She had errors in plenty to sustain her courage; the situation was so false that anything but error would have been impossible. Married or not married, Anne of Austria allowed herself a dangerous latitude; Mazarin did not protect her, she protected and defended him; to her mind all that he did was charming; she glanced knowingly at her courtiers if he opened his mouth or if he moved his hand. Her eyes beamed upon him with familiar meaning, and while he talked her arch smiles asked the Court if her Chief of Council was not a prince among men and the flower of ministers. She would have been happy in a hovel had she been able to fix him stably among his precious ancient draperies and the thousands of rare objects with which he had surrounded his handsome form. Mazarin had feathered his nest _à l'Italien_, and the style was by far too superfine for the times and for the taste of France. The gossips of the royal domestic offices had circulated the intimate details of the royal life. The public knew all about the favourite; they knew what he wore, what he ate, and what he did; and they thought of him as always at play with small, strangely rare animals, as graceful, as handsome, and as highly perfumed as their master. In imagination they saw Mazarin steeped in sloth, battening on the public funds, and nourishing his soft beauty by the aid of secrets of the toilet of his own invention. Anne of Austria did not care what the people thought. She delighted in Mazarin. She was happy because she had been able to lay the nation at his feet. The people said that she had laid them under his feet, and they declared with curses that it should not be. Mazarin had rendered France incalculable services, but no one thanked him or did him justice. No one understood the work that he had accomplished. Paris knew nothing of foreign affairs. The people's minds were engrossed by the local misery, and so little interest was taken in politics that when the Peace of Westphalia was signed no one in France noticed it although the world classed it among great historical events.[131] Paris knew more of the King's scullions than of Mazarin's diplomacy. The King's cousin: Mademoiselle la Princesse Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans,--fit bride for any king! must remain upon the stocks to pleasure "the Queen's thief." The King, also, was the victim of the foreigner. There was little in the royal larder, and that little was not equally distributed; the cohorts of the kitchen had made more than one strong personal drive in the King's interest. The wilful head with its floating veil of curls, the pouting mouth and tear-dimmed eyes were the oriflamme of the cooks' pantries. "Monsieur le Cardinal had forty little fishes[132] on his platter! I only had two on mine!" wailed the young monarch, and the cooks' corps rose in a body to defend the "Divine Right."