Kitabı oku: «Old Court Life in France, Volume II (of 2)», sayfa 7
CHAPTER XII.
"PUT NOT THY TRUST IN PRINCES."
MADAME DE NOAILLES rises to receive the Duchesse de Chevreuse, and kisses her with effusion, but is startled at the sight of her blanched face and despondent air. She is plainly dressed in a dark travelling costume, bows to the Duchesse de Sennécy and to the other ladies, and sinks down on a couch.
"Good heavens! what is the matter?" asks Madame de Noailles, with intense curiosity, taking her by the hand; "you are strangely altered since I left the palace a few hours since."
The Duchesse de Chevreuse glances at the circle of ladies, the "nineteen bosom friends," whose eyes are riveted upon her as if to read her thoughts. The red-nosed Countess in particular has advanced close to her, in order not to lose a syllable; her mouth is wide open, to assist her ears in listening.
"I have come on private business of some importance to myself, dear Duchess," says Madame de Chevreuse, speaking under her breath. "I did not know that you received this evening. It is unfortunate."
Madame de Noailles, who is dying to hear what she has to say, looks at her guests with an unmistakable expression. The Duchesse de Sennécy rises at once.
"Allow me to wish you good evening, my dear friend," says she, and departs. The red-nosed Countess is forced to rise and follow her example, how much against her will it is plain to see; the other ladies retire with her.
Madame de Noailles and the Duchesse de Chevreuse are now alone. Madame de Chevreuse heaves a profound sigh; a tear rolls down her cheek, out of which the dimples are faded. Her thin lips are white, and she shivers.
"Tell me, Duchess, what misfortune has happened?" asks Madame de Noailles, taking her hand.
"A misfortune, yes, for I love her – I love her dearly. I have devoted my life to serve her; without me she would not now be Regent of France."
Madame de Chevreuse speaks in broken sentences; her looks are wild; her mind seems to wander; her large prominent eyes are fixed on vacancy.
"Duchess, for God's sake rouse yourself. What has happened? Is it the Queen?" And Madame de Noailles wrings the hand of her friend to rouse her.
"Yes – it is the Queen," replies Madame de Chevreuse slowly, becoming more conscious, and gazing at her. "Her Majesty has dismissed me. I am on my way to Tours – exiled."
"Gracious heaven!" exclaims Madame de Noailles; "what ingratitude!"
"Duchess, I thank you for your sympathy; but, I beseech you, say not one word against my beloved mistress. When I entered this room it seemed to me that sorrow had made me mad – my brain was on fire. I am better now, and calmer. My royal mistress may live to want me, as she has so often done before. She may recall me. At Court – in exile – absent or present, I am her humble and devoted slave."
"She will want no one as long as she has Mazarin," says the Duchess, with a sneer.
"So I fear," returns Madame de Chevreuse.
"But what has happened since I left the palace?" again eagerly asks Madame de Noailles.
"I will tell you. I have never been the same to her Majesty since the old days, when I was banished, after the Val de Grâce, by Richelieu. She received me well after I returned, when she was Regent; but I have loved her too devotedly not to feel the difference. While, on my side, the long years that I had spent flying over Europe to escape the machinations of the Cardinal, had only made me more devoted to her, the Queen – who formerly trusted me with every thought – had grown serious, reserved, and ascetic. I am pious enough myself," – and a gleam of fun passes into her weary face, and causes her eyes to sparkle, – "I never eat meat in Lent, and always confess at Easter. But her Majesty has become a bigot. She was always reproving me, too, for those little agaceries (vanities she called them) which no one lives without. 'My age,' she said, 'forbade them.' Now I only own to forty, Duchess; that is not an age to go into a convent, and to think of nothing but my soul. Why should I not enjoy myself a little yet?" And her large eyes find their way to a mirror opposite, and dwell on it with evident complacency.
"But the Queen reproaches everybody," returns Madame de Noailles. "Conceive – she reprimanded me for wearing a dress too décolleté."
Madame de Chevreuse smiles faintly; for it was indeed true that the older Madame de Noailles grew, the lower her dresses were cut.
"People who hated me made the Queen believe," continues Madame de Chevreuse, "that I wanted to govern her – to use her patronage. If it were so, I should have done it long ago. It was the Princesse de Condé who told the Queen so; she hates me. When I assured her Majesty that it was false, she seemed to believe me. Then came the affair of Madame de Montbazon and the letters found in her room, one of which she said was written by the Duchesse de Longueville, the daughter of my enemy, the Princesse de Condé. How could I help what my stepmother said? – she is a spoilt beauty, and very injudicious – but her Majesty blamed me, nevertheless. I implored her to forgive my stepmother; and for this purpose, I offered her Majesty yesterday a collation in those fine gardens, kept by Regnard, beyond the chestnut avenue of the Tuileries – you know these gardens, Duchess?"
