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Updated: July 27, 2025
"For your majesty's sufferings," the former replied. "Who brings it?" asked Madame de Motteville, eagerly; "Monsieur Valot?" "No; a lady from Flanders." "From Flanders? Is she Spanish?" inquired the queen. "I don't know." "Who sent her?" "M. Colbert." "Her name?" "She did not mention it." "Her position in life?" "She will answer that herself." "Who is she?" "She is masked."
"On 11th September," Madame de Motteville says, "we saw arrive from Italy three nieces of Cardinal Mazarin and a nephew. Her eyes were small, but lively; and it might be expected that, when fifteen years of age, she would have some charm. According to the rules of beauty, it was impossible to grant her any, save that of having dimples in her cheeks."
Richelieu did all in his power to win her over, and not being able to succeed, he treated her as an enemy worthy of himself. Mdme. de Motteville. Mémoires, Petitot's Collection, 2nd series, vol. li. p. 339.
All the women who had been writers in her time died before Madame de Sevigne. Madame de Motteville, a judicious and sensible woman, more independent at the bottom of her heart than in externals, had died in 1689, exclusively occupied, from the time that she lost Queen Anne of Austria, in works of piety and in drawing up her Memoires.
No time was lost in letting Christina understand that she could not remain long in France: the cardinal, "with a moderation for which he cannot be sufficiently commended," says Madame de Motteville, "himself put obstacles in the way of his niece's ambitious designs; he sent her to the convent of Brouage, threatening, if that exile were not sufficient, to leave France and take his niece with him."
As the fighting ended and manoeuvring became the game, of course Mazarin came uppermost, Mazarin, that super-Italian, finessing and fascinating, so deadly sweet, l'homme plus agréable du monde, as Madame de Motteville and Bussy-Rabutin call him, flattering that he might win, avaricious that he might be magnificent, winning kings by jewelry and princesses by lapdogs, too cowardly for any avoidable collision, too cool and economical in his hatred to waste an antagonist by killing him, but always luring and cajoling him into an unwilling tool, too serenely careless of popular emotion even to hate the mob of Paris, any more than a surgeon hates his own lancet when it cuts him; he only changes his grasp and holds it more cautiously.
The restriction to a share should be noted; for at no period of her heydey, not even during the licence of the Fronde, could Anne Geneviève be accused of having as Madame de Motteville tells us the Princess de Condé had, adorers "in every rank and condition of life, from popes, kings, princes, cardinals, dukes, and marshals of France, down to simple gentlemen."
When the ladies had finished their supper the queen feigned extreme fatigue and passed into her bedroom. Madame de Motteville, who was on especial duty that evening, followed to aid and undress her. The queen then began to read, and after conversing with her affectionately for a few minutes, dismissed her.
The truthful Madame de Motteville, after noting the principal motive which urged La Rochefoucauld in his pursuit of Madame de Longueville, adds: "In all that she has since done, it is clearly seen that ambition was not the only thing that occupied her soul, and that the interests of the Prince de Marsillac there held a prominent place.
Madame de Motteville states in her memoirs "that the king, queen, and cardinal were sleeping upon straw, which soon became so scarce that it could not be obtained for money." The court of the Fronde was assembled at the Hotel de Ville in Paris. There all was splendor, abundance, festive enjoyment. The high rank of the leaders and the beauty of the ladies gave éclat to the gathering.
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