[310]. ‘Mémoires de la Cour d’Espagne.’ Villars. Even so, she was not allowed to mount her horses from the ground, but had to be driven in her coach to the place and mount the horse from the step of the carriage. One of her horses being very high spirited resented on one occasion this strange performance, and the Queen was thrown to the ground, much to her husband’s alarm. No one, it appears, dared to touch the Queen, even to raise her from the ground, until Charles had sufficiently recovered from the shock to do so himself. (Mme. D’Aulnoy.)
[311]. ‘Mémoires.’ Villars.
[312]. ‘Mémoires de la Cour d’Espagne.’ Villars.
[313]. ‘Recueil des Instructions aux ambassadeurs de France.’ Paris, 1894.
[314]. In January 1685 the Duke of Montalto in Madrid wrote to Pedro Ronquillo, the ambassador in London. ‘The King attends to nothing but his hunting pastimes, and the Queen in tiring horses, as if she were a skilled horse-breaker. That is a pretty way to become pregnant! In short, my dear sir, it is quite clear that God determines to punish us on every side.’ Writing again, a month later (28th February), the same correspondent, after vilifying the Medina Celi government, says: ‘Neither the things in the palace or anywhere else here improve. It looks, on the contrary, as if the devil himself had taken them in hand. Medina Celi is very placid over it, and cares only for himself; the King has been wolf-hunting for a week thirty miles off, and there would be no harm in that if he would only despatch business. As for the Queen, Medina Celi positively encourages her in her pranks so as to be able to hold on to office by her. He does not care so long as others have to pay.’ Both the correspondents, it is needless to say, belonged to Mariana’s party. ‘Doc. Ined.,’ lxxix.
[315]. There was a document found in Marie Louise’s cabinet after her death, which purported to be a political guide, written to her at this period by Louis XIV. In this cynical document the Queen is advised how to gain advantage from the King’s weakness and ineptitude, and how to obtain control of him. She is to maintain an attitude between complaint and friendship with the Queen-Mother, but to be very wary with regard to her: she is advised to maintain Oropesa in the ministry, but not to trust him, or to allow him more power than he had. She is to continue to introduce French fashions, manners, etc., in the palace; and advice is given her as to how she should treat all the principal nobles. The manuscript concludes: ‘Withdraw this paper into your most secret keeping. Live for yourself and for your beloved France. In Spain they do not love you, as you know, and they do not fear you either, for faint hearts easily conceive suspicions, and strength is not needed to commit a cruelty.’ The original document is in the Bibliotéca Nacional, Madrid (H. II), and there is a Spanish translation of it in MSS. Add. 15,193, British Museum. The document has usually been assumed to be authentic, but I am rather inclined to regard it as one of the many means employed to blacken the French cause after Marie Louise’s death.
[316]. To the French ambassador who was in Spain in 1688, the Count de Rebenac, she gave the most intimate detailed reasons for her lack of issue connected with the constitution of the King. Rebenac repeated these confidences in his letters to Louis.
[317]. Mme. Quantin was a widow. It has been explained that all the ladies in the palace had to be maids or widows.
[318]. ‘Doc. Ined.,’ lxxix.
[319]. ‘Doc. Ined.,’ lxxix.