"I do," replies Madame de Noailles.
"Her Majesty had often wished to go there. I asked my stepmother to be present, in the full belief that the Queen's kind heart would relent when she saw her, and that she would restore her to favour. Alas! I was mistaken. I do not know the Queen now, she is so changed. She came accompanied by the Princesse de Condé. No sooner had she set eyes on Madame de Montbazon, who was conversing with me, than the Queen gave me a furious glance, called the Princesse de Condé to her side, and bid her command the attendance of her pages; then, without another word, her Majesty turned her back on me, entered her coach, and departed."
"Heavens!" exclaims Madame de Noailles, turning up her eyes, "no one is safe, unless they are allies of Cardinal Mazarin."
"An hour afterwards," – and the Duchesse de Chevreuse raises her handkerchief to her eyes, – "I received an order to quit Paris for Tours. Alas, I have not deserved it!"
"It is the Cardinal," cries Madame de Noailles. "He will drive out all her old friends; they are inconvenient – "
While she speaks the door opens, and Mademoiselle de Hautefort enters the saloon, unannounced. She is bathed in tears; her eyes are swollen with excessive weeping; she cannot repress her sobs. The two ladies rise, and endeavour to sooth her; but her passionate sorrow is not to be appeased. For some time she cannot utter a word. Madame de Chevreuse hung over her affectionately.
"Dearest friend," she says, kissing her, "I guess what has happened. You are exiled; so am I. Come with me into Touraine; let us comfort each other until better days."
"Oh, speak not to me of better days," sobs Mademoiselle de Hautefort. "They can never come to me. My dear, dear mistress, you have broken my heart!" and she bursts into a fresh passion of tears.
The Duchesse de Chevreuse sits down beside her and chafes her hand. Madame de Noailles, who sees in the departure of these two ladies a chance of greater promotion and increased confidence for herself, forms her countenance into an expression of concern she does not in the least feel.
"My dear friend," says Madame de Chevreuse, endeavouring to calm the agony of grief which shook the whole frame of Mademoiselle de Hautefort, "let us share our sorrow."
"The Queen must think herself rich in friends, to cast away such devoted servants," observes Madame de Noailles sententiously, contemplating the group through her eye-glass. "Do speak, Mademoiselle de Hautefort."
She had gradually become more collected, and her violent sobs had ceased; but now and then her bosom heaves, as bitter recollections of the past float through her mind.
"Speak," whispers the Duchesse de Chevreuse in her softest voice, "it will relieve you. In what manner did our royal mistress dismiss you?"
"Late last evening," answers Mademoiselle de Hautefort, in a tremulous voice, stopping every now and then to sigh, and to wipe the tears that streamed from her eyes. "Mademoiselle de Motteville and I were assisting the Queen at her coucher. As is our habit we were conversing familiarly with her. The Queen was undressed, and just preparing to get into bed. She had only her last prayer to say, for she lives on prayer, like a true saint." Madame de Noailles draws down the corners of her mouth and scarcely endeavours to hide her derision. Even the Duchesse de Chevreuse smiles. "Mademoiselle de Motteville and her sister the Comtesse de Jars, and Mademoiselle de Beaumont, had just left the anteroom from whence they had been speaking with the Queen. I was on my knees before her taking off her shoes. All at once I remembered that a gentleman, who attends upon the ladies in waiting, called Nédo, a Breton – you know him, Duchess?" – Madame de Chevreuse answered that she did, – "had asked me to obtain a better appointment for him." Mademoiselle de Hautefort pauses. The scene seems to rise before her, and a fresh fit of violent sobbing prevents her from speaking. "Alas!" she exclaims at last, "why – why did I presume to trouble her Majesty for such a trifle? A stranger to me, too! I have lost what was dearer to me than life – herself. She refused me," continues Mademoiselle de Hautefort, "I was nettled. Oh, Duchess," says she, turning to Madame de Chevreuse, "how often have you borne my hasty temper! How I reproach myself now! That temper has ruined – undone me!"
"What would Monsieur le Maréchal de Schomberg say if he heard you?" asks Madame de Noailles slily.
