The Crooked Duchess of Montpensier

This small mishap drew little notice. Only some people mocked the Duke of Cornwall's maid for being too timid and fragile. Later, though, Louis saw the maid beside Princess Henrietta—because she had collapsed at the king's feet, he still retained some impression of her. The girl was not much older than Mali, yet she possessed the slender figure and melancholy air of an adult. Her features were not particularly striking, but her deep chestnut curls were beautiful.

Though still very young, she was far better than the innocent, mischievous Mali Mancini at serving people of high rank. She also knew how to win others' favor. Henrietta had not liked her at first, for people were always whispering that fainting before the king was an exceedingly improper act. Some even suspected that she had deliberately made a spectacle of herself to attract the king's attention. Besides, she had been sent to Henrietta by the Duke of Cornwall, and it was difficult to say whether he had meant to cast the maid aside. Henrietta was young, but she understood that the maid was not favored by her brother. Yet after only a few days, Henrietta was quite willing to keep her at her side. Thus Louis saw her several more times. The king did not much like the child, not because of her earlier breach of etiquette, but because she was simply far too unlike a child.

Although His Majesty the King repeatedly declared that the Duke of Cornwall was to be treated as Louis himself was treated, Charles was still an outsider—and even an enemy—in the eyes of many Frenchmen. His request also put Mazarin and the Queen Mother in a difficult position. France's royal family could not give him troops or funds to reclaim his kingdom; they themselves stood on perilous ground. Gaston, Duke of Orléans, had rejected the king's summons and remained on the lands of his daughter, the Duchess of Montpensier. He had only sent his daughter, known as the "Great Mademoiselle," to Paris, as a hostage or a substitute token of reassurance for the royal family.

As mentioned before, the first marriage of His Highness Gaston had been forced upon him by Cardinal Richelieu and his mother, Mary de Medici. Although this Bourbon lady from a collateral branch had brought him a generous dowry—Montpensier—he had remained full of loathing for her. That loathing had even extended to their daughter. Though the Great Mademoiselle held deep filial affection for this irresponsible father, he had never once sheltered or cared for the poor child. After she inherited her mother's lands of Montpensier, he had constantly meddled and interfered at will. Now he had sent her to Paris once more. Everyone knew that Paris was little short of hell these days; it was hard to say whether this did not contain a genuine and terrible malice.

Queen Mother Anne did feel some pity for the Duchess of Montpensier. After all, when the Duke of Orléans married Margaret of Lorraine, sister to the Duke of Lorraine, in 1632, the five-year-old Duchess of Montpensier had been abandoned in the Paris court. The Duke of Orléans had never spoken of taking her back, as if he had no such daughter at all, until Louis XIII forced him to take her home before his death.

Those years at court had been exceedingly hard on the Duchess of Montpensier, for everyone knew she was a rebel's daughter. Gaston, Duke of Orléans, wore his rebellious heart on his sleeve and could not be bothered to conceal it. Naturally, he did not care how much malice his daughter received. Fortunately, Queen Mother Anne had no children then, and the little duchess stirred her maternal heart. Those feelings endured until the duchess left the court. Some also said that Louis XIII had once wished to arrange a marriage between the newborn Crown Prince Louis and the Duchess of Montpensier, because Montpensier had once stood beside little Louis's cradle and smilingly called him "my little husband."

But perhaps that was precisely why the Duchess of Montpensier had been forcibly driven from court, though Louis XIII had merely smiled at the time. Louis had been born in 1638, while the Duchess of Montpensier had been born in 1627—a difference of eleven years. If age was only secondary, then her father had already wearied Louis XIII beyond all endurance. He would never have allowed his son to marry the Duke of Orléans's daughter. Moreover, apart from the lands she inherited from her mother, the Duchess of Montpensier possessed nothing else. Under Salic Law, the Duke of Orléans's title and lands would pass only to his son Jean. Should Jean die young, the heir would become Louis XIII's second son, Philip.

The Duchess of Montpensier had been only sixteen when she left the court, and she was now twenty-two. By rights, a girl of that age should long since have married and borne children. Yet her father, the Duke of Orléans, plainly regarded Montpensier as his own domain and would never permit her to marry with the lands in her dowry. After leaving court, she had rarely been able to meet a suitable suitor. Though Queen Mother Anne was angered by the Duke of Orléans's standing by with folded arms, she pitied Montpensier and intended to find the duchess a husband at court who would sincerely please her.

Of course, there was also a measure of bargaining and self-interest at another's expense in it, but for the Duchess of Montpensier, it was truly a heaven-sent opportunity.

