Her schemes for
matrimony fill the larger portion of her history, and are, like all the
rest, a diamond necklace of great names. In the boudoir, as in the field,
her campaigns were superb, but she was cheated of the results. Her picture
should have been painted, like that of Justice, with sword and scales,--
the one for foes, the other for lovers. She spent her life in weighing
them,--monarch against monarch, a king in hand against an emperor in the
bush. We have it on her own authority, which, in such matters, was
unsurpassable, that she was "the best match in Europe, except the Infanta
of Spain." Not a marriageable prince in Christendom, therefore, can hover
near the French court, but this middle-aged sensitive-plant prepares to
close her leaves and be coy. The procession of her wooers files before our
wondering eyes, and each the likeness of a kingly crown has on: Louis
himself, her bright possibility of twenty years, till he takes her at her
own estimate and prefers the Infanta,--Monsieur, his younger brother,
Philip IV. of Spain, Charles II. of England, the Emperor of Germany, the
Archduke Leopold of Austria,--prospective king of Holland,--the King of
Portugal, the Prince of Denmark, the Elector of Bavaria, the Duke of
Savoy, Conde's son, and Conde himself. For the last of these alone she
seems to have felt any real affection.
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