"I was in frightful haste," adds Mademoiselle, "that the time for the Baths of Forges should come, and that I might go away." The season arrived. It was needful to take leave of the King. She wished to have the Court plainly understand her intention: "'Sire, if your Majesty is thinking of my establishment, here is M. de Béziers, who will go to Turin; he can negotiate my marriage with M. de Savoie.'—'I will think of you when it suits me, and marry you when it will be of service to me,' in a dry tone which much frightened me. After this, he saluted me very coldly, and I went away and I took my waters."
Mademoiselle had the imprudence both to talk and write. Bussy-Rabutin even pretends that "she had written a letter to the King of Spain, which was intercepted," suggesting a fête in his neighbourhood; but this is difficult to believe, however inconsiderate Mademoiselle sometimes was.
From Forges, Mademoiselle went to the Château d'Eu, which she had bought a short time before. It was at this place, October 15, 1662, that she received from the King commands to return to Saint-Fargeau, "until new orders." Upon the route she met letters from every one.
To be banished for having refused to marry Alphonse VI.,—the country was not yet ready for these consequences of the new régime. It was soon known that Mademoiselle had ordered from Paris "needles, canvas, and silk," as if she expected to have on her hands plenty of spare time. But if affairs remained at this point, she was not paying too dearly for the pleasure of escaping being made Queen of Portugal. This was her own opinion, and she became very amiable.
The departure of Mademoiselle did not leave a large vacuum in the young Court; there was at the official ceremonies one princess the less, and this was all. For the new generation had passed with the King to the front ranks; the Grande Mademoiselle was now only the "old Mademoiselle," as Abbé de Choisy called her. The youthful loves and the pleasures belonging to twenty years had nothing to do with her, nor, what is more, with the Queen Mother, who had in old age become a preacher, and who now belonged to the "dévots" grouped under her protection.
Molière by his impiety scandalised these pious people who considered it wicked for the King to have mistresses.
The question still waiting to be solved was, on which side the master would definitely range himself. For the moment, Louis XIV. leaned very strongly towards the friends of good-nature and of his joyous freedom. Would he be gained over by these? Would the logic of events and ideas lead him to shake off the trammel of religious practices, then that of belief, in the fashion of Hugues de Lionne, of the Bussy-Rabutins, of the Guiche, of the Roquelaure, of the Vardes, and a hundred other "Libertins," who only saw in the practices of religion a collection of silly tricks? The obtaining an answer to this query was really the important affair of the year 1662, a much more serious interest than any preoccupation in regard to the chronicle of the doings at the Luxembourg or at Saint-Fargeau.
The young Queen was anxious; she scented danger, but she knew only how to groan and weep, without comprehending that red eyes and a grumbling tone were not the best attractions for retaining a husband. She had not even the consolation of being pitied, having only made the one friend, Anne of Austria, who in default of something better, forced herself to preserve some illusions upon the melancholy of the little Queen's destiny.