bore to that
desperate _enamorado_ of her early womanhood, the brilliant Buckingham,
may probably also have served him as a favourable prestige. On her
accession to power Anne did not manifest much firmness of character.
Naturally indolent, she disliked the drudgery attendant upon business
details, and hence continued through convenience the services of a man
who, by taking off her hands the wearisome routine of State affairs,
allowed her to reign at her ease.

[2] Madame de Motteville.

Mazarin, moreover, had never been displeasing to her. He had begun to
ingratiate himself during the month preceding the death of Louis
XIII.,[3] and she named him Prime Minister about the middle of
May--partly through personal liking, but more through political
necessity. Far from appearing to resemble the impassive and imperious
Richelieu, Anne perhaps might have recalled with agreeable emotion the
words of her deceased consort when he first presented Mazarin to her (in
1639 or 1640)--"He will please you, madame, because he bears a striking
resemblance to Buckingham." By degrees the liking increased, and grew
sufficiently strong to resist every assault from his enemies. At the
same time the Minister to whom the Queen owed so much, instead of
dictating to and presuming to govern her, was ever at her feet, and
prodigal of that attention, respect, and tenderness to which she had
been hitherto a stranger.

[3] Louis died May 14th, 1643.

It is a delicate matter to investigate with exactitude the means by
which Mazarin obtained entire sway over the Queen-Regent, and one which
La Rochefoucauld scarcely touches upon; but it is too interesting a
point in history to be left in the dark, and thereby to altogether
disregard that which first constituted the minister's strength, and
soon afterwards became the centre and key of the situation. After a long
season of oppression, regal powers and splendour gilded the hours of
Anne of Austria, and her Spanish pride exacted the tribute of respect
and homage. Mazarin was prodigal of both. He cast himself at her feet in
order to reach her heart. In her heart of hearts she was not the less
touched by the grave accusation brought against him that he was a
foreigner, for was not she also a foreigner? Perhaps that of itself
proved the source of a mysterious attraction to her, and she may have
found it a singular pleasure to converse with her Prime Minister in her
mother tongue as a compatriot and