In order to persuade Maria to have herself married off to Lorenzo Onofrio, Mazarin was prepared to make concessions. Maria then requested to be allowed to return to Paris at once. Thus she did return to the capital. There, however, her uncle ordered her to be immured in his house. Destiny, however, so arranged matters that, while the Cardinal was busy elsewhere * Awful iron spikes, bristling and terrible, will stand between you and me. My tears, my sobs, cause my hand to tremble. My imagination clouds over, I can write no longer. I know not what I say. Adieu, my Lord, the little life that remains to me will be sustained only by memories. O charming memories! What will you make of me, what shall I make of you? I am losing my reason. Adieu, my Lord, for the last time. in France, Maria and her sisters had to leave the Palais Mazarin because of some rebuilding works. And where did they take up lodgings? In the Louvre, in the Cardinal's own apartments, while the latter learned the news in letters from one of his informants and was unable to do anything about it.
In the Louvre, Maria was once again the object of new, unexpected intrigues: she was passionately courted and received a proposal of marriage from the heir to the Duchy of Lorraine, Charles, the future hero of the Battle of Vienna. He was an eighteen-year- old, handsome, enterprising and brimming with ardour. She was prepared to marry him, far preferring him to Colonna, whom she had never seen and who would lock her up in Italy, where a husband's power over his wife was absolute. Mazarin, however, finding all manner of pretexts, vehemently refused. He feared that, even married, Maria would still be dangerous in Paris.
Meanwhile, preparations were proceeding for the marriage between Louis and the Infanta of Spain. There were seven months of negotiations and preliminaries before the ceremony could take place, in two stages, as required by custom, on either side of the frontier (all sovereigns being forbidden to set foot in the neighbouring kingdom, since that would be equivalent to a declaration of war).
The first act of the treaty was the solemn renunciation of her hereditary rights to the throne of Spain pronounced by the Infanta Maria Teresa. On the following day, still on Spanish soil, the proxy marriage was celebrated with the Most Christian King. Louis was represented here by Don Luis de Haro, the Spanish negotiator. No Frenchman was admitted, except for Louis's witness, Zongo Ondedei, Bishop of Frejus and Mazarin's evil genius.
Anne of Austria and the Cardinal could not bear the delay. A thousand times they had repeated to Louis that his Spanish fiancee was beautiful, far more beautiful than Maria Mancini. It was thus essential that she really should be beautiful. Madame de Motteville, a lady in waiting to Queen Anne and Mademoiselle de Montpensier, a cousin of the King, were therefore sent incognito on a mission: to evaluate the bride's womanly qualities.
On their return to the French camp on the frontier, they knew they would have to answer only one question: 'Well, what is she like?'
'They did all they could to appear satisfied,' Atto laughed derisively, 'but it was enough to look at their faces, their drawn smiles, their assumed expressions… We knew the truth at once.'
'In fact, she does not seem to be very tall: on the contrary, somewhat on the small side. To put it briefly, she's short,' they confessed in unison. 'But she is quite well made. Her eyes are not too small, her nose is not too big,' they forced themselves to say, the one interrupting the other. 'Her forehead is, in truth, somewhat ungarnished,' a roundabout way of saying that the spouse was bald in the temples and her hair anything but orderly.
Madame de Motteville concluded brazenly: 'If she had more regular teeth, she would be one of the most beautiful women in Europe.' Mademoiselle de Montpensier, more scrupulous, seeing that very soon everyone would be able to judge the Infanta with their own eyes, allowed herself to let slip, 'It hurts one to look at her.' Then she hurriedly corrected herself, explaining that she was referring to that horrible coiffure and to the 'monstrous machine': the enormous farthingale into which Maria Teresa's poor little body was forced.
'At that point, we were all terrified by how Louis might react on the next day, when he saw the Infanta for the first time.'
'And what happened?'
