Mariana managed her triumphant return with tact and skill. She had left the Court after Valenzuela’s fall intensely unpopular; but much had happened since then. Don Juan had proved a whitened sepulchre; the detested Austrian match for the King was at an end, the cordiality shown by Mariana towards the new marriage pleased the people, and a warm welcome greeted her as she rode in state by her son’s side in the great swaying coach with the curtains drawn back,[285] to the palace of the Buen Retiro which was to be her residence until her own house was prepared. All the Court was eager to know what part Mariana would in future take in the government. Would she be, as of yore, the sole dispenser of bounty and the only fountain of power? Would she avenge herself upon Don Juan’s friends as he had avenged himself upon hers, or would she leave the dominating influence to her son’s young wife? Mariana had learnt wisdom by experience, and walked warily. She was no lover of the French match; but she knew that open opposition to it would alienate the King and exasperate the country, and she smilingly played the part of the fond mother who rejoiced at her son’s happiness. Everybody, moreover, and especially the King, was so busy with the marriage that there was neither time nor inclination for politics; and until the King’s departure to meet his bride he was closeted every day in loving converse with his mother, talking only of his coming happiness. Fortunately the treasure-fleet from America arrived in the nick of time, and, for a wonder, there was no lack of money, which not only added to the good humour of the people, but enabled the preparations for the reception of Marie Louise on the Spanish side to be made upon a scale approaching the costly pageantry of former times. The splendid entertainments at Fontainebleau ended at last; and on the 20th September 1679, the young Queen rode out of the beautiful park on the first stage of the long voyage to her new country. She sat silently in the coach with King Louis and his wife, and the one man upon whom her heart was set, the young Dauphin, whose eyes were red with tears. At La Chapelle, two leagues from Fontainebleau, the long cavalcade stopped, for here Marie Louise was to take an eternal farewell of most of those she loved. As she stepped from Queen Maria Theresa’s carriage and entered one belonging to the King that was to bear her to the frontier, every eye was wet with tears, and the common folk who witnessed the leave-taking cried aloud with grief. Only Marie Louise, with fixed face and stony eyes, was mute. But when the last farewell was said, and the Queen’s carriage with the Dauphin turned to leave, one irrepressible wail of sorrow was wrung from the heart of the poor girl, as she sank back fainting upon the cushions of the carriage by her father’s side.[286]