d. In face of a lover so
weak, and a fate so inflexible, what could she do but submit? And it was
with a proud but breaking heart that she wrote a few days later to tell
Louis that she wished him not to write to her again and that she would
not answer his letters. One June day news came to her that her lover was
married and that "he was very much in love with the Infanta"; and even
her pride, crushed as it was, could not restrain her from writing to her
sister, Hortense, "Say everything you can that is horrid about him.
Point out all his faults to me, that I may find relief for my aching
heart." When, a few months later, Marie saw the King again, he received
her almost as a stranger, and had the bad taste to sing the praises of
his Queen.

But Marie Mancini was the last girl in all France to wed herself long to
grief or an outraged vanity. There were other lovers by the score among
whom she could pick and choose. She was more lovely now than when the
recreant Louis first succumbed to her charms--with a ripened witchery of
black eyes, red lips, the flash of pearly teeth revealed by every
dazzling smile, with glorious black hair, the grace of a fawn, and a
"voluptuous fascination" which no man could resist.

Prince Charles of Lorraine was her veriest slave, but Mazarin would have
none of him. Prince Colonna, Grand Constable of Naples, was more
fortunate when he in turn came a-wooing. He bore the proudest name in
Italy, and he had wealth, good-looks, and high connections to lend a
glamour to his birth. The Cardinal smiled on his suit, and Marie, since
she had no heart to give, willingly gave her hand.

Louis himself graced the wedding with his presence; and we are told, as
the white-faced bride "said the 'yes' which was to bind her to a
stranger, her eyes, with an indescribable expression, sought those of
the King, who turned pale as he met them."

Over the rest of Marie Mancini's chequered life we must hasten. After a
few years of wedded life with her Italian Prince, "Colonna's early
passion for his beautiful wife was succeeded by a distaste amounting to
hatred. He disgusted her with his amours; and when she ventured to
protest against his infidelity, he tried to poison her." This crowning
outrage determined Marie to fly, and, in company with her sister,
Hortense, who had fled to her from the brutality of her own husband, she
made her escape one dark night to Civita Vecchia, where a boat was
awaiting the runaways.