"If only my father, the king, had lived another twenty years", Louis XIII said, as his father's great popularity was his own personal defeat. The next paragraph is ridiculous but I will write it anyway: A few days later the new king of France was spanked for obstinately refusing to say his prayers. (He is eight,remember?) "At least," he said to his tutor, "don't strike too hard." Afterward he went to see the queen, now regent, who had ordered the whipping. She rose to make him the curtsy due him as king. "I would rather," he said wistfully,'"not have so many curtsies and honors, and not be whipped." On September 17, 1610, Louis XIII was again spanked; on September 21, he signed a military alliance with England.
At ten, Louis was writing verses and slaughtering game. And from that age on he was taming falcons; ultimately, he rached the height of taming the great eagle. He found his father figure in the form of an ambitious falconer, Charles d'Albert, Duc de Luynes, twenty-trhee years his senior. Rapidly Luynes rose in power, becoming Louis's favorite, and his bedroom Louis's refuge. Thus Louis flew his birds, painted, danced, and composed, dreamed of - and wrote verses to-Luynes, cooked poached eggs, played the lute, and at the age of fourteen married the Spanish infanta, who was five days older than the King. She was blonde and might have been pretty had it not been for her long Habsburg nose. Indeed Anne of Austria (her mother was Margaret of Austria) looked remarkably like Louis, which in view of their Habsburg consanguinity was no coincidence.
They were married in Bordeaux on November 25, 1615. (Remember 100 years later on September 1, their son Louis XIV dies). After the ceremony they each went to their separate chambers in the archbishop's palace and supped. Tired, the little king ate in bed while others around him regaled him with coarse stories intended to give him "confidence".
Toward eight o'clock that evening, the Queen Mother came to him, and said," It is not enough to be married, my son. You must now go to your queen who is waiting." He responded, "Madame, I was awaiting your command. If it pleases you, I will go to her with you."
To condense this, the king was placed in bed with the young queen and they spent two hours or so together in the bed, and the king is said to have always remembered this moment with revulsion. It took him three years before he could ever get into bed with her again, and another twenty years before he was able to become a father. Before those events could happen, Luynes had to be removed.
Luynes was persuaded to marry a beautiful young woman, Marie de Rohan, who was very wealthy and highborn. The marriage was successful but the pleas to the king to create an heir fell on deaf ears as he protested the state of his health and his age as reasons for why he should not try to produce an heir. Sadly, he had to watch another couple perform the act of creation twice round to see how it is done, to encourage him to engage in it himself, but while his surrogate father encouraged him to go to the queen, he resisted. In the end, Luynes had to carry the adolescent boy to the young girl, crying and weeping all the while. He was watched while he made his best attempts twice and it was recorded for the medical records. He left at two in the morning to sleep longer than usual the next day until nine o'clock.
The chastity of the young king was politically important to many: Spain, Catholics, and even the Duke of Savoy. On January 30, 1619, the nuncio wrote Pope Paul V:"The King finally decided conjiungersi colla Regina...Since the first night, except for one, their majesties continue to come together.....But for the sake of the king's health, it will be seen to that His Majesty goes to the queen at properly spaced intervals." An interval of two weeks was recommended by the doctors to insure a dauphin.
The king had only one friend -- the Duc de Luynes --and he died in 1621. All he had left was Richelieu and the Versailles. So he went gaming and hunting, and created the little hunting lodge which was designed for men only...no accomodations for women at all.
Then Louis XIII was forced to choose between his minister, Cardinal Richelieu and his mother, Marie d' Medici. This is a dramatic story in which he chose Richelieu and sent his mother to exile.
He then built his hunting lodge even finer as his escape from the cares and woes of Paris and government. He made it so that he would not have women around to create problems for him, but he appears to have had two mistresses, Marie de Hautefort, who terrified him, and Madame de La Fayette, who when he asked her to move to Versailles with him, chose to enter a convent instead. It is said his sigh of relief was audible. He would visit the now Sister Angelique in her convent of Sainte Marie several times before the events which changed history.
continued in next post.
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