BOOK V I MARIE LOUISE OF ORLEANS (continued 2)

Mariana’s friends looked upon it in a very different light. Whilst still the accusation was hanging over Marie Louise, Montalto wrote to Ronquillo in London: ‘Quantin and her husband, and all the Frenchmen in the Queen’s stable, with her bob-tailed horses, have all been packed off to France. They were a lot of rascals, and the cost of her stable was a calamity. They were all guilty, but as none of them would confess under torture, they could not be further proceeded against. People are talking very scandalously about such shameful laxity. Quantin’s young niece^[322] was sent out of the palace late at night, so that not a single French person should remain. But the Queen’s tears and prayers soon fetched her back. This is perfectly odious and disgraceful, and one can only have contempt of so easy going a King, who will not let even justice take its course if his wife says nay.’ A few weeks afterwards, the same courtier says: ‘The Queen is still implacable at the loss of her Quantins, and the King so excessively loving (not to call it by another name) of his wife, that all his concessions to her, which ought to make her more submissive to him, makes her 471humour worse, and the temper that God gave her causes no end of trouble as it is; for it is the most extravagant ever seen.’^[323]

The French servants of the Queen, her only solace, all except the girl Duperroy, had been sent away; but still Marie Louise personally had held her place in the King’s affection. No sooner, however, had the Quantin affair fallen a little into the background, than another stab more wicked still was aimed at the Queen by the same hands out of the darkness. There was a foolish, vain, French exon of the guard, the Chevalier Saint Chamans, who had commanded Marie Louise’s escort when she travelled to the Spanish frontier. As was not unusual in the French Court at the time, Saint Chamans was pleased to profess a far-off amorous worship of the lovely Princess; and it is quite probable that during his attendance upon her, she may have smiled in raillery at his silly languishing airs. In any case, the talk of his adoration reached Madrid; and in the autumn of 1685, some miscreant in the capital of Spain wrote two letters as from the Queen in a forged hand imitating hers, to Saint Chamans, containing expressions to the highest degree compromising of her honour. Saint Chamans, like the love-lorn fool that he was, showed the letters to his chums, and Louis XIV. soon learnt of their existence, and what is more extraordinary, believed them to be genuine. In sorrow and severe reprobation, he wrote to Feuquières, directing him to show the letters to the Queen, which he did in September.

Marie Louise, outraged at the mere suspicion, and indignant at so cruel a hoax, rose for once majestic and dignified in her wrath. She scribbled a burning 472repudiation of the letters which she handed to Feuquières for ciphered transmission to the King of France.^[324] ‘It will not be difficult for your Majesty to imagine the affliction in which I am, at knowing that you suspect a person such as I of so unworthy a thing as this. I cannot avoid expressing my justified sorrow at seeing that your Majesty does not esteem at its true worth, as you should, conduct which is most regular, and which certainly is not of the easiest.... but as I am so unhappy as to have people near me here perfidious and abominable enough to use every effort to ruin me by pernicious inventions, I am not surprised that they should exert all their ingenuity to deprive me of the esteem of your Majesty.... Believe me, nothing is more false than that which you have thought of me, and my despair to see that your Majesty doubts for a moment my good behaviour, makes me, in this, stand apart from your counsel, and be myself alone; and I cannot think of the injustice your Majesty has done me without being beside myself with sorrow. Alas! I had made light of all my grief, believing that your Majesty, at least, thought well of me: but I see now I am marked for unhappiness, since your Majesty believes a thing of me which makes me shudder even to think of.... I am so jealous of my honour, and I love it so much, that I shall never do anything to stain it: and life itself is not so insupportable to me, either, that I should seek thus to lose it.... If I were in a more tranquil state, I should supplicate your Majesty to have pity upon this poor realm for my sake; but I dare not, though I think you will be good enough to recollect that I have the 473honour to be your niece, and that all my happiness depends upon you.... Believe me, too, when I say that I am prouder of being born a princess of your blood, than of the rank I hold in the world’: and so on, for several pages, the wronged and outraged Queen eloquently protests her innocence.