'Nothing of what we feared. At the meeting with his future bride, he went through the ceremonial like a perfect actor. Under his mother's doting eyes, he followed her innumerable recommendations and acted out the ritual part of the lovelorn suitor consumed with impatience, as is the custom at royal weddings. He even galloped rather gallantly along the riverside, with hat in hand, following the bride's boat. Louis was splendid, so manly and ardent on his steed, and sent poor Maria Teresa into ecstasies.
Abbot Melani adjusted the buckle of one shoe, then the other, after which he raised his eyes to heaven.
'Poor wretched Infanta,' he murmured. 'And what a wretch, he.'
By that impeccable conduct, Louis was striving to obey the exhortations of the Queen Mother: to silence the heart and lock his senses in a drawer. He venerated his mother and was confident that she and the Cardinal had made the best choice for him. Such was the outcome of the inexperience of life and love to which the pair had condemned him. Yet, from the moment he saw his bride, he began silently to be consumed by the worm of doubt and suspicion, the burning fear of having been deceived.
From that moment on, the fire within him burned down to cold ash. The young Sovereign's face gave nothing away, nor did his actions or words, although a thousand eyes watched and a thousand ears listened at every moment. It was not possible to detect any weakening in the man who, at barely twelve years of age, surprised by the fury of the populace during the Fronde uprising had, when on the point of fleeing the royal palace with his mother, gone to bed still dressed and managed not to open an eye all night, while the furious mob passed near his feet, silenced only by a sacrosanct respect for the innocent sleep of the boy King. What would have happened if someone had raised the coverlets a little and seen the deception?
To his companions who, after the visit to Maria Teresa, went to him in the hope of persuading him to open his heart, asking him what was his impression of the Infanta, he replied simply: 'Ugly.' And not another word could be got out of him.
'Who knows how much he was suffering,' I ventured.
'Because his future wife was not as he expected her to be? No, not as much as you think. For him that changed little or nothing. He was awakening to the fact that his heart was not docilely following his mother's reassurances, as he had for a time wanted to believe. He had been warmed by the sun of a fine pair of black eyes, lost in the heather scent of Maria's wild brown hair, enchanted by her witty barbs and silvery laughter.'
Nothing of this showed in the King's behaviour during the nuptial celebrations and festivities, except one single detail: for the liveries at the reception, Louis chose the colours of Maria's family crest.
He absolved his first conjugal duty without batting an eyelid, but on the very next day, with the court by now journeying back to the capital, the King abandoned his bride for two days. Where did he go? No one voiced the least allusion to this, but everyone knew: Louis suddenly made a deviation from the planned route and galloped towards Brouage, the castle where Maria had stayed in the Charentes, a region where she is still fondly remembered. At Brouage, Louis wept by the seashore. He asked to be shown the bed in which she had passed the night without closing an eye.
'But if no one spoke of this, as you yourself have said, how come you know all these details?' I asked in astonishment.
'In that chamber, Maria's bedchamber, I myself saw him. I had come with others on the orders of His Eminence. We found him overcome by a sort of agony. He was, I thought, like an image of the Deposition: the blankets torn from the couch, and he, crouching in a corner under the window, trembling with pain in the cold dawn of the Charentes.'
We again took the avenue leading to the courtyard before the entrance, crossing it from end to end, accompanied by the murmur of the fountain at its centre; Atto measured the space with slow and measured paces.
'At Brouage, Louis at last tore his heart from his breast. There he wept all the tears he had to weep; there he bade farewell to love forever, without knowing that in so doing he was saying farewell to himself, to that quiet and calm self which I had known and appreciated, and which was now lost forever. I shall never forget him. The face which looked up at me was that of a pillar of salt under the grey light of that dawn at Brouage. That was the last act. The rest is… a morass.'
'A morass?'
'Yes. The slow sinking of that love, its weary agony, the painful series of attempts by the King to forget Maria.'
Back in Paris with his Spanish bride, Maria Teresa, who knew nothing of all this, Louis was informed by the
