Louis, a child also—for their ages tallied—there was an evident disposition on the part of the former to attach herself to the partner to whom the decree of state policy had joined her compulsorily. She felt no disgust at his appearance, for, though greatly inferior to the Duc de Vendome and the Marquis de Verneuil in manly beauty, the young King was tall and well-formed; and the darkness of his countenance was no disparagement in the eyes of a Princess who had been accustomed to the rich tint of Moorish and Spanish complexions.[417] Upon the death of the Duc de Luisnes, the favourite of Louis, in 1621, Marie de Medici was left with no other rival in her maternal influence over her son, than his young wife. By a fatality such as too often attends royal marriages, it was henceforth decreed that the young couple were not to love each other. Anne, it appears plainly from her own confession, might have done so, had she been left to herself;[418] and the young King, it was also alleged, admired the beauty of his wife and respected her amiable qualities; but it was not the policy of Marie de Medici, nor afterwards that of Cardinal de Richelieu, that these natural affections should have their course. The King was known to avow to a confidant, that whilst he was attracted to his wife, he dared not avow it either to his mother or to Richelieu, whose counsels and services, he added, were of far more importance to him than the affection of his wife.[419] Footnote 414: Sir George Carew. Footnote 415: Birch’s Negotiations. Footnote 416: Memoirs of Madame de Motteville, vol. i., p. 8. Footnote 417: Madame de Motteville. Footnote 418: Ibid, p. 8. Footnote 419: Madame de Motteville, p. 32. Such was the state of domestic affairs at the court of Louis, when the Prince and Buckingham beheld, for the first time, those who were destined to awaken in the one an honourable and enduring attachment, in the other a mad and criminal passion. They still maintained their disguise, nor was it difficult, for, as Sir Henry Wotton observes, “the impossibility to conceive so great a Prince and favourite suddenly metamorphosed into travellers, with no greater train, was enough to make any man living unbelieve his five senses.” In order to add to their disguise, Buckingham bought periwigs, to overshadow their foreheads; and thus provided, they spent a day in viewing the city and the court, which Buckingham had visited before, when in training for his courtier destiny, but which to Charles was an object of novel and peculiar interest, France being “neighbour to his future estates.”[420] Footnote 420: Madame de Motteville, p. 32.