Sorry, I am having trouble with my Computer! If Cardinal Mazarin had been in the habit of visiting Anne of Austria the knowledge would be very much known at the time. There were Spies of concerned Parties everywhere. At one point both the homeland of the young Queen and the Pope were involved in encouraging an heir! As it was terrible pamphlets were published. I believe the version Madame De Montespan puts forward in her memoirs is the correct one. She of course is the famous beauty that was the Mistress of Louis IV and knew both Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin..... She relates this story....
Though ceasing to make a royal residence and home of Paris, his Majesty did not omit to pay occasional visits to the centre of the capital. He came incognito, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in a coach, and usually went about the streets on foot. On these occasions he was dressed carelessly, like any ordinary young man, and the better to ensure a complete disguise, he kept continually changing either the colour of his moustache or the colour and cut of his clothes. One evening, on leaving the opera, just as he was about to open his carriage door, a man approached him with a great air of mystery, and tendering a pamphlet, begged him to buy it. To get rid of the importunate fellow, his Majesty purchased the book, and never glanced at its contents until the following day.
Imagine his surprise and indignation! The following was the title of his purchase:
"Secret and Circumstantial Account of the Marriage of Anne of Austria, Queen of France, with the Abbe Jules Simon Mazarin, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. A new edition, carefully revised. Amsterdam."
Grave and phlegmatic by nature, the King was always master of his feelings, a sign, this, of the noble-minded. He shut himself up in his apartment, so as to be quite alone, and hastily perused the libellous pamphlet.
According to the author of it, King Louis XIII., being weak and languid, and sapped moreover by secret poison, had not been able to beget any heirs. The Queen, who secretly was Mazarin's mistress, had had twins by the Abbe, only the prettier of the two being declared legitimate. The other twin had been entrusted to obscure teachers, who, when it was time, would give him up.
The princess, so the writer added, stung by qualms of conscience, had insisted upon having her guilty intimacy purified by the sacrament of marriage, to which the prime minister agreed. Then, mentioning the names of such and such persons as witnesses, the book stated that "this marriage was solemnised on a night in February, 1643, by Cardinal de Sainte-Suzanne, a brother and servile creature of Mazarin's."
"This explains," added the vile print, "the zeal, perseverance, and foolish ardour of the Queen Regent in defending her Italian against the just opposition of the nobles, against the formal charges of the magistrates, against the clamorous outcry, not only of Parisians, but of all France. This explains the indifference, or rather the firm resolve, on Mazarin's part; never to take orders, but to remain simply 'tonsure' or 'minore',—he who controls at least forty abbeys, as well as a bishopric.
"Look at the young monarch," it continued, "and consider how closely he resembles his Eminence, the same haughty glance; the same uncontrolled passion for pompous buildings, luxurious dress and equipages; the same deference and devotion to the Queen-mother; the same independent customs, precepts, and laws; the same aversion for the Parisians; the same resentment against the honest folk of the Fronde."
This final phrase easily disclosed its origin; nor upon this point had his Majesty the slightest shadow of a doubt.
The same evening he sent full instructions to the lieutenant-general of police, and two days afterwards the nocturnal vendor of pamphlets found himself caught in a trap.
The King wished him to be brought to Saint Germain, so that he might identify him personally; and, as he pretended to be half-witted or an idiot, he was thrown half naked into a dungeon. His allowance of dry bread diminished day by day, at which he complained, and it was decided to make him undergo this grim ordeal.
Under the pressure of hunger and thirst, the prisoner at length made a confession, and mentioned a bookseller of the Quartier Latin, who, under the Fronde, had made his shop a meeting-place for rebels.
The bookseller, having been put in the Bastille, and upon the same diet as his salesman, stated the name of the Dutch printer who had published the pamphlet. They sought to extract more from him, and reduced his diet with such severity that he disclosed the entire secret.
This bookseller, used to a good square meal at home, found it impossible to tolerate the Bastille fare much longer. Bound hand and foot, at his final cross-examination he confessed that the work had emanated from the Cardinal de Retz, or certain of his party.
He was condemned to three years' imprisonment, and was obliged to sell his shop and retire to the provinces.
I once heard M. de Louvois tell this tale, and use it as a means of silencing those who regretted the absence of the exiled Cardinal-archbishop.
As to the libellous pamphlet itself, the clumsy nature of it was only too plain, for the King is no more like Mazarin than he is like the King of Ethiopia. On the contrary, one can easily distinguish in the general effect of his features a very close resemblance to King Louis XIII.
The libellous pamphlet stated that, on the occasion of the Infanta's first confinement, twins were born, and that the prettier of the two had been adopted, another blunder, this, of the grossest kind. A book of this sort could deceive only the working class and the Parisian lower orders, for folk about the Court, and even the bourgeoisie, know that it is impossible for a queen to be brought to bed in secret. Unfortunately for her, she has to comply with the most embarrassing rules of etiquette. She has to bear her final birth-pangs under an open canopy, surrounded at no great distance by all the princes of the blood; they are summoned thither, and they have this right so as to prevent all frauds, subterfuges, or impositions.
When the King found the seditious book in question, the Queen, his mother, was ill and in pain; every possible precaution was taken to prevent her from hearing the news, and the lieutenant-general of police, having informed the King that two-thirds of the edition had been seized close to the Archbishop's palace, orders were given to burn all these horrible books by night, in the presence of the Marquis de Beringhen, appointed commissioner on this occasion.