"Do not name him to me," cries Mademoiselle de Hautefort impatiently. "Schomberg is nothing to me in comparison with the Queen. Had I remained with her, I could never, never have married!"
"Well, you will now," and the Duchess laughs. "But what happened? Do go on."
"Alas! I lost my temper. I was irritated at her Majesty refusing me so small a favour. I told her she had forgotten the claims of her old friends, who had suffered so much in her service."
"That was wrong, ungenerous," interposes Madame de Chevreuse. "A favour ceases to be a favour, if it be made a subject of reproach; besides – "
"Ah! I know it too well!" and Mademoiselle de Hautefort almost groans with anguish; "and it is that which breaks my heart; it is my own fault. The Queen, in one moment, became more excited than I had ever seen her. Her face turned crimson, she threw herself on her bed, commanded me to close the curtains, and to retire. I disobeyed her. I could not help it. I cast myself on the ground within the ruelle of her bed. I clasped my hands. I told her I called God to witness of my love, my devotion to her. I implored her to recall the past, to remember his Majesty Louis XIII."
"Ah! you were very wrong," exclaims Madame de Chevreuse; "most impolitic, most undutiful. You have a good heart, mademoiselle, but you are too impulsive."
"It is true," answers Mademoiselle de Hautefort, humbly. "Her Majesty grew more and more displeased, she said that she must have me know she would allow no one about her who did not love and respect her; then she went on to say that I had made observations upon her valued servant, Cardinal Mazarin, which were very displeasing to her. I replied too hastily that it was my care for her honour that had made me do so; that reports were circulating injurious to her, and that I longed to see the departure of a minister whose presence compromised her."
"What imprudence!" cries Madame de Chevreuse, lifting up her hands. "How could you dare to say this?"
"It is quite true, however," rejoins Madame de Noailles, "and it was the part of a true friend to tell her."
"Would to God I had been silent!" continues Mademoiselle de Hautefort; "no sooner were the words out of my mouth than the Queen sternly ordered me to extinguish the lights and to withdraw. I rose from my knees more dead than alive and departed. When I awoke this morning I received an order commanding me not to approach within forty miles of the Court. Oh, it is dreadful!"
"Come with me into Touraine, my carriage waits below. We will stop at your lodgings in order to give your people time to pack. Come, dear friend, we have lived side by side among the splendours of the court, we have suffered persecution for the same mistress, we love her devotedly, spite of all injuries. Let us now comfort each other in exile."
Mademoiselle de Hautefort casts herself into the arms of the Duchess.
"You will not keep her long," observes Madame de Noailles, with a smile, "we shall soon see her back at Court, as Madame la Marèchale de Schomberg, more blooming than ever."
"No, no," sobs Mademoiselle de Hautefort. "Never!"
"Adieu, Madame," says the Duchesse de Chevreuse, saluting Madame de Noailles, and taking Mademoiselle de Hautefort by the hand. "Excuse our abrupt departure, but the sooner we quit Paris the better. My friend and I would desire in all things to obey her Majesty's pleasure. Let us hope to meet in happier days. Ma chère," adds she more gaily, addressing the maid of honour, "we shall not die of ennui at my château."
Mademoiselle de Hautefort only replies with sobs. The idea of departing overcame her.
"Some gentlemen of our acquaintance will attend us."
"How like the Duchess! She cannot exist without lovers," mutters Madame de Noailles, to herself. Meanwhile she attended the two ladies to the head of the staircase, with great apparent affection, kissing them on both cheeks. She watched their departure from a window and waved her hand to them, affecting to weep.
"What a relief they are gone!" she exclaims, taking out her watch. "Ma foi, how long they have stayed! It is time for me to dress for the Queen's circle. Now they are gone, there is no one in my way at Court. I am sure of favour – perhaps of confidence. Her Majesty must unbosom herself to some one; why not to me? In half an hour I must be at the palace," and she rang and ordered her coach.
The Duchesse de Chevreuse was never again called to the side of Anne of Austria. Her hatred of Cardinal Mazarin forbade it. She became one of the principal leaders of that "Ladies' Battle," the Fronde.
Nor was Mademoiselle de Hautefort ever forgiven her bluntness on the Queen's very equivocal behaviour. As Marèchale de Schomberg, however, she reappeared at Court, but found Anne of Austria lost to her for ever.
