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Updated: May 22, 2025
Both were maids of honor to the queen. Mdlle. d'Hautefort was fourteen years old when, in 1630, at Lyons, in the languors of convalescence, the king first remarked her blooming and at the same time severe beauty, and her air of nobility and modesty; and it was not long before the whole court knew that he had remarked her, for his first care, at the sermon, was to send the young maid of honor the velvet cushion on which he knelt for her to sit upon.
Women filled but a small space in the life of Louis XIII. Twice, however, in that interval of ten years which separated the plot of Montmorency from that of Cinq-Mars, did the minister believe himself to be threatened by feminine influence; and twice he used artifice to win the monarch's heart and confidence from two young girls of his court, Louise de La Fayette and Marie d'Hautefort.
Madame de Chevreuse took fright, and went to seek refuge in Spain. The king's inclination towards Mdlle. d'Hautefort revived, without her having an idea of turning it to profit on her own account.
"According to our arrangement, my lord, we have removed Mademoiselle d'Hautefort, as we removed Mademoiselle de la Fayette before her. So far it is well; but her place is not filled, and the King " "Well!" "The King has ideas which he never had before." "Ha! and which come not from me? 'Tis well, truly," said the minister, with an ironic sneer.
She was unhappy; the cardinal was rather her tyrant than her lover; she had been good to me, and had trusted me; Mademoiselle d'Hautefort, with whom I had great friendship, was her friend, too sufficient reasons, these, to dazzle a youth who had seen almost nothing of the world, and to turn his steps in a direction quite contrary to his interests.
The complaints were detailed to Richelieu by the king himself in a strange correspondence, which reminds one of the "reports" of his quarrels with Mdlle. d'Hautefort. "I am very sorry," wrote Louis XIII. on the 4th of January, 1641, "to trouble you about the ill tempers of M. Le Grand.
The Countess of Bouille, who at the time of the coronation of Charles X. was about forty years old, was a creole, very agreeable and much respected. The Countess d'Hautefort, nee Maille-Latour-Landry, forty-one years old, married to a colonel who belonged to the fourth company of the bodyguards, was a woman of much intelligence, charmingly natural, and an excellent musician.
Madame de Chevreuse, recently returned to court, where she would fain have exacted from the queen the reward for her services and her past sufferings, was sent into exile, as well as the Duke of Vendome. Madame d'Hautefort, but lately summoned by Anne of Austria to be near her, was soon involved in the same disgrace.
So saying, the King took from a great iron chest set against the wall enormous packets of paper scribbled over with very fine writing. Upon one was written, Baradas, upon another, D'Hautefort, upon a third, La Fayette, and finally, Cinq-Mars. He stopped at the latter, and continued: "See how many times you have deceived me!
I was at an age at which one loves to do extravagant and startling things, and I felt that nothing could be more startling or more extravagant than to snatch at the same time the Queen from the King her husband, and from the Cardinal de Richelieu who was jealous, and Mlle d'Hautefort from the King who was in love with her." He tells the story with inimitable gusto.
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