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. 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.
Mdlle. d'Hautefort declined it, and remained seated, like her companions,
on the ground; but henceforth the courtiers' eyes were riveted on her
movements, on the interminable conversations in which she was detained by
the king, on his jealousies, his tiffs, and his reconciliations. After
their quarrels, the king would pass the greater part of the day in
writing out what he had said to Mdlle. d'Hautefort and what she had
replied to him. At his death, his desk was found full of these singular
reports of the most innocent, but also most stormy and most troublesome
love-affair that ever was. The king was especially jealous of Mdlle.
d'Hautefort's passionate devotion to the queen her mistress, Anne of
Austria. "You love an ingrate," he said, "and you will see how she will
repay your services." Richelieu had been unable to win Mdlle.
d'Hautefort; and he did his best to embitter the tiff which separated
her from the king in 1635. But Louis XIII. had learned the charm of
confidence and intimacy; and he turned to Louise de La Fayette, a
charming girl of seventeen, who was as virtuous as Mdlle. d'Hautefort,
but more gentle and tender than she, and who gave her heart in all
guilelessness to that king so powerful, so a-weary, and so melancholy at
the very climax of his reign. Happily for Richelieu, he had a means,
more certain than even Mdlle. d'Hautefort's pride, of separating her from
Louis XIII.; Mdlle. de La Fayette, whilst quite a child, had serious
ideas of becoming a nun; and scruples about being false to her vocation
troubled her at court, and even in those conversations in which she
reproached herself wi