The Duchesse de Noailles wore dresses cut in accordance with her Majesty's taste. Although she never became the Queen's confidante, for many years she held a high station at Court.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHARLES STUART
LOUISE DE MONTPENSIER – only daughter of Gaston, Duc d'Orléans, second son of Henry IV. and of Marie de Bourbon-Montpensier – was, as has been said, the greatest heiress in Europe. Her girlhood was passed with Anne of Austria. When Louis XIV. was born the Queen called her ma fille. When Mademoiselle romped with the boy-king, she addressed him as mon mari.
In spite of the long nose of the Bourbons, la Grande Mademoiselle, as she was called, was fairly good looking. She was tall and shapely, with regular features, a good skin, finely cut blue eyes, pencilled eyebrows, a large, though well-formed mouth, and good teeth. Flowing ringlets of light hair framed her face and fell over her rounded shoulders. She had, moreover, an unmistakable air of command.
Her character may be best described in negatives. She was not a heroine, although circumstances made her appear one. She understood politics, but had little capacity for a ruler. She had no fortitude, although possessing a certain elevation of character that lifted her above commonplace. She was selfish and cold-hearted, yet capable of warm attachments. She was ostentatious in the use of her great wealth, but not charitable. She was blinded by conceit, yet was not wanting in shrewdness and judgment. She was haughty, yet loved to condescend to the populace. She was excessively ridiculous, yet affected extreme dignity. Whatever advantages she possessed were but too well known to herself. Of her faults – and they were many – she was entirely ignorant. Placed between two parties, the Queen and the Fronde, she was courted by both, and grew headstrong and ambitious in consequence. Although she ardently desired to marry her cousin Louis XIV., she went out of her way to offend, nay, even to outrage him. Yet unconscious of all her follies, to the day of her death she firmly believed she was by wealth, position, and genius raised upon a pedestal which all Europe contemplated with admiring curiosity. Every crowned bachelor within the civilised world, according to her, sought her hand in marriage.
After the defeat at Worcester, Charles Stuart escaped to the Continent. His mother had already fled to France. Poor Henrietta Maria (wrinkled, and prematurely old, with tear-furrowed cheeks, and dull, hollow eyes, her fragrant curls, so often painted by Vandyke, grown grey, her royal carriage bowed by the weight of adversity) lived with her young daughter Henriette, afterwards Duchesse d'Orléans, sister-in-law of Louis XIV., at the Louvre, in right of her birth as Fille de France. For a time this Queen of Shadows, the relict of a defunct monarchy, bore the splendour of her former state. But one by one her ladies in waiting, grooms of the chamber, maids of honour, footmen, chamberlains, and pages disappeared. At last she grew too poor even to procure sufficient fuel to keep out the winter cold. Though living in a palace, she was glad, with the young princess her daughter, to lie in bed for the sake of warmth.
Mademoiselle patronised this afflicted relative, and frequently visited her. But she does not appear to have ministered to her necessities. Henrietta was resigned, even humble to the exalted princess, her niece; and dwelt often on the personal charms of her eldest son, Charles Stuart.
She painted him with a brush dipped in the roseate colours of a mother's fancy. He was, she said, brave, gallant, handsome, witty, accomplished. He had splendid black hair, a rich complexion, as of one much exposed to battles and an adventurous life, and the bearing of a Paladin. He would be certain to crush his enemies, and sit upon his father's throne, she told her niece. But the wily heiress, while she listened to the eager gossip of the broken-hearted Queen, was preoccupied by a matrimonial intrigue carried on by a certain Abbé de la Rivière, to make her Empress of Germany.
"I perfectly understood my aunt's drift," she says; "but I liked the Emperor better."
When Charles Stuart, having escaped almost by a miracle from England, arrived at Fontainebleau, where the Court was staying, he was presented to Mademoiselle by his mother. Charles saluted her as a cousin and a friend, saluted her in dumb show, however, for he could speak no French. The exiled Queen, therefore (already grasping in anticipation the revenues of the principalities, dukedoms, forests, and castles of her wealthy niece), set herself to act interpreter.
Charles Stuart had a melting eye and a manly presence. He dallied with his cousin, sat beside her when she played, led her to her coach, held the flambeau while she adjusted her dress, was again found at her door – having run on in front – to assist her to descend, and generally ogled, languished, gazed, and sighed, to the very utmost of his power. But a dumb lover is dull, and love-making by proxy never answers. La Grande Mademoiselle, already in imagination invested with the diadem of an Empress, did not fancy a prince who was only an exile, and who could not even plead his own cause. She looked on him as a bore – indeed, worse than a bore, an object of pity.
