your Majesty, will communicate to you the sentiments of my heart, in which you will remark always increasingly an extreme impatience to convey these sentiments in person.
He will also present to you some trifles on my part.
The same day, in the afternoon, Anne of Austria met for the first time with her brother and niece together. The interview took place in the hall of the Isle des Faisans. Philip IV. astonished the French, decidedly less bound up in tradition than the Spanish. Philip dwelt so immobile in his gravity that one would have hardly taken him for a living man.[84]