r very praiseworthy. The queen-mother, a perfect Christian,
who had met with so many enemies whom she might have punished, but who
had received from her nothing but marks of kindness, was scandalized by
it. The king and Monsieur blamed her, and the minister, who was not a
cruel man, was astounded."

The queen-mother had other reasons for being less satisfied than she had
been at the first trip of Queen Christina of Sweden. The young king
testified much inclination for Mary de Mancini, Cardinal Mazarin's niece,
a bold and impassioned creature, whose sister Olympia had already found
favor in his eyes before her marriage with the Count of Soissons. The
eldest of all had married the Duke of Mercceur, son of the Duke of
Vendome; the other two were destined to be united, at a later period, to
the Dukes of Bouillon and La Meilleraye; the hopes of Mary went still
higher; relying on the love of young Louis XIV., she dared to dream of
the throne; and the Queen of Sweden encouraged her. "The right thing is
to marry one's love," she told the king. 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."

"No power," he said to the king, "can wrest from me the free authority of
disposal which God and the laws give me over my family." "You are king;
you weep; and yet I am going away!" said the young girl to her royal
lover, who let her go. Mary de Mancini was mistaken; he was not yet
King.

[Illustration: Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin----394]

Cardinal Mazarin and the queen had other views regarding the marriage of
Louis XIV.; for a long time past the object of their labors had been to
terminate the war by an alliance with Spain. The Infanta, Maria Theresa,
was no longer heiress to the crown, for King Philip at last had a son;
Spain was exhausted by long-continued efforts, and dismayed by the checks
received in the, campaign of 1658; the alliance of the Rhine, recently
concluded at Frankfurt between the two leagues, Catholic and Protestant,
confirmed immutably the advantages which the treaty of Westphalia had
secured to France. The electors had just raised to the head of the
e