Montpensier, Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de, 1627-1693
This last solemnity left mingled memories, both good and bad, in
Mademoiselle's mind. One of her father's most faithful companions in
exile was to have danced in the ballet. During a rehearsal, Richelieu
had him arrested and conducted to the Wood of Vincennes, "where he died
very suddenly."[26] The rôle in which he should have acted was danced
by one of the other courtiers, and therefore Gaston did not appear to
be affected.
The _Gazette_ informed the public that the fête had "succeeded
admirably"; that every one had carried away from the place so teeming
with marvels the same idea that Jacob had entertained when, having
looked upon the angels all the night, he believed that the earth
touched the confines of heaven! But, at least, there was one person for
whom the sudden disappearance of Puylaurens had spoiled everything.
Mademoiselle had "liked him and wished him well." He had won her heart
by giving her bonbons, and she felt that the ugly history reflected
upon her father. "I leave it," she said, "to people better instructed
and more enlightened than I am to speak of what Monsieur did afterward
to Puylaurens' prison."
The following year she had to swallow an insult on her own account. The
lines which appeared in one of the gazettes of July, 1636, must have
seemed insupportable to a child full of unchecked pride.
"The 17th, Mademoiselle, aged nine years and three months, was baptised
in the Louvre, in the Queen's chamber, by the Bishop of Auxerre, First
Almoner to the King, having for godmother and godfather the Queen and
the Cardinal Duke (_Richelieu_), and was named Anne Marie."
Mention of this little event is made in Retz's _Mémoires_. "M. le
Cardinal was to hold at the font Mademoiselle, who, as you may judge,
had been baptised long before; but the ceremonies of the baptism had
been deferred."
This godfather, who was not a prince, was a humiliation to
Mademoiselle, and to crown her distress he thought that he ought to
make himself agreeable to his god-daughter.
By his intention to be amiable he "made her beside herself" because he
treated her--at nine years!--as if she had been a little girl. "Every
time that he saw me he told me that that spiritual alliance obliged
him to take care of me, and that he would arrange a marriage for me (a
discourse that he addressed to me, talking just as they do to children
to whom they incessantly repeat the same thing)."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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