he exception of Dona Estefania, her first waiting-woman, to whom
she was tenderly attached, and who had been about her person from her
infancy, all were dismissed by Marie de Medicis, who, anxious to retain
her authority over the wife of her son, dreaded the influence of Anne's
Spanish followers.

Nor was this her only disappointment. We have already shown with what
eagerness she looked forward to her first meeting with her intended
bridegroom, whose grave but manly beauty so fully realized all her hopes
that, as she ingeniously confessed, she could have loved him tenderly
had he possessed a heart to bestow upon her in return. But she soon
discovered that such was not the case; and that Louis XIII saw in her
nothing more interesting than a Princess who was worthy by her rank and
quality to share with him the throne of France.

This was a sad discovery for a lovely girl of fifteen years of age, who
had anticipated nothing less than devotion on the part of a young
husband by whom she had been so eagerly met on her arrival; nor did she
fail to contrast his coldness with the ill-disguised admiration of many
of his great nobles, and to weep over the wreck of her fondest and
fairest visions. But, young and high-spirited, she struggled against the
isolation of soul to which she was condemned; and probably resented with
more bitterness the coercion to which she was subjected by the iron rule
of her royal mother-in-law than even the coldness of the husband to whom
she had been prepared to give up her whole heart.[233]

Louis, on his side, although the sovereign of a great nation, was also
exposed to privations; merely physical, it is true, but still
sufficiently irritating to increase his natural moroseness and
discontent. While the Marechal d'Ancre displayed at Court a profusion
and splendour which amounted to insolence, the young King was frequently
without the means of indulging the mere caprices common to his age; but
although he murmured, and even at times appeared to resent the neglect
with which he was treated, he easily consoled himself amid the puerile
sports in which he frittered away his existence; and attended by De
Luynes and his brothers, found constant occupation in waging war against
small birds, and in training their captors. In such pursuits he was
moreover encouraged by the Queen-mother and her favourites; who, anxious
to retain their power, did not make any effort to awaken him to a sense
of what he owed to