The Queen of England tried hard to melt her heart. She even coaxed her; with her own hands she decked her soft hair with jewels for her Majesty's ballet. She flattered her into a belief that she was as beautiful as Venus. She declared that Charles Stuart's heart was breaking, that his health suffered, that he would die. No mother ever served a son better than did this poor distracted lady. But there was her son, with his swarthy, hard face, as strong and hale as an oak sapling, his wanton black eye wandering over the belles of the French Court, – a living contradiction to all she said! At last, Charles Stuart, who cared less for the well-filled purse and boundless dominions of his cousin than his mother, who knew what it was to be pinched with cold and hunger, grew impatient, and insisted on an answer. He sent Lord St. Germains to Mademoiselle to say that he was so passionately in love with her, he could no longer bear suspense. Mademoiselle replied with the discretion of a maiden, and the judgment of an heiress, conscious that she was dealing with a royal fortune-hunter —
"The Prince of Wales did her great honour, but as she understood that he required much pecuniary assistance to recover the Crown of England, his birthright, she feared she might find herself overwhelmed with expenses incompatible with the wants of a person of her exalted rank. That she must, in consequence, make sacrifices and adopt resolutions difficult to contemplate. That she might risk the loss of her entire possessions on the chance of Charles's re-conquering his kingdom; and that, having been educated in splendour as one of the greatest princesses in the world, the prospect alarmed her."
Yet there must have been some charm about the hard-featured, stalwart youth that attracted her; she would not say, "No." In order to throw down a bait, she hinted that she desired him to change his religion.
"Impossible, madame," was the reply of Lord St. Germains. "A king of England cannot change his religion. He would exclude himself for ever from the throne!"
Again, however, Charles was permitted to approach her, and to make a last attempt. She relished a little mild flirtation with an exiled King, although she vastly preferred marriage with an Emperor. Nevertheless, she curled her hair in honour of the occasion, a thing not usual with her.
"Ah, look at her!" said the Queen-Regent, when she appeared in the evening: "it is easy to see she is expecting a lover. See! – how she is decked out!"
Mademoiselle blushed, but was too discreet to commit herself by a single word.
When Charles Stuart entered the Queen's saloon he looked provokingly well. His mother, nervously alive to every trifle, felt this. A man with such a constitution was not adapted to play the part of a despairing lover. When questioned by the Queen about his affairs in England, he replied that he knew nothing. Mademoiselle instantly formed a bad opinion of him. She turned to her lady in waiting, Madame de Fiesque, and whispered —
"He is too much of a Bourbon for me. Quite engrossed by trifles" (the race has not changed). "He can talk about dogs and horses and the chase to her Majesty, but he has nothing to say about the revolution in England."
Later in the evening, at the royal table, Mademoiselle was shocked at Charles's coarse appetite. He despised ortolans and Italian pastry, and threw himself upon a joint of beef. Not satisfied with that, he ended by a shoulder of mutton. "A despairing lover ought not to have such a monstrous appetite, or he should satisfy the cravings of hunger beforehand," thought Mademoiselle. He stared fixedly at her, with his big black eyes shaded by heavy eyebrows, while he was shovelling huge pieces of meat down his throat, but he never spoke. Truly this was not a fashion of pushing his suit with a fastidious princess who desired to be an empress!
Mademoiselle yawned, looked at him under her eyelids, shrugged her shapely shoulders, and called her lady in waiting to her side to amuse her. Thus passed the precious moments which were to decide the momentous question – would she, or would she not?
At length, having gorged in a prodigious manner, Charles Stuart rose. He made Mademoiselle a formal bow, and opened his mouth to speak for the first time. "I hope," he said, in very bad French, "my Lord St. Germains has explained to your highness the sentiments with which you have inspired me. I am, madame, your very humble servant."
Mademoiselle rose to her feet, made him a formal curtsey, and replied, "Sir, I am your very humble servant."
So ended this wooing; but poor Henrietta Maria, figuratively rending her clothes and sprinkling ashes on her head at such a conclusion, could not let Mademoiselle off without one Parthian shot. "I see," said she, "my son is too poor and too unfortunate for you, my niece. It is quite possible, however, that a king of eighteen may be better worth having than an elderly emperor with four children." This little ebullition of spite is pardonable in an unfortunate Queen whose heart was broken. Let it not lie heavy on her memory!
Meanwhile, the struggle between the Queen-Regent and her ministers on one side, and the parliament and Gondi on the other, had become more and more envenomed. At length the Queen-Regent, under advice of Mazarin, resolved by a coup d'état to restore the royal authority.