Everyone thought so. At the banquet held by the Queen Mother, young and handsome gentlemen darted back and forth like salmon in the sea, displaying their valiant physiques and elegant bearing to their hearts' content. When they began to dance, Louis noticed that the Duke of Cornwall had slipped away unnoticed. His departure made many people breathe easier. After all, he was still an uncrowned king and unmarried; he was a formidable rival in the matter of the Duchess of Montpensier's marriage. His only shortcoming was likely that he still clung to the Protestant faith, which displeased many in the French court. His mother and sister had both urged him to convert, but he had never wavered.

At times, Charles, Duke of Cornwall, wondered whether he had been too stubborn. But ever since Henry VIII had founded a church belonging solely to England and declared himself supreme head of both religion and state in order to secure freedom in marriage—he needed an acknowledged heir—every monarch after him, apart from his unworthy eldest daughter Mary, had thought it marvelous. To hold the two lifelines of a nation entirely in one's hands—the feeling could not be matched by any praise, commendation, or promise made when doomsday arrived.

But in return, as a hated Protestant, it was exceedingly difficult for him to obtain help from the faithful of the Church.

Compared with Queen Mother Anne of France, Mazarin and his cousin Louis were not so devout. Yet they likewise stood on France's side and would not lightly make promises. The Duke of Cornwall intended to marry his sister Henrietta to Louis, but his mother said that Queen Mother Anne and Mazarin would never watch such a marriage come to pass. Besides, both Louis and Henrietta were too young. No one knew what might happen in the years before they could wed. And Henrietta had no way to influence Louis XIV's judgment with her own thoughts—at present, it would already be good enough if she herself was not influenced by others.

The Duke of Cornwall's retainers wanted him to form a marriage alliance with the Duchess of Montpensier, but Charles did not think her a suitable match. Even setting aside their status, this twenty-two-year-old woman... was somewhat foolish. She had been away from court for five years, and during those years she had likely listened to much slander about the Queen Mother and Mazarin. At the banquet just now, she had mentioned her father more than once with deep filial affection—Gaston, Duke of Orléans, the man least favored by those at court. Queen Mother Anne's attitude visibly cooled.

Looking at the others, Mazarin's expression was gloomy, King Louis's face dark, while the bored Prince Philip snapped one flower after another that he could reach.

The only person willing to flatter the Great Mademoiselle was Prince of Condé. To say he held any goodwill toward Gaston, Duke of Orléans, would have been utter nonsense. But ever since the royal family returned to Paris, he had been waiting to receive rewards equal to his achievements—rewards that seemed excessively greedy to Queen Mother Anne and Mazarin. Their memories were not so poor that they had forgotten what Prince of Condé had done at Saint-Germain-en-Laye; it had already destroyed the royal family's trust in him. After returning to Paris, Prince of Condé not only constantly complained that the royal family was ungrateful, but also endlessly and freely mocked Queen Mother Anne and Mazarin. He had openly encouraged a marquis to court the Queen Mother, then demanded at dinner to know why she had not replied to "that devoted and respectable gentleman," humiliating the Queen Mother and Mazarin by implying what he had always believed—that the two had an affair. In his letters to Mazarin, he had called that all-powerful minister "the most famous gentleman." He had even shamelessly requested a cardinal's red hat for his younger brother, Prince of Conti—the man who had played a major role in the previous rebellion.

Such demands were naturally refused. Prince of Condé grew ever more dissatisfied, and without hesitation seized upon the Great Mademoiselle's words to slander and curse the royal family at will, elevating a rebel like the Duke of Orléans to sainthood. The Duchess of Montpensier beamed with delight, utterly disregarding the Queen Mother's expression, and danced smilingly with Prince of Condé. People said that if Prince of Condé had not previously been forced to marry Richelieu's niece, he would certainly have become the Duchess of Montpensier's husband.

For precisely this reason, Charles, Duke of Cornwall, thought the woman foolish beyond measure. She should have sought a husband who could help her gain a foothold either in Montpensier or in the French court. The first could help her escape her ill-intentioned father; the second could make up for the years she had lost at court. Yet she had chosen neither. Instead, she had chosen a married man who, like her father, was coldly treated and loathed by the entire court.

Even the Duke of Cornwall would not have been pleased to see such a lady-in-waiting or maid in his own court, much less have her as a wife.

Still, perhaps the Duchess of Montpensier would not choose a husband living from one day to the next beneath another's roof. In the darkness, the Duke of Cornwall let out a sharp laugh at himself.

"That doesn't sound like you," said a voice from the corner.

A black shadow at least three times the size of an adult man rose from beside the cabinet. Had there been anyone else in the room, they would surely have been frightened out of their wits, for it was an enormous gray wolf. In the dim light, its eyes glowed with bright blue radiance.