CHAPTER XIII.
LOUIS THE THIRTEENTH.
Leaving me in some danger of suffocation, and to my own reflections, among which the warnings of the Marquis de Gordon occupied a prominent place, the fair Countess had just time to conceal the key of the cabinet in her bosom, when the arras rose and fell, and Louis XIII. stood before her, with his broad plumed hat under his left arm, and wearing a short velvet cloak and long silver-hilted sword, tilting it up behind him as he continued to bow and advance with a mincing jaunty step, and ended by kissing the hand of the Countess thrice. At his neck hung the plain gold cross usually worn by him when he officiated as one of the twenty canons of the cathedral church of Ambrun—a solemn farce.
Louis the Just—so named because in an age which was still infected by the poisonings and astrologies of the infamous Catherine de Medicis, he had been born under the sign of the Zodiac, called Libra, or the Balance—was not of a very amorous nature; but being left almost entirely alone even amid the splendour of his court, and being coldly treated by Anne of Austria his queen, who, like all the great people of Paris, followed in the retinue of the formidable Cardinal Richelieu, his minister and, scandal added, her lover, he had but two or three domestics whom he loved and trusted; and who, besides the huntsmen and hounds, were his chief favourites and companions. Among these was particularly Boizenval, his valet de chambre, who usually bore his presents and love letters to Clara, but whom he banished in 1637, for delivering all his tender billets doux—especially those addressed to the fair and unfortunate Fayette—first to the tyrannical, prying and overweening Cardinal premier, to whose care, as well as to that of 'our blessed Lady,' Louis boasted he had consigned his crown and kingdom, and so troubled himself no more about them, believing like his successor, that 'they would last his time.'
Gallantry had been gradually resolving itself into a grand system during his reign. The brilliant assemblies and gay circles by which Francis I., of magnificent memory, had encouraged the polished intercourse of his court; the gross sensuality which had been introduced by the wicked and Machiavelian Catherine de Medicis, whose fair dames of honour lured to death their Huguenot lovers; when 'murders were hatched in the arms of love, and massacre was planned in the cabinet of pleasure;' with the shameless libertinism of Henry IV., were all united now to the serious gallantry which Anne of Austria had brought with her from Spain; and thus under Louis XIII.—though he was very little of a gallant himself—love, in his good city of Paris, became a science like astrology, and was analysed like metaphysics; and thus, as I have said, it was formed into a system, which rendered it the serious occupation of every one, and the way was easily prepared for that more absurd state of things which we find under the Grand Monarque his successor, when affairs of state were debated, and solemn councils of war held, round a courtesan lounging on a sofa, or in a pretty woman's bedroom; and when a revolution in the heart of a great man's mistress was an event of nearly as much consequence as a war on the Rhine, or an invasion of Flanders. But to resume—
'What the deuce is this I hear now, ma belle?' said the King, as he seated himself just where I had sat a moment before; 'here is the Mercure Francois publicly affirming—for M. Richelieu never tells me anything—that Mademoiselle Marie Louise of Lorraine—Duke Charles' daughter—is now in Paris, with her brother the Prince of Vaudemont, suborning my officers. 'Tis a serious thing to assert!'
''Tis impossible, sire!' exclaimed the Countess, changing colour very visibly; 'and that is more than improbable.'
'Nothing is impossible to those accursed Lorraines.'
'Your Majesty forgets that I am of Lorraine,' said the Countess with considerable hauteur.
'Nay, pardon me; but I had hoped you had been long enough in Paris to forget that wicked province.'