From Bordeaux, the Court went to Toulouse; there it was rejoined by Mazarin, who had just signed the peace of the Pyrénées (November 7, 1659).
All histories give the articles of this peace. The results for Europe have been summed up in some brilliant lines written by the great German historian, Leopold Ranke, who had been struck with the advantages which this treaty gave France over Germany:
If it were necessary to characterise in a general fashion the results of this peace … we would say that the importance of the treaty consisted in the formation and extension of the great (geographically) military system of the French monarchy. On all sides, to the Pyrénées, to the Alps, above all, to the frontiers of the German Empire and of the Netherlands, France acquired new fortified points … many positions as important for defence as favourable for attack. The position of France upon the upper Rhine, which it owes to the peace of Westphalia, received by this new treaty its greatest extension.76
Mazarin found that he had done well in himself following the campaigning armies. He knew the military importance of most of the places. The Spanish negotiator could not have said as much. In the interior, the first comer could easily comprehend the political benefits of a treaty which should as far as possible abolish the past. Condé had been included in the terms of the peace and returned to France, well resolved to keep quiet. He rejoined the Court at Aix, January 27, 1660, and found there was a certain curiosity exhibited as to how he would be received.
Mademoiselle hastened to Anne of Austria: "My niece," said the Queen to her, "return to your own dwelling; M. le Prince has especially asked that I should be absolutely alone when I first receive him."
I began to smile with vexation, but said: "I am nobody; I believe that M. le Prince will be very astonished if he does not find me here." The Queen insisted in a very sharp tone; I went away resolved to complain to M. le Cardinal; this I did on the following day, saying that if such a thing happened again, I should leave the Court. He made many excuses. This was Mazarin's system. He poured forth explanations but in no way changed his methods in the future.
It is known that M. le Prince demanded pardon on his knees, and that he found before him in Louis XIV. a judge grave and cold, who held himself "very straight."77 To fight against the King was decidedly no more to be considered a joke; it could not be overlooked, even if one were the conqueror of Rocroy.
Mademoiselle did not succeed in comprehending the real situation. Condé, surprised and deceived, felt his way. One evening at a dance, when talking with Mademoiselle, the King joined them. The conversation fell upon the Fronde. On the part of a man of as much esprit as M. le Prince, one can well believe that this was not by chance: "The war was much spoken of," relates Mademoiselle, "and we joked at all the follies of which we had been guilty, the King with the best grace in the world joining in these pleasantries. Although I was suffering with a severe headache, I was not in the least bored." Mademoiselle had laughed without any second thoughts. Condé, clearer sighted, trembled during the remainder of his days, before this monarch so capable of dissimulation, and so perfectly master of himself.
Almost at the same moment there expired another of those belated feudal ideas, which neither royalty nor manners could any longer suffer among the nobility. Gaston d'Orléans died at Blois, February 2nd,78 his death being caused by an attack of apoplexy. They had heard him murmur from his bed regarding his wife and children, Domus mea domus desolationis vocabitur ("My house will be called the House of Desolation"). He spoke better than he knew. Madame surpassed herself in blunders, and still more. She went to dinner while her husband was receiving the last unction, sent away the servants of Monsieur immediately after the final sigh, locked up everything, and concerned herself no more. Her women refused a sheet in which to wrap the body; it was necessary to beg one from the ladies of the Court. Some priests came to sit up with the dead, but finding neither "light nor fire" they returned, and the corpse remained alone, more completely abandoned than had been that of his brother, the King, Louis XIII. The body was borne without "pomp or expense"79 to Saint-Denis, and the widow hastened to Paris, to take possession of the Palace of the Luxembourg, in the absence of Mademoiselle.
The Court did not take the trouble to feign regrets. The King gave the tone in saying to his cousin, gaily, after the first formal compliments: "You will see my brother to-morrow in a training mantle. I believe that he is delighted at the news of your father's death. He believes that he is heir to all his belongings and state; he can talk of nothing else; but he must wait awhile."
