The loss of two of her French attendants drew Marie Louise ever closer to Mme. Villars, who was a person of mature age, but, to her later regret, she gradually lost some of the reserve that at first she had considered prudent in her communications with the Queen. Mariana smiled upon the constant companionship of her daughter-in-law with the French ambassadress, but she must have known, for she was experienced and clever, that it would end in disaster to Marie Louise, whose future depended upon pleasing her husband and becoming purely Spanish. The Queen did her best to keep the affection of Charles, who, in his own way, was desperately in love with her, and on occasions when he had to leave her for a day or two she affected desperate sorrow at his absence so cleverly as to arouse the admiration of Mme. Villars for her good acting.
But, though she kept the King in alternate fits of maudlin devotion and despairing rage at her capricious flouting of all the rules and traditions of his Court, he himself was politically a cypher, and the policy always favoured by Mariana slowly but surely gained ground, whilst the French interest grew weaker; and Marie Louise, in spite of her uncle’s indignant reminders, raised no finger to help the cause she had been sent to Spain to champion. If Mariana ever had quarrelled with the Emperor, as Villars thought, the breach was patched up now, and the Austrian ambassador, Count de Grana, an old friend of Mariana’s, came to draw closer than before the family alliance. And yet Mariana ostentatiously abstained from any governmental action, whilst all went in the way she wished.
The first open sign of a return to the old policy of religious unity and the Austrian connection was the holding of the greatest auto de fe that had taken place in Madrid for half a century, in June 1680. The Plaza Mayor was transformed at a vast expense into a great theatre; all its hundreds of windows were filled with the aristocracy of Spain, and the high roofs of the houses crowded with people to see the dreadful show. All the inquisitors in Spain had been summoned, and the pulpit, the great tribune for the judges, the platform for the bishops, and the fronts of the barriers and balconies were covered with costly tapestries and rich hangings for the occasion. Eighty-five grandees and noblemen were proud to act as familiars of the Holy Office, and a picked corps of 250 gentlemen served as soldiers of the faith, to guard its ministers, and each to carry a faggot for the devilish bonfire at the gate of Fuencarral after the auto was finished.
All day long, from early morning till four in the afternoon, the King, with Marie Louise and Mariana, sat in the principal balcony of the Panadería, the centre house in the great square, whilst 120 poor wretches in sambenitos, with ropes round their necks, gags in their mouths, and other insignia of shame, were condemned after innumerable ceremonies, sermons and rogations, to the tender mercies of the law condemning heresy. Charles swore again on the gospels to defend and promote the Catholic faith as held in Spain; and when the dread sentences were pronounced, the captain of the Inquisition Guard entered the royal balcony, bearing upon his shield a faggot, which was presented to Charles and the Queen, the former of whom returned it to the holder, saying: ‘Take it in my name, and let it be the first cast upon the fire to burn heretics.’ The French ambassador and his wife were obliged to be present, for those who did not attend were looked upon with suspicion; but they, and all the world, knew that this atrocious scene meant the growing power of the traditional ideas connected with Austrian friendship and the certainty at no distant period of a renewal of the war with France.
Paltry questions of diplomatic precedence and privilege, the haughty encroaching spirit of Louis XIV., and the utter abandonment of even current affairs by the Spanish government, under lazy Medina Celi, widened daily the breach between France and Spain. Villars and his wife, according to the evidence now before us, appear to have misunderstood entirely who were their real friends and foes in the palace. Mariana was all amiability to them, constantly urging that the ambassadress should be much with Marie Louise, and openly disapproving of the harsh manners of the Duchess of Terranova, who was always, says Villars, abusing the French and turning the King’s dislike to his wife’s countrymen into unreasoning hatred. The ambassador therefore believed that the Duchess was really the enemy of the young Queen and the French interest; but it is unquestionable that in the then state of feeling in Spain, the only hope for Marie Louise was to keep as far away from her own countrymen and women as her Mistress of the Robes desired. Marie Louise, thoughtless as she was, naturally considered this tyrannical and hard. On one occasion a French half-witted beggar came to her carriage door, and the Queen, speaking French to him, threw him some alms; whereupon the King was so enraged that he insisted upon the beggar being arrested, examined and expelled the country. Another day the King and Queen in their coach passed in the street some Dutch gentlemen dressed in French style, whose carriage, according to etiquette, had drawn up whilst the royal equipage passed. The strangers were on the left side of the street, and consequently were nearer the Queen than the King, and in their salutations addressed their respects to her. Again the King made a violent jealous scene, and caused a grave reprimand to be addressed to the Dutchmen, who were forbidden ever to salute the Queen again.
