“Je pensais que la destinée,
Après tant d’injustes malheurs,
Vous a justement couronnée
De gloire, d’éclat et d’honneurs;
Mais que vous étiez plus heureuse
Lorsque vous étiez autrefois,
Je ne veux pas dire amoureuse,
La rime le veut toutefois.
Je pensais (que nos autres poëtes
Nous pensons extravagamment)
Ce que, dans l’humeur où vous êtes,
Vous feriez si, dans ce moment,
Vous avisiez en cette place
Venir le Duc de Buckingham,
Et lequel serait en disgrâce,
De lui ou du père Vincent.”[45]
Everything combines to absolve Anne of Austria from the crime of which she was accused during the troubles of the Fronde, and in the midst of the unjust passions aroused by civil war. Louis XIII.’s conduct with respect to her, and his persistent coldness, alone seemed to condemn her. But does this coldness date from Buckingham’s stay in Paris? Were the isolation in which Louis XIII. often remained and his neglect of the Queen such as people have believed up to the present time? Must we admit, as has been maintained, the proof of a criminal infidelity on the part of this Princess, deliberately committed either with Buckingham in 1625, or with an unknown individual, in 1630, with the view of being able, at the instant of Louis XIII.’s death, which then seemed imminent, to reign in the name of a child of whom she should be enceinte, and who, after the unexpected recovery of the King, became the Man with the Iron Mask?
FOOTNOTES:
[27] Mercure Français, 1625, pp. 365, 366.
[28] Mémoires de Madame de Motteville, p. 15.
[29] The Prince of Wales had been on the point of espousing the Infanta Maria, Anne of Austria’s sister, and had proceeded to Spain with Buckingham, in order to hasten the conclusion of this project. See the very interesting Story of this negotiation in M. Guizot’s Un Projet de Mariage Royal.
[30] Collection of Unpublished Documents concerning the History of France. Lettres et Papiers d’État du Cardinal de Richelieu, published by M. Avenel, vol. ii. p. 55.
[31] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 71.
[32] Mémoires de la Rochefoucauld, p. 340.
[33] Hardwicke (State Papers), vol. i. p. 571. Documents quoted in M. Guizot’s work already cited, p. 332.