Anne of Austria heard this, and smiled. "It is true," pursues Mademoiselle, "that Monsieur appeared the next day in a wonderful mantle." Mademoiselle had great difficulty in keeping her own countenance. Her grief was, however, very real, notwithstanding the past, or rather, perhaps, on account of what had gone before; it was, however, only an impulse affected by the impression of the moment. She exhibited this sorrow a little too effectively:
I wished to wear the most formal and deepest mourning. Every one of my household was clad in black, even to the cooks, the servants, and the valets; the coverings of the mules, all the caparisons of my horses and of the other beasts of burden. Nothing could be more beautiful the first time we marched than to see this grand train, expressive of grief. It had an air very magnificent and of real grandeur. Everybody says how much wealth she must possess!
The mules' mourning is well worth the training mantle of the little Monsieur. This magnificent funeral pomp had the one inconvenience of recalling to all comers that Mademoiselle must resign other pleasures. At the end of some weeks, she would have willingly resumed her share in Court gaieties; Anne of Austria kindly commanded her to return to life.
The summer was, however, approaching. The Court continued to drag itself from city to city, waiting until it should please the King of Spain to bring his daughter, and the time seemed long. Mazarin shut himself up to work. Louis drilled the soldiers of his guard. The Queen Mother spent long days in convents. Mademoiselle wrote, or worked tapestry. A large number of the courtiers, no longer able to stand the ennui, had returned to Paris; those who remained, lived lives of complete idleness. The King had at this time a fine occasion to study the condition of his provinces; but he did not possess an investigating mind. He spent long months in front of the Pyrénées, without seeking to know anything of their formation, showing an unusual indifference to knowledge, even for this period. One of the few persons who risked themselves in the Pyrénées, Mme. de Motteville, relates her astonishment at discovering valleys, torrents, cultivated fields, and inhabitants. She had believed that she should only find a great wall of rock, "deserted and untilled."
The journey went on; but nature had not yet the right of entrance into literature, and society spoke but rarely of its charms. Of the vast world, only what came directly under the eyes of the individual was known.
At length, on June 2d (1660), the Court of France, "kicking its heels" at Saint-Jean-de-Luz during an entire month, received news of the arrival at Fontarabia of Philip IV. and of the Infanta Marie Thérèse. The next day, the marriage ceremonies commenced.
Six long days and the best intentions on both sides were needed to consummate this great affair without offending etiquette. The problem presented was this: How to marry the King of France with the daughter of the King of Spain, without permitting the King of France to put his foot on Spanish territory, nor the King of Spain on that belonging to France, and at the same time not to allow the Infanta to quit her father before the ceremony had actually taken place?
On the side of the French Court, whose discipline left much to be desired, difficulties of detail arose constantly to complicate affairs. The little Monsieur wept for desire to go to Fontarabia to see a Spanish ceremony; but etiquette made it necessary to consider this brother of the King the present heir presumptive to the crown, and, alleged Louis XIV., "the heir presumptive of Spain could not enter France to see a ceremony."80
After consideration of this point, the heir was forbidden to pass the frontier. Then Mademoiselle arrived, who wished to be of the party. She represented that the order was not applicable to her, and cited the Salic law which gave her the right to traverse the Bidassoa: "I do not inherit," said she; "I should have some compensation. Since daughters are of no value in France, they should at least be permitted to enjoy spectacles."
Mazarin convoked the ministers to submit this argument. The discussion lasted "three or four hours." Finally, Mademoiselle gained her cause, although the King himself was rather against her. The important question of "trains" gave also some embarrassment to the Cardinal. A duke had offered to bear the train of Mademoiselle in the nuptial cortége. Mazarin was obliged to seek two other dukes for the younger sisters of Mademoiselle, two children whom the lady of honour of their mother had led to the marriage. He could only find a marquis and a count; the dukes hid themselves. The lady of honour uttered loud protests; "her Princesses must have 'tail-bearers' as titled as those of their tall sister, or they should not go at all." "I will do what I can," replied the Cardinal; "but no one wishes the task."
