CHAPTER XV.
MAZARIN PLAYED OUT.
THE marriage bells peal merrily for the august espousals of Louis XIV. with the Infanta Maria Theresa, daughter of the King of Spain. The troubles of the Fronde are over. Gondi, the Coadjutor, now Cardinal de Retz, is imprisoned. Cardinal Mazarin has cemented a peace between France and Spain. He has triumphed.
Mazarin left Paris with a great retinue of coaches, litters, and mules, attended by bishops, secretaries, lawyers, and priests, to meet the Spanish ambassador, Don Luis Da Haro, on the frontier, there to arrange the preliminaries of the treaty and the marriage. Don Luis had already arrived, attended with equal splendour. A whole month was lost in the all-important question of precedence. Should Mazarin call on Da Haro, or Da Haro "drop in" on Mazarin? This momentous point was never settled. Mazarin, the wily Italian—Il Signor Faquino, as the Prince de Condé calls him—took to his bed, hoping that the anxiety felt for his health by Da Haro would induce him to pocket his Castilian dignity and make the first advance. But Da Haro was not to be caught, and obstinately shut himself up, ate, drank, and made merry with the most dogged patience, and the most entire want of sympathy. So it ended in this wise—no visit was made at all. The great plenipotentiaries met, quite unofficially, on the Island of Pheasants, in the middle of the River Bidassoa, dividing France and Spain. There the real business was very soon despatched. In process of time, the King and the Infanta were married.
The Infanta was very small, fair, and plump. There was an utter absence of expression in her freshly complexioned face; her eyes were large and gentle, but said absolutely nothing of any soul within. Her mouth was large, her teeth were irregular. Her dress horrified the French ladies. It was unanimously voted tawdry, ill-made, and unbecoming. As for the ladies in attendance on her, it was not possible to find words to paint their grotesqueness. They were black-skinned, scraggy, and awkward. They had hideous lace, and wore enormous farthingales. One of them, the "governess of the Infanta," is gibbeted in the pages of history as "a monster." She unhappily wore what are designated as "barrels" under her dress. Such was the first effect of crinoline on the ladies of the French nation.
The Duchesse de Noailles was appointed lady of the bedchamber to the new Queen. She was recommended to this office by the Queen-dowager, Anne of Austria, her aunt.
Cardinal Mazarin has now reached the summit of power. He has imprisoned his rival, Cardinal de Retz, and has tranquillised a great nation. He has even received the solemn thanks of the once turbulent parliament. He has equalled, if not exceeded, the renown of Richelieu. After the sounding of those marriage bells he returns to Paris, to repose upon his laurels. See him! the artistic egotist, who all his life has fed on the choicest grapes from his neighbour's vine, and sipped the most fragrant honey from flowers not his own. See him within his magnificent palace, the outward and visible evidence of the enormous wealth which he no longer fears to display. Louis XIV. looks on him as a father. Anne of Austria trembles when he frowns. All France is subservient to his rule. The walls of his chamber are lined with artistic plunder:—pictures set in gorgeous frames of Florentine carving; statues, mirrors, and glittering chandeliers; tables and consoles bearing ornaments of inestimable value, in marble, bronze, porcelain, pottery, enamel, and gems. Richest hangings of tapestry, and brocaded satin and velvet, more costly than the gold which surrounds them, shade the intrusive sunshine, and tone all down to that delicious half light so dear to the artistic sense. Everything has been arranged by the hand of a master; and there he sits, this master, dying. The seeds of disease, sown on the frontier where he was detained by Da Haro, have developed into a mortal malady.