Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/62

48 pregnancy of Queen Anne becoming public, filled the French court with joy, and inspired every heart with hope. Madame de Chevreuse profited by this event to address the following letter to the queen, which she could show without hesitation to Louis XIII., but which, notwithstanding its reserve and diplomatic circumspection, discloses the warm and reciprocal affection of the queen and the exile:

"To the queen, my sovereign lady:

"Madame, I should be unworthy of pardon if I had been able to render an account to your Majesty of the journey which my misfortunes obliged me to undertake, and had failed to do so. But necessity having constrained me to enter Spain, where respect for your Majesty caused me to be received and treated better than I merited, the duty which I owed you compelled me to keep silent until I should be in a kingdom whose alliance with France would not give me cause to apprehend that you would be displeased at receiving letters from it. This one will speak first of all of the great joy which I feel at the pregnancy of your Majesty. May God console and reward all who belong to her by this happiness, which I entreat him with all my heart to complete by the happy accouchement of a dauphin. Although my unhappy fortune hinders me from being among the first to witness it, believe that my devotion to the service of your Majesty will not let me be among the last to rejoice at it. The memory which your Majesty doubtless retains of what I owe to her, and my own remembrance of what I wish to render to her, is sufficient to convince her of the grief it has been to me to see myself obliged to quit her, in order to escape the troubles into which I feared that unjust suspicions