Mademoiselle had the good grace to sacrifice her duke, and Mazarin believed the affair terminated, when the Princess Palatine81 caused a novel incident, upon the day of the ceremony, and even when the last moment was approaching. She appeared in the Queen's chamber, wearing a train, to which, being a foreign Princess, she had no right. La Palatine had counted upon the general confusion to smuggle herself in and to create a precedent. It was needful to delay matters. The train had been reported to Mademoiselle, and no marriage should prevent her protest. The Cardinal and after him the King were forced to listen to a discourse upon the limitations of foreign princesses. "I believe," writes Mademoiselle, "that I was very eloquent." She proved herself at least very convincing, for La Palatine received the order to take off her train.
But it is necessary to retrace our steps; trains have carried us too far. The relations between the two monarchs had been regulated with a minutia worthy of Asiatic courts. They met only in a hall, built expressly for the purpose upon the Isle des Faisans, and on horseback upon the frontier. The building was half in French, half in Spanish territory. The decorations of the two sides were different. Louis XIV. must walk upon French carpets, Philip IV. upon Spanish ones. The one must only sit upon a French chair, write only upon a French table with French ink, seek the time only from a French clock, placed in his half of the hall; the other guarded himself with the same care from every object not Spanish. Two opposite doors gave passage at precisely the same instant. An equal number of steps led them to the place where the red carpet of France joined the gold and silver one of Spain; and the two Kings addressed each other and embraced over the frontier. Thus demanded the laws of ceremonial monarchy. Their rigour commenced to astonish the good people of France. The interviews upon the Isle des Faisans became legendary. La Fontaine has alluded to them in one of his last fables, Les Deux Chèvres,82 in which he has found no better comparison for the solemnity with which the two goats, equally "tainted" with their rank, equally curbed, advanced towards each other upon the fragile and narrow bridge.
Je m'imagine voir, avec Louis le Grand,
Philippe quatre qui s'avance
Dans l'isle de la Conférence83
Ainsi s'avançaient pas à pas,
Nez à nez, nos aventurières.
When all was arranged, on June 3rd, neither the bride and bridegroom nor their parents having seen each other, the King of France, represented by Don Luis de Haro, was married by proxy in the church of Fontarabia to the Infanta Marie-Thérèse.
This was the expedient which saved the dignity of the two crowns. After the ceremony, the new Queen returned to her father. She wrote the next day a letter of official compliment to her husband. We possess the response of Louis XIV., in which he has well performed a somewhat difficult task.
Saint-Jean-de-Luz, June 4, 1660.
To receive at the same time a letter from your Majesty, and the news of the celebration of our marriage, and to be on the eve of seeing you, these are assuredly causes of indelible joy for me.
My cousin, the Duke of Créqui, first gentleman of my chamber, whom I am sending expressly to your Majesty, will communicate to you the sentiments of my heart, in which you will remark always increasingly an extreme impatience to convey these sentiments in person.
He will also present to you some trifles on my part.
The same day, in the afternoon, Anne of Austria met for the first time with her brother and niece together. The interview took place in the hall of the Isle des Faisans. Philip IV. astonished the French, decidedly less bound up in tradition than the Spanish. Philip dwelt so immobile in his gravity that one would have hardly taken him for a living man.84
Anne of Austria wishing to embrace her brother, whom she had not seen for forty-five years, he decided to make a movement, but it was only "to withdraw his head so far that she could not catch it."85 The Queen Mother had forgotten the customs of her own land. To embrace in Spain was not to kiss; it only consisted in giving a greeting without touching the lips, as we see done at the Comédie Française by personages of the classic repertoire. Kissing was, as we read in Molière only permitted in certain rare cases. In the Malade Imaginaire, Thomas Diafoirus consults his father before kissing his fiancée: "Shall I kiss her?" "Yes," replies M. Diafoirus.
