want of liberty of suffrage, the king, setting out from the castle of
Vincennes, "had arrived early at the Palace of Justice, in scarlet jacket
and gray hat, attended by all his court in the same costume, as if he
were going to hunt the stag, which was unwonted up to that day. When he
was in his bed of justice, he prohibited the Parliament from assembling,
and, after having said a word or two, he rose and went out, without
listening to any address." [_Memoires de Montglat,_ t. ii.] The
sovereign courts had learned to improve upon the old maxim of Matthew
Mole: "I am going to court; I shall tell the truth; after which the king
must be obeyed." Not a tongue wagged, and obedience at length was
rendered to Cardinal Mazarin as it had but lately been to Cardinal
Richelieu.

The court was taking its diversion. "There were plenty of fine comedies
and ballets going on. The king, who danced very well, liked them
extremely," says Mdlle. de Montpensier, at that time exiled from Paris;
"all this did not affect me at all; I thought that I should see enough of
it on my return; but my ladies were different, and nothing could equal
their vexation at not being in all these gayeties." It was still worse
when announcement was made of the arrival of Queen Christina of Sweden,
that celebrated princess, who had reigned from the time she was six years
old, and had lately abdicated, in 1654, in favor of her cousin, Charles
Gustavus, in order to regain her liberty, she said, but perhaps, also,
because she found herself confronted by the ever-increasing opposition of
the grandees of her kingdom, hostile to the foreign fashions favored by
the queen, as well as to the design that was attributed to her of
becoming converted to Catholicism. When Christina arrived at Paris, in
1656, she had already accomplished her abjuration at Brussels, without
assigning her motives for it to anybody. "Those who talk of them know
nothing about them," she would say; "and she who knows something about
them has never talked of them." There was great curiosity at Paris to
see this queen. The king sent the Duke of Guise to meet her, and he
wrote to one of his friends as follows:

"She is not tall, she has a good arm, a hand white and well made, but
rather a man's than a woman's, a high shoulder,--a defect which she
so well conceals by the singularity of her dress, her walk, and her
gestures, that you might make a bet about it. Her face is large without
bein