On November 20, at a small village called Quintanapalla, near Burgos, she was met by the king. Her journey had not been a pleasant one, for the Duchess of Terranova appeared to think that her position as Camarera Mayor enabled her to treat the queen as she chose, and she behaved not only with great severity, but with positive rudeness. Besides this, a dispute arose between the Duke of Osuna and the Marquis of Astorga as to who should ride nearest the queen, and, to put an end to it, Marie Louise was obliged to quit her horse and enter a carriage, surrounded, as the custom was, by curtains of shiny green cloth, which were kept drawn. Right glad was she to think that she would soon be free of this tyranny, and be with someone who wanted her—and Charles did want her to the end of her life.
It was at ten o'clock in the morning that the news was brought to her that the king had arrived. Dressed in her Spanish costume, in which she still felt awkward, she hurried to greet him, but before she reached the antechamber he was in the room. The queen tried to kneel in order to kiss his hand; but he saluted her in the Spanish manner by taking hold of her arms, looking admiringly at her, and murmuring 'My Queen! my Queen! mi reina! mi reina!' She answered in French, assuring him of her love and obedience; and he replied in Spanish, for neither knew a word of the other's language, which seems the more strange when we remember how long the marriage negotiations had lasted, and that the Queen of France, with whom Marie Louise had passed so much of her life, was herself a Spaniard. Under these circumstances, conversation is apt to come to a standstill; but, luckily, the French ambassador, the Marquis de Villars, was present as well as a number of Spanish grandees, and he was able to interpret—or perhaps to invent—everything that was suitable to the occasion. It was decided that the marriage should take place at once in the queen's antechamber, and as the archbishop of Burgos was ill, the benediction should be given by the Patriarch of the Indies, who was also grand almoner. As the king and queen knelt side by side a white ribbon was knotted round them, and a piece of white gauze fringed with silver was laid on the head of the queen and on the shoulders of the king.
After seeing a bull fight and some races at Burgos, the king and queen entered their carriage, and, with the shiny green cloth curtains drawn back, they began their drive to Madrid. It must have felt terribly long to both of them, as neither could speak to the other; but then Charles was accustomed to be silent, and Marie Louise was not. How thankful she must have been when the evening came, and she could exchange a few words with her nurse or her French maids! But she could not chatter as she would have liked to do, or the Camarera Mayor would drop the low curtesy which Marie Louise was fast growing to hate, and say, 'Her Majesty the Queen of Spain is not aware that it is past nine o'clock, and time she was in bed.' Marie Louise was not clever at languages, and had as yet picked up no Spanish; but she knew quite well that whenever her lady-in-waiting began 'Her majesty the Queen of Spain,' she must stop whatever she was doing at the moment and make ready to do something else. Her maids of honour happily soon became fond of their new mistress, and did all they could to make her like her adopted country, and some of them who knew a little French would try and explain any custom that puzzled her. The rest looked their sympathy when the old duchess had done something specially rude or disagreeable, as when, for instance, she would put her finger into her mouth and attempt to dab down the queen's curly hair into the smooth locks admired by the Spaniards!
It was from the maids of honour that Marie Louise learned to know many things about Spanish life, for she was naturally curious about what went on around her, and had little to distract her thoughts. From them she heard that no great noblemen would ever think of dismissing his servants, but, on the contrary, when any members of his family died he added all their retainers to his own. As to actual wages, the servants were paid very little; why, even the gentlemen who formed part of the household only received fifteen crowns a month, and out of that they were expected to feed themselves, and to dress in black velvet in winter and in silk in summer. But, as her Majesty would soon notice, they lived mostly on vegetables and fruit, which were cheap, and they took their meals at the public eating-houses at the corners of the streets. Her Majesty was surprised to see all the carriages drawn by mules? But in Madrid horses were coming into fashion, which were much better. The late king had been frequently painted on his horse by one Velasquez, and it had a beautiful tail, which nearly swept the ground, and a long mane decorated with ribbons. Then, if the dreaded Camarera Mayor did not happen to be present, they would begin to talk about the fashions.