The evening of the interview, June 4th, Mademoiselle was curious to know whether the King of Spain had kissed the Queen Mother. "I asked her; she told me 'no'; that they had embraced according to the fashion of their own country."
How was this strange fashion established at the Court of France, and from there transferred to our theatres? Was it after the marriage of Louis XIV.? I leave to the amateurs of the theatre the solving of this little problem in dramatic history.
They brought a French chair for the Queen Mother, a Spanish one for Philip IV., and they seated themselves nearly "upon the line which separated the two kingdoms."86
Marie-Thérèse, Infanta of Spain and bride by proxy of the King of France, was still to be seated. Should this be done in France or Spain? upon a Spanish or French chair? They brought one Spanish and two French cushions; piled them upon Spanish territory, and the young Queen found herself seated in a mixed fashion, suitable to her ambiguous situation.
Louis XIV. did not accompany his mother. Etiquette did not yet permit the new couple to address a word to each other. It had been arranged that the King of France should ride along the banks of the Bidassoa and that the Infanta should regard him from afar through the window. A romantic impatience which seized the husband with longing to become acquainted with his wife caused this part of the programme to fail. Louis XIV. looked at Marie-Thérèse through a half-open door. They regarded each other some seconds, and then returned, she to Fontarabia, he to Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
On Sunday, the sixth, they saw each other officially at the Isle des Faisans. Affairs were but little further advanced; Philip IV. had declared that the Infanta must conceal her impressions until she arrived on French territory. On the seventh, Anne of Austria brought her daughter-in-law to Saint-Jean-de-Luz, where the young people could at length converse together, awaiting the definite celebration of the marriage, which took place June 9th in the church of Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
Some days later, the Court retook the road to Paris. Marie-Thérèse made her solemn entrance into the capital, August 20th. The procession departed from Vincennes. "It was necessary to rise at four o'clock in the morning," reports Mademoiselle, who had a frightful sick headache. At five o'clock, every one was in gala costume, and they reached the Louvre at seven in the evening. Mademoiselle was at the end of her endurance; but a Princess of the blood had no right to be ill on the day of a Queen's entrance. Sometimes ridiculous and sometimes ferocious; such appears ancient etiquette to our democratic generation. Monarchs formerly felt the value of its services too keenly to shrink from submitting to its dictates. They knew that a demi-god never descends with impunity from his pedestal. It is impossible to witness his efforts at remounting without laughter. To-day the Princes themselves desire less etiquette. The monarchical sentiment is not sufficiently strong to make them willing to support the ennui of ceremonial; they are capable of any sacrifice of dignity to escape it. We see them resign to others their rank and privileges in the hope of finding in obscurity the happiness which they have missed in the King's palace.
The present lack of form makes it difficult for the mass to take royalty seriously, and thus vanish together the respect for formal courtesies and for aristocracies. Louis XIV. and Philip IV. in spite of La Fontaine, were in the right in attaching capital importance to the placing their feet upon the right carpets. This precision of etiquette prolonged the existence of the monarchy.
Life retook its habitual course in the Palace of the Louvre. The King was studying a new ballet. Very few persons remarked that he found time also to make long visits upon Mazarin. The Cardinal, feeling himself in the clutches of death, was preparing his pupil for his "great trade" of sovereign. He made him acquainted with affairs, spoke to him in confidence of the people connected with the administration of the kingdom; discussed political questions, and recommended him to have no longer a first minister.87 The one thing which he could not yet resolve to do was to permit the King to give a direct order. His dying hands would not let fall a half-crown or relax an atom of authority.
