Richelieu: A Tale of France, v. 2/3James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
General
Richelieu: A Tale of France, v. 2/3
James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis, duc de, 1585-1642 -- Fiction
Never very attentive to dress, Louis the Thirteenth, when any thing
disturbed or irritated him, neglected entirely the ordinary care of his
person. In the present instance he made no change in his apparel,
although the sports in which he had been engaged had not left it in a
very fit state to grace a drawing-room. Thus, in a pair of immense
jack-boots, his hat pressed down upon his brows, and his whole dress
soiled, deranged, and covered with dust, he presented himself in the
saloon where Anne of Austria sat surrounded by the young Princes and the
ladies who had accompanied her to Chantilly.
The Queen immediately rose to receive her husband, and advanced towards
him with an air of gentle kindness, mixed however with some degree of
apprehension; for to her eyes, long accustomed to remark the various
changes of his temper, the disarray of his apparel plainly indicated the
irritation of his mind.
Louis saluted her but coldly, and without taking off his hat. "I am glad
to see you well, Madam," said he, and passed on to the nurse who held in
her arms the young Dauphin.
The child had not seen its father for some weeks, and now perceiving a
rude-looking ill-dressed man, approaching hastily towards it, became
frightened, hid its face on the nurse's shoulder, and burst into tears.
The rage of the King now broke the bounds of common decency.
"Ha!" exclaimed he, stamping on the ground with his heavy boot, till the
whole apartment rang: "is it so, Madam? Do you teach my children, also,
to dislike their father?"
"No, my Lord, no, indeed!" replied Anne of Austria, in a tone of deep
distress, seeing this unfortunate _contretems_ so strangely misconstrued
to her disadvantage. "I neither teach the child to dislike you, nor
_does_ he dislike you; but you approached Louis hastily, and with your
hat flapped over your eyes, so that he does not know you. Come hither,
Louis," she continued, taking the Dauphin out of the nurse's arms. "It
is your father; do not you know him? Have I not always told you to love
him?"
The Dauphin looked at his mother, and then at the King, and perfectly
old enough to comprehend what she said, he began to recognize his
father, and held out his little arms towards him. But Louis turned
angrily away.
"A fine lesson of dissimulation!" he exclaimed; and advanced towards his
second son, who then bore the title of Duke of Anjou. "Ah, my little
Philip," he continued, as the infant received him with a placid
smile,--"you are not old enough to have learned any of these arts. You
can love your father without being told to show it, like an ape at a
puppet-show."
At this new attack, the Queen burst into tears.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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