Yes, Spanish ladies had quantities of splendid jewels, but they were not cut and set like those the queen wore. Many of the devout ones had belts made entirely of relics, and if their husbands were away it was customary for every wife to dress herself during his absence in grey or white. Indeed, as a rule it was only young girls or brides who were permitted by etiquette to put on coloured skirts; the elder ladies were generally in black silk. 'Rouge their shoulders? Why, of course! Did they not do so in France?' But at this the queen burst into such fits of laughter that the old duchess came hurrying in and sternly ordered them all to be silent.
The palace of Madrid was not yet ready, so the king and queen had to go to Buen-Retiro, a charming house, with a beautiful park, on the outskirts of the city, just above the river Manzanares. The garden was laid out in terraces, and ornamented with female statues, all of them with rouge on their cheeks and shoulders like the ladies. Marie Louise was surprised to see only two or three guards standing in front of the palace, and exclaimed that in Paris they would have half a regiment.
'Ah! Madame,' replied the French ambassador, the Marquis de Villars, 'that was a remark made lately by Madame la Comtesse d'Aulnoy to a Spanish gentleman, and she received for answer, "Are we not all the king's guards?"'
The first days at Buen-Retiro passed pleasantly enough. The young king gave himself a holiday from his state duties, and was pleased with the interest the queen showed in his country. He took all his meals in her company, and they would even help—or hinder—the maids of honour in laying the table for dinner. In the evenings they sometimes went to the theatre, but this was not much amusement for the queen, as the plays were very long and she could not understand them. When the king was not with her—and before long he was forced to spend several hours a day with his ministers—the Duchess of Terranova never left her alone. If she unfastened the lattice in order to see what was happening in the park or gardens, the Camarera Mayor would rise from her seat and drop a low curtesy, and say: 'Her Majesty the Queen of Spain never looks out of the window'; or if she tried to teach the tiny little pages or maids of honour, six or seven years old, the games she had played with her own little sister, she was stopped at once by hearing that 'Her Majesty the Queen of Spain never condescends to notice children!' If she was eating her supper beyond the hour which custom had fixed for her to go to bed, at the command of the lady in waiting her ladies would begin to undress her at table, and she would find herself lying on her fourteen mattresses before she realised that she had moved from her seat. In fact, the only human beings with whom she had perfect freedom were the dwarfs, who were allowed to do and say what they liked. There were quantities of them at Court, and one of them, called Luisillo, or 'little Luis,' was a special favourite of the king's. He was a tiny creature, who had been brought from Flanders, and he might have been Oberon, king of the Fairies, he was so handsome and well made and so full of wisdom. He rode a pony which was an exact copy of his master's horse, and was generally to be seen with him in public and in processions.
It seems strange that, considering how greatly Marie Louise feared and disliked her Camarera Mayor, she should have listened to her abuse of the king's mother, and allowed it to influence her conduct. The queen-dowager had quite forgotten her disappointment at her son's choice of a wife, and had given Marie Louise a hearty welcome, even trying to prevail on the king to alter some of the strictest rules, and allow Marie Louise a little more amusement and freedom. She did her best, too, to win her daughter-in-law's confidence, and in spite of the distrust implanted in her by the old duchess, the queen could not help enjoying her company, and the story of her experiences when she herself, a bride younger than Marie Louise, arrived in Spain from Vienna. One of the places at which she stopped was a town famous for its undergarments, and a quantity of beautiful petticoats, stockings, and other things were sent up to the house where she lodged as a wedding present. When they were unpacked, the major-domo indignantly caught up the parcel of stockings and flung them back at the astonished citizens. 'Know, then, that the Queen of Spain has no legs!' he cried, meaning that so sacred a personage would never need to touch the ground with her feet; but the archduchess understood the words literally, and shed many secret tears in her room over a letter to her brother the emperor, saying that if she had known they were going to cut off her feet she would never, never have come to this country!