The young Queen was astonished at the money restrictions which had oppressed her since her sojourn in France; Mazarin supervised her household through the intermediary of Colbert, "who saved upon everything,"88 and he (Mazarin) pocketed the savings. On New Year's day, he absorbed for himself three-fourths of the gifts of Marie-Thérèse. The Queen Mother having shown some discontent, "the poor Monsieur the Cardinal," as she called him, cried out boldly, "Alas! if she knew from whence comes this money and that it is the blood of the people, she would not be so liberal."
In vain Mazarin hastened; he did not have time to finish his task. February 11, 1661, the King, realising that his minister was lost, began to weep and to say that he did not know what he should do. All France experienced the same fears. It did not occur to any that the King was capable of governing, or that he would take the trouble to do so. The doubt was only as to the name of the one who should take the helm in place of the Cardinal. Anne of Austria believed in chance; Condé had one party amongst the nobility. The Parisian bourgeoisie said to itself that Retz was perhaps going to return from over sea "for necessity."89 The ministers admitted that there was only one man fitted for the position.
While these various intrigues were progressing, Mazarin expired (March 6th), and some hours later there came that coup de théâtre of which one reads in all histories. Louis XIV. signified to his ministers and grandees his intention of himself governing. Those who knew him well, beginning with his own mother, did nothing but laugh, persuaded that it was only a fire of straw. Louis at first shut himself up entirely alone during two hours, in order to establish a "rule of life"90 as an effective monarch. The programme resulting from this meditation surprisingly resembles the one given by Catherine de Médicis in the letter already cited. It exacts the qualities of a great worker. From that day, Louis showed these qualities. "For above all," says he in his Mémoires, "I resolved not to have a first minister, and not to permit to be filled by another the functions belonging to the King, as long as I bear the title."
The passage in which he describes his "wedding" with the joy of work is moving and beautiful. It is even poetical.
I felt immediately my spirit and courage elevated. I found myself a different individual. I discovered in myself a mind which I did not know existed, and I reproached myself for having so long ignored this joy. The timidity which judgment at first gave caused me pain, above all when it was necessary to speak in public a little lengthily. This timidity, however, was dissipated little by little.
At length it seemed to me I was really King and born to rule. I experienced a sense of well-being difficult to express.
Louis would now have need of all his courage. In measure as his mind became "elevated," shame for his gross ignorance overcame him. "When reason," says he, "commences to become solid, one feels a cutting and just chagrin in finding oneself ignorant of what all others know."
The practical utility of his neglected studies was realised by him. Not to know history with his "trade" was a difficulty felt every instant. Not to be capable of deciphering alone a Latin letter when Rome and the Empire wrote their dispatches only in Latin, was an insupportable slavery to others. Never to have read anything upon the "art of war" when the ambition was aroused to become an expert in this art and to acquire glory through it, "was to put brakes on one's own wheels." The young King's education must be remade; the only difficulty was the finding sufficient leisure. He would not allow himself to be hindered by other difficulties, of which the principal one was the danger of hazarding the newly acquired authority by returning to the schoolroom.
Louis XIV. braved public opinion with remarkable courage. This is one of the finest periods of his life. He proved himself truly great by his sentiment of professional duty, and by his empire over himself, the day upon which he dared to say to himself as the bourgeois gentleman of Molière was forced to say, knowing well the ridicule to which he was exposed: "I wish … to be able to reason among intelligent people."
In order to do him full justice, it is necessary to remember the foolish effect at that date produced by a scholar of twenty-three.91 Classes were then finished at fifteen or sixteen, and the memory of them was inseparably connected with birch rods, without whose aid there was no teaching in the seventeenth century. When it was known that the King was again taking Latin lessons from his ancient preceptor, and that he passed hours in writing themes, the courtiers might easily have had it upon the end of their tongues to demand as Mme. Jourdain of M. Jourdain: "Are you at your age going to college to be whipped?"
