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Updated: June 27, 2025
Madame de Motteville bowed in submission, and was about to withdraw, when suddenly an old female attendant, dressed as if she had belonged to the Spanish court of the year 1620, opened the door, and surprised the queen in her tears. "The remedy!" she cried, delightedly, to the queen, as she unceremoniously approached the group. "What remedy?" said Anne of Austria.
Duplessis, at Fresnes, to the same Pomponne, then ambassador to Sweden, Mme. de Sevigne says: "I have M. d'Andilly at my left, that is, on the side of my heart; I have Mme. de La Fayette at my right; Mme. Duplessis before me, daubing little pictures; Mme. De Motteville a little further off, who dreams profoundly; our uncle de Cessac, whom I fear because I do not know him very well."
The Regent had not then thought of summoning such an important assembly, and his weakness and vacillation were such that no one thought he would dare to do so. The memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, of Joly, of Madame Motteville, had turned all heads. These books had become so fashionable, that in no class was the man or woman who did not have them continually in hand.
They were so, no doubt; and it is probable that what Madame de Motteville understands by those words, was the eminence of qualities peculiar to the women, who more than ever in her day derived from them a species of celebrity which closely resembled glory the éclat of beauty, wit, grace, intrepidity, and power of charming; in a word, that which was possessed in so high a degree by a Madame de Longueville, a Madame de Chevreuse, a Marie de Hautefort, and a Mademoiselle du Vigean.
And she succeeded to such an extent that it was always the company of Olympe, and not of her more beautiful sisters, Hortense, Laure, or Marie, that Louis most sought. Not that Olympe was always to remain the plain, unattractive child Madame de Motteville describes in 1647.
Madame de Motteville gives us to understand so with her usual moderation, and the Duchess de Nemours rejoices to say so with all the acrimony and doubtless also the exaggeration of hatred. It must, indeed, be owned, with the heroic instincts of Condé, Madame de Longueville shared also his haughty spirit.
He therefore dictated: the queen-mother, the queen, Madame, Madame de Motteville, Madame de Chatillon, Madame de Navailles; and, for the men, M. le Prince, M. de Gramont, M. de Manicamp, M. de Saint-Aignan, and the officers on duty. "The ministers?" asked Colbert. "As a matter of course, and the secretaries also."
Mme. de Motteville replies very gracefully, accepting many of these ideas, but as it is difficult to repress love altogether, she thinks "one will be obliged to permit that error which an old custom has rendered legitimate, and which is called marriage."
Thus abandoned by her volatile lover, and extremely compromised, Mademoiselle de Gonzagua returned to Paris, where she reassumed the appellation of the Princess Anne. Her grief for awhile at her abandonment was great, but happily for Anne de Gonzagua, she was possessed of youth, and, as Madame de Motteville tells us, "of beauty and great mental attractions."
Madame de Motteville, lady-in-waiting to the Queen, being asked to give an opinion, replied that, for the late King, the nobles had gone out to meet the Holy Sacrament as far as the outer gate of the palace, and that it would be wise to do this on the present occasion. Mademoiselle de Montpensier interrupted the lady-in-waiting and those who shared her opinion.
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