That year a stranger would have said that the Court of France had never been more gay. Fête followed fête. In the winter there were two grand ballets at the Louvre, danced by the flower of the nobility, the King at their head. Louis XIII. adored such exhibitions, though they overthrow all modern ideas of a royal majesty.
The previous winter he had invited the Bourgeoisie of Paris to the Hôtel-de-Ville to contemplate their ghastly monarch masked for the carnival, dancing his grand pas. "It is my wish," said he, "to confer honour upon the city by this action." The Bourgeoisie had accepted the invitation; man and wife had flocked to the appointed place at the appointed hour, and there they had waited from four o'clock in the afternoon until five o'clock in the morning, before the royal dancers had made their appearance. The dance had not ended until noon, when the honoured Bourgeoisie had returned to their homes.
Monsieur took his full share of all official pleasures, and he had also some pleasures of his own, – and purely personal they were. Some of them were infantine; some of them, marked by intelligence, were far in advance of the ideas of that epoch. Contemporary customs demanded that people of the world should relegate their serious affairs to the tender mercies of the professional keen wits, who made it their business to attend to such questions. Gaston used to convene the chosen of his lords and gentlemen, to argue subjects of moral and political import. In discussion Monsieur bore himself very gallantly. The resources of his wit were inexhaustible, and the justice of his judgment invariably evoked applause. He was a sleep-walker, because awake or asleep he was so restless that "he could not stay long in one place."2 But he was not always asleep when he was met in the night groping his way through the noisome alleys. He used to jump from his bed, disguise himself, and run about in the night, leading a life like that of the wretched Gérard de Nerval, lounging on foot through the little streets of Paris which were very dark and suspiciously dirty. It amused him to enter strange houses and invite himself to balls and other assemblies. His behaviour in such places is not recorded, but the gentlemen who followed him (to protect him) let it be understood that there was "nothing good in it."
Gaston of Orleans had all the traits common to those whom we call "degenerate." His chief characteristic was an active form of bare and shameless moral relaxation. He was the mainspring of many and various movements.
One day when Richelieu was present, Louis XIII. twitted the Queen with her fancies. He said that she had "wished to prevent Monsieur from marrying so that she could marry him herself when she became a widow."
Anne of Austria cried out: "I should not have gained much by the change!"
(Neither would France have "gained much by the change," and it was fortunate for her that Louis was permitted to retain possession of his feeble rights.)
The child so desired by some, so envied and so dreaded by others, entered the world May 29, 1627. Instead of a dauphin it was a girl —La Grande Mademoiselle. Seven days after the child was born the mother died.
Louis XIII. gave orders for the provision of royal obsequies, and he himself sprinkled the bier with the blessed water, very grateful because Providence had not endowed him with a nephew. Anne of Austria, incognito, assisted at the funeral pomps. This act was received with various interpretations. The simple – the innocent-minded – said that it was a proof of the compassion inspired by Madame's sudden taking off; the malicious supposed that it was just as the King had said: "The Queen loved Monsieur; she rejoiced in his wife's death; she hoped to marry him when she became a widow."
The Queen was sincerely afflicted by Madame's death. She cherished an open preference for her second son, and the thought of his ambitious flight had agreeably caressed her heart.
Richelieu pronounced a few suitable words of regret for the Princess who had never meddled with politics, and Monsieur did just what he might have been expected to do: he wept boisterously, immediately dried his tears, and plunged into debauchery.
The Court executed the regulation manœuvres, and came to the "about face" demanded by the circumstances. Whatever may have been the calculations made by individuals relative to the positions to be taken in order to secure the best personal results, and whatever the secret opinions may have been (as to the advantages to be drawn from the catastrophe), it was generally conceded that the little Duchess had been fortunate in being left sole possessor of the vast fortune of the late Madame her mother.
The latter had brought as marriage-portion the dominion of Dombes, the principality of Roche-sur-Yon, the duchies of Montpensier, Châtellerault, and Saint-Fargeau, with several other fine tracts of territory bearing the titles of marquisates, counties, viscounties, and baronies, with very important incomes from pensions granted by the King and by several private individuals, – in all amounting to three hundred thousand livres of income.3
The child succeeding to this immense inheritance was the richest heiress in Europe. As her mother had been before her, so Mademoiselle was raised in all the magnificence and luxury befitting her rank and fortune.
They had brought her from the Louvre to the Tuileries by the balustraded terrace along the Seine.4
She was lodged in the Dôme– known to the old Parisians as the pavillon d'Horloge– and in the two wings of the adjoining buildings. At that time the Tuileries had not assumed the aspect of a great barrack. They wore a look of elegance and fantastic grace before they were remodelled and aligned by rule. At its four corners the Dôme bore four pretty little towers; on the side toward the garden was a projecting portico surmounted by a terrace enclosed by a gallery. On this terrace, in time, Mademoiselle and her ladies listened to many a serenade and looked down on many a riot.
The rest of the façade (as far as the pavillon de Flore) formed a succession of angles, now jutting forward, now receding, in conformations very pleasing to the eye. The opposite wing and the pavillon de Marsan had not been built. Close at hand lay an almost unbroken country. The rear of the palace looked out upon a parterre; beyond the parterre lay a chaos from which the Carrousel was not wholly delivered until the Second Empire. There stood the famous Hôtel de Rambouillet, close to the hotel of Madame de Chevreuse, confidential friend of Anne of Austria and interested enemy of Richelieu. There were other hotels, entangled with churches, with a hospital, a "Court of Miracles," gardens, and wild lands overgrown with weeds and grasses. There were shops and stables; and away at the far end of the settlement stood the Louvre, closing the perspective.
The Court and the city crowded together around the Bird House and the Swans' Pond, in the Dedalus and before the Echo, ogling or criticising one another. At that time the Place de la Concorde was a great, green field, called the Rabbit Warren. In one part of the field stood the King's kennels.5 The city's limits separated the Champs-Élysées from the wild lands running down to the Seine at the point where the Pont de la Concorde now stands. This space, enclosed by the boundaries of the city, assured to the Court a park-like retreat in the green fields of the open country. The enclosure was entered by the gate of the Conférence. The celebrated "Garden of Renard" was associated with Mademoiselle's first memories. It had been taken from that part of La Garenne which lay between the gate of the Conférence6 and the Garden of the Tuileries.