Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/102

88 neglect of her husband, and, in a spirit of vengeance as well as of coquetry, she had amused herself by exciting more than one passion in those about her, but without ever overstepping the limits of Spanish gallantry. She had submitted with impatience to be treated contemptuously, deprived of all power, and held in a sort of permanent disgrace by the king and Richelieu; but this aroused in her heart a subdued yet bitter opposition to the government of the cardinal. She had even been engaged in various enterprises which, as we have seen, had been unsuccessful and had involved her in great danger. She then called to her aid another of her womanly and Spanish talents, dissimulation. Misfortune speedily taught her this "ugly, but necessary virtue," as Madame de Motteville calls it, and we have seen that she made rapid progress in it. Naturally indolent, she had no love for business; yet she was sensible and even courageous, and capable of understanding and of following counsel. Hitherto she had played a double game; striving to make to herself partisans in secret, to encourage and urge forward the malcontents, to endeavor to escape from the yoke of the cardinal, and notwithstanding, to look pleasantly on him, to lull him by false demonstrations, to humiliate herself when necessary, to gain time—and to wait. After the death of Richelieu, feeling herself stronger both by her two children and by the incurable malady of Louis XIII., she had but a single aim to which she sacrificed every thing—that of being regent—and she succeeded in this, thanks to a rare patience, to infinite caution, and to an adroit and well-sustained course of conduct; thanks also to the unhoped-for service rendered her by Mazarin, the principal minister of the king. Anne neglected nothing in order to subdue the king's resentment; she unceasingly lavished on him the tenderest cares, passing both days and nights by his side; she protested with tears that she had never failed in her duty to him, that