In the spring of 1680, on a disputed question of etiquette, the King took away some of the diplomatic privileges of the French ambassador, and the Duke of Orleans wrote to his daughter the Queen, asking her to speak to her husband about it. When Marie Louise did so, Charles sulkily told her to mind her own business, and not to speak to him on such affairs. She pressed her point, however, and he replied: ‘They will recall this ambassador, and send me another gabacho instead.’[[306]] Some months later, whilst Mme. Villars was on one of her frequent visits to the Queen, the King, who had taken a special dislike to her, and often listened behind the arras to the conversation in the hope of detecting an indiscretion, broke out from his hiding-place in insulting abuse of the ambassadress. Villars lays all this trouble at the door of the Duchess of Terranova and the Marquis of Astorga, the Queen’s master of the household, both appointed by Don Juan, and praises Mariana to the skies for her gentleness to Marie Louise, and her desire that she should have her own way and see as many French people as she liked.[[307]]
After a time the Duchess of Terranova, finding that the harshness of her methods, contrasting with the gentleness of her opponents, was destroying her influence, softened her manners to some extent, and went so far as to rebuke the King—even to scold him—when he said unkind things to his wife about her countrywomen, but her desire to mould Marie Louise into the traditional Spanish Queen never ceased, and if her advice had been followed, unpalatable and cross-grained as it was, the unhappy girl would have been saved much of her misery. Every small device that the King could adopt, Villars says on the advice of the Duchess, was brought into play to separate the Queen from French influence. She was kept so short of money that most of her beloved horses, which she was not allowed to ride, and their French grooms, had to be sent back to France, all her French men servants, even her doctor, were dismissed, though he, from his name (Dr. Talbot), would seem to have been an Englishman.
In this wretched existence Marie Louise grew callous. She took no pains even to be civil to the Spanish grand dames who visited her, or to pretend to care a jot for the eternal comedies and visits to convents that were the only amusements allowed her. She played for hours every day at spilikins with the King; ‘the worst company in the world, and he never had any one with him but his two dwarfs.’ She was careless and buxom, and found some little pleasure in attending to her birds,[[308]] but nothing else; for she had neither brains, nor ambition, nor ideas, worthy of her rank. Secretly all she longed for was to return to France as a widowed Queen, to enjoy herself as she liked without fear.[[309]] Her one delight was the visit of Mme. Villars, who sang French airs with her, or played whilst the Queen danced a minuet, or chatted about Fontainebleau and St. Cloud. ‘I do not know,’ says Mme. Villars, ‘what passes in her breast and in her head to keep her up so, but, as for her heart, I believe that nothing passes there at all.’ In these words the witty Frenchwoman aptly sums up the character of the Queen, doomed to this life of gloomy dulness by the side of a semi-imbecile. She had left her heart behind her in the land she loved, and her existence now was carelessly epicurean.
The political intrigues went on around her unheeded, and she had not wit enough to see the traps laid for her. The Duchess of Terranova was always dour and disagreeable, but her desperate attempts to alienate the Queen from all memory of France had now made her specially disliked by her mistress, whilst Mariana and her friends ostentatiously sided with the young Queen, and deprecated the severity of the Duchess. Incited by them Marie Louise determined to get rid if she could of the rough old lady who was really her only friend, and spoke first to her confidante Mme. Villars about it. The ambassador and his wife were as deeply resentful of the old Duchess, who hated French people, as was the Queen, and were delighted to hear the project for getting rid of her, but Mme. Villars counselled prudence; for she knew how flighty and unstable the Queen was. The Duchess, she said, was very clever, and such a change as that suggested was without precedent in Spain: besides, the Duchess had been later somewhat more civil than before; nevertheless, if the Queen really wished for a new mistress of the Robes she must begin by mentioning the matter to the King, and the Prime Minister, so that the affair might be settled before a word of it reached the ears of the Duchess.
Marie Louise used all her witchery that same night when she broached the subject to her husband. He answered her, as she said, more sensibly than she had expected, and told her that, if really the Duchess made her so unhappy, they would make a change; but it was a serious matter, and she must recollect that no second change would be possible. Marie Louise then approached Queen Mariana, and found her apparently cool and indifferent about it, to an extent that somewhat discouraged the young Queen, who little understood that there was nothing that her mother-in-law desired more than the removal of the only salutary check upon her conduct. But Medina Celi, the Prime Minister, whom the imperious ways of the old Duchess had offended, lent eager ear to the suggestion when, by the aid of the Villars, it was opened to him. Marie Louise, by the advice of Madame Villars, asked that the Duchess of Medina Celi might be her new Mistress of the Robes, but that lady declined absolutely. Then the Marchioness of los Velez and other great ladies were suggested; and when Marie Louise consulted Mariana upon each one in turn, the old Queen remained cold and aloof, and even had excuses, and good words to say about the Duchess of Terranova.