Thenceforward Marie Louise, though entirely without political influence—for the Austrian faction and the Queen-Mother were in that respect all-powerful—was unassailable in the affections of the poor man she had married. Her disregard of the ordinary Spanish etiquette, the free and easy bonhomie of her demeanour, and the indulgence of her caprices increased as she felt more secure in the love of her husband; but she made no other use of her influence over him. No better series of pictures of the life in her palace can be found than in the vitriolic references to Marie Louise and her husband in letters already quoted of the Duke of Montalto. On the 30th August 1685, he writes that for months the Queen had not gone out in public, in which, he says, she was wise, particularly when the anti-French riots were taking place, as the mob might have attacked her. ‘They say again that she is pregnant, but there is not much belief in it, as the same thing has happened several times before. She had got up a very grand comedy for St. Louis’ day; but it had to be deferred, because of this pregnancy rumour, and not even the usual comedies in the palace were given for the same reason.’

On the 24th October of the same year, he records the removal of the Court to the Retiro: ‘which place the Queen is very fond of, because there she can enjoy her country sports, and especially ride about on 474horseback every afternoon. In order to have her horses nearer to her, she has had a place made for them near the large pond, where she goes every morning to visit them.’ A little later he remarks that everything in the palace is going to the dogs. ‘There is neither firmness nor stability enough to correct these follies of the Queen.’ In April 1686, the same writer says: ‘Things are in the greatest embarrassment for the government, owing to the fancies and caprices of the Queen; for nothing is done by any other rule than her whim.’ It appears that the presence of the Queen’s Spanish friend Señora Aguirre, who had been exiled at the time of the Quantin affair, was much desired by Marie Louise, and the latter demanded her return of the prime minister, Oropesa. He temporised for a time, but when she ordered him peremptorily to advise the King to recall the lady, he refused. ‘Well,’ said the Queen, ‘do not oppose it if the King suggests it.’ ‘Yes I will,’ replied the minister: whereupon Marie Louise went with tears and blandishments to her husband, and begged for the favour. For a time he held out; but at last gave way to the extent of ordering a decree of recall to be drafted and discussed. Oropesa protested, and Charles cancelled the decree. Another passionate outburst from the Queen followed, and in the end she had her way. ‘The coming of this woman (Aguirre) will be worse than all the devils together; worse than Quantin. Judge what a state we are in with this irresolution of our master. The advice of ministers and decisions of tribunals, all are powerless before the will of this woman (the Queen).’

The caprices of Marie Louise soon reached the 475ears of her uncle Louis, and he did, in May 1686, what he ought to have done years before, namely, to send a French lady of great position and experience, dependent upon him, to advise the Queen and keep her in the right way. The lady was a descendant of the royal house, the Countess of Soissons, and her mission was, if possible, to induce Marie Louise to turn her influence to political account for the benefit of France. Her task was almost hopeless from the first, and she failed, though she tried hard for a time; and in the last few weeks of the Queen’s life, when too late, was of some service to French interests.

‘The Queen’ (writes Montalto in May 1586) ‘is in the full force of her madness, dominating the King completely by cries and threats. He has not an atom of resolution, and no application at all. The day upon which the great council was held, when he would not attend, he went on muleback to the wild beast cages at the Retiro, and there he had the animals caught and counted, thinking more of this frivolity than if it had been some heroic action. This government of ours is nothing more than a boy’s school with the master away. No one respects anything, and each person does as he likes, whilst the Queen follows her whim or the last suggestion.’ On another occasion, when the Marquis of Los Velez was giving a representation of a sacred auto on a holy day, Montalto records that ‘the Queen witnessed the show from a balcony in the passage, when she behaved herself so unrestrainedly as to shock people; and the actions of this lady really give rise to the idea that she is not in her right mind.’

The unfortunate woman kept apparently on friendly, but not cordial, terms with Mariana, who smilingly 476let her go her own way without remonstrance; and there was now no check whatever upon her strange vagaries, for the King grew more feeble-minded than ever, and was as clay in her hands. ‘The Queen’s levity approaches light-headedness,’ wrote Montalto in the summer of 1687. ‘She was lately ill with fever, owing to the rubbish she is always eating. Nobody can control her, and she looks consumptive. Those of us who are not much attached to her are not sorry to see her afflicted.’ Utterly reckless in her mode of life the unhappy woman, though still but twenty-five years of age, was already losing her health and beauty. In July Montalto reports that ‘the Queen still continues in her extravagant conduct, and no amendment can now be expected. She is dreadfully thin and languid, and will take no remedies but those prescribed by her own caprice and distrust. As for the King, I say nothing, for I have already said so much, though not half enough.’