It is Twelfth-night. Anne of Austria is spending the evening in her closet, watching the King and his brother, the Duc d'Anjou – both dressed in character – struggle on the floor over the remains of the cake from which they had dug the "bean" and the "ring." Louis XIV. is a handsome boy, docile yet spirited; Philip of Anjou is puny, peevish, and cowardly.
Anne of Austria leans against the back of a chair, and watches the two boys. Her ladies watch her. There is a strange rumour that her Majesty is to leave Paris that very night. To look into her placid face, such an idea seems absurd. By-and-by, Mazarin and some of the princes of the blood come in to ask her pleasure for the morrow. They do not remain, as there is a supper at the Maréchal de Grammont's in honour of the day. When they are gone, the Queen turns to Madame de la Trémouille.
"I shall go to-morrow to the Val de Grâce. Give orders that everything may be ready for me. Call Beringhen; it is time for his Majesty and the Duke to go to bed."
The King at once comes forward to bid his mother good night. The Duke begins to cry.
"What is it, my son?" says the Queen.
"I want, Madame, to go with you to the Val de Grâce to-morrow – do let me!" and he kneels and kisses her hand.
"If I go, my son, I promise to take you. Now, good night, Philip," and she raises him in her arms, and kisses him; "do not keep his Majesty waiting."
She retires early. Those ladies who do not sleep at the Palais Royal leave, and the gates are closed.
At three o'clock in the morning, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, at the Palace of the Luxembourg, is awakened by a violent knocking. She rouses her women, and orders them to see who is there. It is a messenger from the Queen.
"Let him enter," says Mademoiselle, speaking from her bed. It is well to say that Mademoiselle was entirely concealed by heavy curtains, and that the bed stood in a deep alcove.
"The Captain of the Queen's Guard awaits your highness's pleasure," calls out Monsieur de Comminges, from the door.
"What has brought you here at this time of night, Comminges?" asks Mademoiselle from her bed.
"Your Highness, the Court is leaving Paris secretly. Her Majesty commands your attendance. Here is a letter which will explain the Queen's wishes.
"Monsieur de Comminges," replies Mademoiselle, – who at that time had not conceived the possibility of being one of the à la mode leaders of the Fronde, and pointing the guns of the Bastille against her cousin, the King – putting the letter under her pillow, "the commands of her Majesty are sufficient for me. I need no letter to enforce them. Retire, Monsieur le Capitaine, into the anteroom. I will rise instantly, and accompany you. But tell me, Monsieur de Comminges," – calling after him – "where are we to go to?"
"To Saint-Germain en Laye, your highness."
In a short time Mademoiselle is ready. Without waiting for her women, or what she calls her "equipage" (which she desired to have sent after her), she goes out into the night accompanied by Monsieur de Comminges, whose coach waits without. It was pitch dark, but with the help of a flambeau they traverse the unpaved and ill-lit streets, and reach the garden entrance of the Palais Royal without accident. There they find another coach drawn up under some trees. Within sits Anne of Austria; the two princes are each in a corner – Louis XIV. very sleepy and cross, the Duc d'Anjou crying. Mademoiselle is instantly transferred into the royal coach.
"Are you frightened, my cousin?" asks the Queen, speaking out of the darkness to Mademoiselle.
"Not in the least, Madame," is her reply. "I will follow your Majesty anywhere," and she takes her place opposite to her in the coach.
It is a long and weary drive to Saint-Germain. When they arrive it is breakfast time. But the Queen commands every creature, including her children, into the chapel to hear mass. As soon as they had time to look round, they find the palace (a dreary, gaunt edifice at all times) cold and wretched beyond description in a dark January morning. The rooms are entirely empty – Mazarin having made no provision for the Queen's arrival, out of fear, perhaps, that her flight might become known. There are neither beds, furniture, nor linen. There is not a servant or attendant of any kind but such as have accompanied them. When it is night the Queen lies down to rest on a little camp bedstead. The King and his brother fare no better. Mademoiselle is accommodated with a straw mattress in a magnificent saloon on the third floor. There were plenty of mirrors and much gilding, and the windows were lofty, and commanded an extensive view, but there is not a single pane of glass in one of them! No one has a change of linen. What was worn by night was washed by day. The Queen laughs at everything. She says – "It is an escapade which will at most last three days; when the citizens find that the Court has left the Palais Royal they will speedily come to their senses."