He did not console himself with the illusion that his rank would save him from such railleries. He confesses à propos of history, which he wished to study again, how keenly sensitive he was to the thought of what might be said. "One single scruple embarrassed me, which was, that I had a certain shame, considering my position in the world, of redescending into an occupation to which I should earlier have devoted myself." Everything had yielded to the desire "not to be deprived of the knowledge that every worthy man should have."
In spite of these efforts, Louis was never educated; he never knew Latin, which was deemed the real knowledge of the seventeenth century, in which century the language was well taught. Too much business or too many pleasures prevented the young King from pursuing his design during a sufficiently long period. It is possible, also, that his lack of natural facility may have discouraged him. Louis XIV. had memory and judgment, but his intelligence was slow. In short, he abandoned his studies too soon; he felt, and repeated till the day of his death the confession, "I am ignorant."
But Louis never relaxed the labours belonging to him as chief of the State. His days were regulated once for all. Mme. de Motteville tells the arrangement the day following the death of Mazarin. Saint-Simon gives it again a half-century later, and it is identical. Apart from extraordinary and unexpected business, and formal functions, so numerous and important at this epoch, the King regularly devoted six to eight hours daily to ordinary business. Add to these hours the time for sleeping and eating, for seeing his family and taking the fresh air, and but little time would have been left for diversion if the King had not had the capacity of doing without sleep almost at will. It was this physical gift which permitted him to provide as largely for pleasure as for work. Nevertheless, the Court had trouble in adapting itself to the new régime. It did not know what to do while the King worked.
"It is more wearisome here than can be imagined," wrote the Duc d'Enghien, son of the great Condé, in 1664. "The King is shut up almost the entire afternoon."92 Outside the Court, the people could have cried with joy. It had been a delightful surprise to discover a great worker in this ballet dancer. Paris was ready to permit him to indulge in his little weaknesses, provided that he would govern, that he himself would use his power. The bourgeoisie Frondeuse was disarmed.
It is necessary [wrote Guy Patin to a friend] that I should share with you a thought which I find very amusing. M. de Vendome has said that our good King resembles a young doctor who has much ardour for his profession, but who demands some quid pro quo. I know those who see him intimately, who have assured me that he has very good intentions and, that as soon as he is completely the master, he will persuade all the world of them. Amen.93
The italicised words are significant of the opinion of Guy Patin. In establishing absolute monarchy, Louis XIV. had the good wishes of all. Other testimony quite as remarkable exists to confirm this statement. After the death of Mazarin, Olivier d'Ormesson, who had been of the opposition party in the Parliament, and whose independence would soon cost him his career, let three entire years roll by before admitting any statement in his journal to the detriment of the King. This writer also believes in Louis, and, on the whole, approves of the compensations (quid pro quo) demanded by the governing novice.
After the first astonishment, the sudden change in Louis's methods provoked but few commentaries in the immediate surroundings of the King. Anne of Austria had a fit of vexation in realising that she would never again have any influence; after which, indolence aiding, her course was taken. The Queen Mother had no objection on principle to absolute monarchy: she had always favoured it. She could not, as a Spanish Princess, conceive of royalty being the least limited. Once resigned to the new situation, she became a truly maternal old Queen, who preached virtue to youth, and endeavoured to lighten the monotony of her daughter-in-law's life.
Marie-Thérèse had only one single political opinion; good government was that under which a king could pass much time with his wife. This poor little wife died without having ever really lived with her husband.
Mademoiselle had no reason to regret the first ministers; there had been too little reason to enjoy the two with whom she had had intercourse. She imagined herself liberated from all dependence through the death of the Cardinal, succeeding that of her father, and this thought was most agreeable to her. She did not perceive that she had only changed masters, and that the new one would prove himself infinitely more difficult to please, more exacting, than that sceptical Italian who confined himself to watching that she did not carry away her millions to strangers and who simply mocked at everything else.
Mademoiselle finally passed through the state of apprenticeship to absolute monarchy. Her eyes were opened only on the day on which the thunder cloud burst upon her.
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