And so, through the summer, matters went from bad to worse. There was no guidance from the King, no stability or prudence from the Queen, and Spain drifted helpless towards the whirlpool of civil war that was soon to engulf her. The only care of old Mariana was to watch over the interests of her own kin in their claims to the succession to the Spanish crown, and paralyse the promotion of the French pretensions. Writing from the palace on the 29th August 1687, Montalto says: ‘It is impossible to exaggerate the terrible state of things here. This palace is boiling over with disorder and scandalous stories to such an extent as to be simply a mass of confusion. The Queen is so extravagant in her conduct, and has so strange a character, that I dare not write, even in 477cypher, what is going on. The King knows, but remedies nothing. It seems as if God had endowed him neither with force nor application for anything; and the same wretched laxity is seen in the government of the realm. He gives no more than a quarter of an hour to business in the day, and the whole of the rest of his time is spent in such trifles as running backwards and forwards through these saloons, and from balcony to balcony, like a child of six, and his conversation would match about the same age. The Queen is dreadfully ill and thin, and has quarrelled with the Queen-Mother.’

Months later, in May 1688, when the war between France and the empire was recommencing, and Spain was once more arming for a conflict not primarily her own, Montalto wrote, in more despondent spirit than ever, of the condition of affairs in Madrid. ‘Yesterday it was my turn for duty at the Retiro. I used to like it, but now I dread the day that takes me there. Of course I know even when I am not there what is going on with our master; but it is very shocking to see it close, and, so to speak, face to face. The neglect everywhere is quite terrible. The King’s great business whilst I was there was to see the matting taken up in the rooms, and to count the pins and other trifles of that sort. The Queen blurts out whatever comes uppermost, and indulges to the full in her craze for riding on horseback, prancing about indecorously over the neighbourhood. She has again had her ladies mounted, knowing that the King hates to see it. She has her way and, dead against his will, she insists upon acting the principal boy’s part in a comedy they are rehearsing. As usual, she will do as she likes. There are constant tourneys and balls 478because she insists upon them, and there is no influence or reason that can keep her within bounds. The Queen-Mother pays great attention to her, but is cruelly slighted by her.’

A week later, the same writer continues in a similar strain, saying that the Queen had insisted upon the comedy being written specially for her to take the boy’s part: but she had fallen ill and the performance had been postponed. ‘The King is totally opposed to this prank; but of course she has her way. She has had a magnificent theatre constructed at the Retiro, with lavish ornaments, etc., for the ladies, in which she has wasted thousands of ducats, and yet there is not a real for urgent needs. The King is a cypher, and allows things to be done before him of which he entirely disapproves. I positively dread my turn of duty, for I see the King does nothing but run about like an imp, and if he goes into the garden it is only to pick strawberries and count them.’

A week or so later Marie Louise had recovered her health, and the long-prepared comedy was played with great brilliancy. The King went to the full rehearsal two days before the public performance; and although shocked and annoyed by his wife’s caprice in playing a male part, had not strength of will enough to forbid it. When, however, the piece was represented publicly, and all the principal ladies in Madrid, with the gentlemen of the household, were present to praise and applaud, poor, unstable Charles was so charmed with his wife, even on the stage, that he testified his delight at her performance, and the entertainment was repeated again and again during the summer.

Once more at this time there was a belief that the Queen was pregnant, and the hopes of the French 479party ran high, though they were soon seen to be fallacious as before. Montalto, reporting the matter to Ronquillo, says that the Queen had explained, in answer to an inquiry of her father, the Duke of Orleans, that the reason for her lack of issue was not the impotence of the King but his excessive concupiscence, ‘which,’ says the writer, ‘I do not understand, though the effect is plain.’

In the autumn of 1688 Marie Louise fell ill of smallpox in the palace of Madrid; and in her enfeebled state of health the disease was held to be dangerous. She was a bad patient, self-willed in her rejection of the remedies prescribed to her by the only physician she would receive, a Florentine doctor she had known in Paris in attendance upon the Balbeses. The King was to have started for the Escorial at the time his wife was attacked by the malady, and was obliged to delay his departure, though fear of contagion kept him away from the invalid. Montalto reports, with characteristic ill-nature: ‘The King seems sorry; but he is more sorry at having to postpone his journey to the Escorial. For although his feeling towards his wife appears to be affection, I maintain that it is more fear of her than anything else.’ Before she was fit to be moved the Queen insisted upon being carried in a Sedan chair to the Retiro to pass her period of convalescence there, first visiting the church of the Atocha, whilst Charles departed to spend a month at the Escorial.

