far, on a review of the circumstances of her career, Anne may be acquitted of a want of feminine modesty, of a prudence the representative of virtue, must be a question for the moralist. Her character must, however, be measured in some respects by the standard of the age in which she lived. Unhappily for Anne, at the time that Buckingham arrived in Paris, Madame de Chevreuse was passionately in love with the handsome and dangerous Earl of Holland, and made no secret of that disgraceful attachment.[209] It was, therefore, her endeavour to promote everything that could produce a continued intercourse between France and this country. Footnote 209: Madame de Motteville, p. 20. Of the first meeting between Anne of Austria and Buckingham, during his embassy, there is no account. We can suppose it to have occurred under circumstances of dazzling splendour, to which many considerations, not guessed by the public, lent a strong interest. The suppressed and dangerous admiration of Richelieu might not be penetrated by Buckingham; but it was notorious that whilst Louis XIII. distrusted, and apparently neglected, his Queen, he was really disposed to respect and cherish her; and was known to have confessed to a confidant one day, in speaking of the Queen’s personal attractions, that “he dared not show her any tenderness, lest he should displease the queen-mother and the Cardinal, whose aid and counsels were much more essential to him than the affection of his wife.”[210] Footnote 210: Madame de Motteville, p. 33. Thus situated--bound to a husband of whose indifference she was by no means certain, but who, she well knew, had not the mental strength to cope with the Cardinal, and to avow any kindness for her--admired at a distance by the courtiers--passionately loved and fiercely persecuted by Richelieu, Anne must have presented a new source of interest and curiosity to Buckingham; and the course of her destiny, hard as it might seem, would give fuel to his presumption.