So the years slipped by, and one day Marie Louise was seventeen, graceful and charming like her mother, with 'feet that danced of themselves,' as Madame de Sévigné said to her daughter. The dauphin was seventeen too, and in those days young men, especially princes, married early. Would the prophecy uttered over her cradle by her grandmother, Henrietta Maria, come true, and the beautiful, quick-witted girl be queen of France? The Parisians would have liked nothing better, and even the princes of the blood would have been content; she had been like a daughter to the queen, and was sure of a welcome from her; but the king—why did the king stand aloof and say nothing? Marie Louise guessed what was being whispered, and waited and wondered too, till she grew pale and thin, and Madame watched her and said angrily to Monsieur: 'Did I not warn you not to let her go to Court so much, if you did not want to make her miserable? Now she will never be happy anywhere else.'
At length the king's silence was explained. Marie Louise would never be queen of France—a German princess must be the wife of the dauphin; but she should be queen of Spain, and her husband was to be Charles II., the brother of Marie Thérèse. True, the King of Spain was ill-educated and ugly, and so stupid that some doubted if he had all his wits. He was very delicate too, and at four years old could scarcely walk or talk, and never stood without leaning on somebody. But he was lord over vast possessions, though, perhaps, he had not much real power out of Spain, and there the country was in such poverty that there was but little money passing from hand to hand. His mother, Marie Anne of Austria, had held the reins of government, but at length, aided by his half-brother, Don John, Charles suddenly banished her to Toledo, and announced that he meant to be king in fact as well as in name. His first step was to break off negotiations with the emperor, whose daughter the queen-mother had chosen for his wife. This was done under the influence of Don John, and it was he who first suggested that King Charles might look for a bride in France. The king was slow to take in new ideas, and as backward in parting with them. Don John let him alone, and did not hurry him, but he threw in his way a portrait of the princess, and contrived that he should overhear the conversation of some Spanish gentlemen who had lately returned from Paris, and were loud in praises of the lovely and fascinating Mademoiselle. Charles looked at the miniature oftener and oftener; soon he refused to part with it at all, and by-and-by began even to talk to it. Then he told Don John he would never marry any woman but this.
Soon an envoy was sent to the King of France to ask the hand of his niece, which, after the usual official delays, lasting fully nine months, was joyfully granted to him. Tales of Charles II., who was, after all, Marie Thérèse's brother, had not failed to cross the Pyrenees, and Mademoiselle's heart sank as she thought of what awaited her. Once she summoned up all her courage and threw herself at the king's feet, imploring him to let her stay in France, even though she were to remain unmarried.
'I am making you queen of Spain,' he answered; 'what more could I have done for my daughter?'
'Ah, Sire! you could have done more for your niece,' she said, turning away, for she saw it was hopeless.
Although the formal consent of Louis XIV. was not given till July 1679, King Charles had nominated the persons who were to form the household of the young queen ever since January. He had Don John continually with him, asking his advice about this and that, though he never even took the trouble to tell his mother of his marriage, and left her to learn it from common rumour. At length all was ready; the king was informed of the day that the princess would reach the frontier, and Don John was about to start for the Pyrenees, when he was seized by a severe attack of fever, and in ten days was dead. According to etiquette he lay in state for the people to visit, in the splendid dress which had been made for him to wear when he met the new queen.
It was on a little island in the middle of the river Bidassoa that Marie Louise said good-bye to France. She had thought she could not feel more pain when she had bidden farewell to the friends of her childhood—to the king and queen, to her father and stepmother, to her young sister, now ten years old, whose daughter would one day be queen of Spain too; worse than all, to the dauphin himself. Yet as long as she remained on French soil she was not wholly parted from them, and now and then a wild hope rushed through her heart that something, she did not know what, would happen, and that she might see one or other of them again. But as she entered the pavilion on the island where her Spanish attendants awaited her she knew that the links that bound her to the old life were broken, and she must make the best of that which lay before. It was a very strange Spain over which she was to reign, and she may often have dreamed that she was living in a fairy tale, and that some day her ugly king would throw off his enchanted mask and become the handsomest and most charming of princes. Spain itself really began in the old French town of Bayonne, where ladies paid visits with fat little sucking pigs under their arms, instead of being followed by long-eared spaniels, as in France. The pigs had ribbons round their necks to match their mistresses' dresses, and at balls were placed, after their entrance, in a room by themselves, while their owners danced with a grace no other nation could equal the branle, the canaris, or the sarabande. At certain times the gentlemen threw their canes into the air, and caught them cleverly as they came down, and they leapt high, and cut capers, all to the sound of a fife and a tambourine—a wooden instrument like a ship's trumpet, which was struck by a stick. As to the clothes in which the young queen was dressed by her Camarera Mayor, or chief lady of the bedchamber, on her arrival at Vittoria, Marie Louise did not know whether to laugh or to cry when she caught sight of herself in a mirror. Her hair was parted on one side, and hung down in five plaits, each tied with a bow of ribbon and a string of jewels. In winter, twelve petticoats were always worn, and though the upper one was of lace or fine embroidered muslin, one at any rate of the other eleven was of thick velvet or satin, worked in gold, while, to support the weight, which was tremendous, a huge stiff hoop was fastened on underneath them all. The dress itself was made very long, so as to conceal the feet, shod in flat, black morocco slippers. The bodice, high in front and low behind, which gave a very odd effect, was made of rich cloth of gold, and glittered with diamonds. 'But I can never move in these clothes,' said the queen, turning to the Duchess of Terranova, who knew no French and waited till the Princess d'Harcourt interpreted for her.
'In summer her Majesty the Queen of Spain will wear only seven petticoats,' replied the duchess, dropping a low curtesy; and Marie Louise gave a little laugh.
Odd as her own dress seemed, that of the old Camarera Mayor and the mistress of the maids of honour was odder still. They were both widows, and wore loose, shapeless black garments, with every scrap of hair hidden away. When they went out of doors large hats concealed their faces, and in this guise they rode on mules after their mistress, who was mounted on a beautiful Andalusian mare; As she travelled to Burgos, near which the king was to meet her, Marie Louise noticed with surprise that all the carriages were drawn by six mules, but they were so big and strong that they could gallop as fast as any horse. The reins were usually of silk or rope, and each pair was harnessed at a great distance from the next, the coachman riding on one of the first two. When she inquired why he did not sit on the box, as in France, and have postillions in front, she was told that since a coachman had overheard some state secrets discussed between Olivares and his master, Philip IV., no one had ever been allowed to come within earshot of his Majesty.