Left alone in her solitary convalescence, Marie Louise appears to have developed a more devout spirit than had previously characterised her, and at the same time lost her desire to live. During the period of low vitality which followed her illness one 480of her ladies begged her to summon a famous saintly man, to pray for her prompt restoration to strength. ‘No, no,’ she replied, ‘I will not do so. It would be folly indeed to ask for life which matters so little.’ When, at this juncture, the representatives of the town of Madrid offered to build a new church as a votive offering for her restoration to health, she was no less emphatic. If the money of the suffering subjects was to be spent upon the building she would not allow it to be done.

She had, indeed, little left to live for. Wedded to the fribble we have described, and with enemies of herself and her dear France everywhere around her, she must have felt powerless to cope with the adverse influences opposed to her. All the love she had to give was given long ago, before she was called upon to make the great renunciation which had been made in vain. So long as youth and sensuous vitality had remained to her she had sought in reckless enjoyment to stifle the horror of the loveless life to which she was condemned: but when the capacity for bodily gratification was gone, Marie Louise lost her desire to live.

Spain was trembling upon the brink of a great war with France, and during the winter succeeding the Queen’s illness Count Rebenac was in Madrid with what amounted to an ultimatum to Spain to abandon the league of Augsburg, formed to crush the ambition of Louis. Rebenac often saw the Queen, and coached by him and by the Countess of Soissons, she endeavoured, now that matters had gone too far, to employ her hold upon her husband in a political direction, and to frustrate the policy of the Queen-Mother in keeping Spain in offensive and defensive 481alliance with the Emperor. Her influence upon Charles was great, and he began to incline to the side of the French against his mother. Marie Louise pointed out to him the awful condition of destitution in which his country lay, and painted in moving words the horrors of a war in which Spain had all to lose and could not hope to gain. Charles was gentle and tender-hearted, hating to see or hear of suffering, and Rebenac reported early in February 1689 that the efforts of the Queen had been effectual, and that he had great hopes of the success of his mission.^[325]

It was a great crisis, for a withdrawal of Spain at this point from the alliance would have meant the predominance of France in Europe thenceforward, and the defeat of the Austrian party in Spain. Mariana and her friends were strong and determined; the King was weak and unstable. Only the life of a languid woman, tired of the struggle, stood between them and victory, and Marie Louise herself seems to have had a prophetic knowledge that such an obstacle would not be allowed to frustrate plans so deeply laid. As usual with Spanish sovereigns, the Queen went every week to worship at the shrine of the Virgin of Atocha, and on Tuesday the 9th February 1689, when she took leave of the prior of the convent church, she told him that she should meet him no more on earth. That night after her light repast of milk and honey the Queen was seized with convulsions, violent pains and vomiting; a colic it was called, which brought her to the lowest extremity of weakness. From the first she knew that she was doomed and made no effort. In 482the intervals of the burning agony she suffered, her confessor asked her if there was anything that troubled her. ‘I am in peace, Father,’ she replied, ‘and am very glad to die.’ She lingered in pain until the early hours of the 12th February; and then the most beautiful and ill-fated princess of the house of Bourbon breathed her last, a martyr, if ever one lived, upon the altar of her country; but a martyr sacrificed in vain, for she was immolated, not by her own will, but by the will of others.

All that Marie Louise asked of life was love, and that was the one thing denied to her. The Spanish people, who had sometimes been cruel to her because she was a foreigner, were shocked by her untimely death: but before the pompous procession which bore the body of Marie Louise to its last resting-place in the inferior mausoleum in the Escorial reserved for sterile Queens, whispers ran through Spain and France that it was no colic that had cut short the life of Marie Louise, but poison administered in the interests of Mariana and the Austrian faction. No proof has ever been adduced that this was the case, for evidence in such a matter would naturally not be easily obtainable;^[326] but the death of the Queen, at the very crisis when, by her 483aid, the King had been turned to the side of France, seems in all the circumstances to have been too providential to her enemies to have been entirely accidental. At any rate it was effectual in changing the whole aspect of affairs immediately; and before the mourning for Marie Louise had lost its freshness, the French ambassador was on his way home unsuccessful, Spain was again at war with France, and negotiations were being actively carried on to find a German wife for the wretched crétin who wore the crown of Spain.

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