Montpensier, Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de, 1627-1693
The child who was to be Louis XIV. was born at the Château of Saint
Germain, 5th September, 1638. Mademoiselle made him her toy. She
writes: "The birth of Monsieur the Dauphin gave me a new occupation.
I went to see him every day and I called him _my little husband_.
The King was diverted by this and he thought that I did well." She
had counted without her godfather the Cardinal, who was more of a
Croquemitaine, and more of a spoil-sport than he had ever been. He
considered her childish talk very indecorous. Mademoiselle pursues:
Cardinal de Richelieu, who does not like me to accustom myself to
being there, nor to have them accustomed to seeing me there, had me
given orders to return to Paris. The Queen and Mme. de Hautefort
did all that was possible to keep me. They could not obtain their
wish,--which I regretted. It was all tears and cries when I left
there. Their Majesties gave many proofs of friendship, especially
the Queen, who made me aware of a particular tenderness on that
occasion. After this displeasure I had still another to endure.
They made me pass through Rueil to see the Cardinal, who usually
lived there when the King was at Saint Germain. He took it so to
heart that I had called the little Dauphin _my little husband_
that he gave me a great reprimand: he said that I was too large
to use such terms; that I had been ill-behaved to do so. He spoke
so seriously--just as if I had been a person of judgment--that,
without answering him, I began to weep. To pacify me he gave me
collation, but I did not pass it over. I came away from there very
angry at all he had said to me.
Richelieu meant that his orders should be obeyed. Mademoiselle adds:
"When I was in Paris I only went to Court once in two months; and
when I did go there I only dined with the Queen and then returned to
Paris to sleep." It must be said that if the Cardinal had submitted to
it for a night or two, she might have found it difficult to sleep at
the château. At that time our kings had strange and very inconvenient
arrangements for receiving guests; their household appointments
had brought them to such a pass that they had suppressed their
guest-chamber. When the royal family went to Saint Germain there was a
regular house-moving; they carried all their furniture with them, and
nothing was left in the Louvre,--not even enough for the King to sleep
on when business called him to the capital. Henry IV., a monarch who
did not stand on ceremony, invited himself to the house of some lord or
of some rich bourgeois, where he put himself at his ease, receiving the
Parliament, and also his fair friends, and bidding adieu to his hosts
only when he was ready to go home. He took leave of them in his own
time and at his own hour.
The timid Louis XIII. had never dared to do such things; he had never
thought of having two beds: one in the city, the other in the country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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