"Poor fellow! It is a pity he has such good taste in women. He courts his wife like a lover."
"Bah! He watches her like a duenna. He courts something different."
"And what is that, my dear Marquis?"
"When the King is quite ready—a new exile."
"Ah!"
But the King was, at any rate, not ready yet. When he came out of his retirement he found many things demanding immediate attention; and the chief of these was something which promised great and brilliant gayety for the Court. It was the approaching marriage of the Dauphin, whose betrothal to the Infanta Maria Theresa Antoinette Raphaelle, daughter of Philip V. of Spain, had been arranged to obliterate the memory of the insult to the younger sister of the Princess, who, designed for the wife of Louis XV. himself, and brought up in France, had been returned with thanks to Spain, at the instigation of Mme. de Prie, who had fancied herself, for a little while, a successful creator of queens. Preparations for the celebration of the Dauphin's wedding were therefore begun on the most elaborate scale which the King and Richelieu together could devise; and with the beginning of the new year came a series of entertainments given at Versailles, or by great families in Paris hôtels, which allowed the Court no time for anything but thoughts of the splendor of existence and the details of new costumes.
It was not till February, however, that the Dauphiness Infanta arrived in France; and on the 20th day of that month the King rode to Etampes to meet her. She and her sixteen-year-old Dauphin were married in the Chapel of Versailles on February 23d, in the presence of their Majesties and as many persons of blue blood as the place would hold.
"My Heaven, but she is homely!" whispered the Maréchale de Mirepoix to Mme. de Boufflers.
"All princesses are, my dear. It is one of their duties to be hideous. The good God could not give them too much. They say she is sympathetic."
"One would need to be with that countenance. Poor Dauphin."