to be united, at a later period, to the Dukes of Bouillon and La Meilleraye; the hopes of Mary went still higher; relying on the love of young Louis XIV., she dared to dream of the throne; and the Queen of Sweden encouraged her.  “The right thing is to marry one’s love,” she told the king.  No time was lost in letting Christina understand that she could not remain long in France:  the cardinal, “with a moderation for which he cannot be sufficiently commended,” says Madame de Motteville, “himself put obstacles in the way of his niece’s ambitious designs; he sent her to the convent of Brouage, threatening, if that exile were not sufficient, to leave France and take his niece with him.”

“No power,” he said to the king, “can wrest from me the free authority of disposal which God and the laws give me over my family.”  “You are king; you weep; and yet I am going away!” said the young girl to her royal lover, who let her go.  Mary de Mancini was mistaken; he was not yet King.

[Illustration:  Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin——­394]

Cardinal Mazarin and the queen had other views regarding the marriage of Louis XIV.; for a long time past the object of their labors had been to terminate the war by an alliance with Spain.  The Infanta, Maria Theresa, was no longer heiress to the crown, for King Philip at last had a son; Spain was exhausted by long-continued efforts, and dismayed by the checks received in the, campaign of 1658; the alliance of the Rhine, recently concluded at Frankfurt between the two leagues, Catholic and Protestant, confirmed immutably the advantages which the treaty of Westphalia had secured to France.  The electors had just raised to the head of the empire young Leopold I., on the death of his father, Ferdinand III., and they proposed their mediation between France and Spain.  Whilst King Philip IV. was still hesitating, Mazarin took a step in another direction; the king set out for Lyons, accompanied by his mother and his minister, to go and see Princess Margaret of Savoy, who had been proposed to him a long time ago as his wife.  He was pleased with her, and negotiations were already pretty far advanced, to the great displeasure of the queen-mother, when the cardinal, on the 29th of November, 1659, in the evening, entered Anne of Austria’s room.  “He found her pensive and melancholy, but he was all smiles.  ‘Good news, madam,’ said he.  ‘Ah!’ cried the queen, ‘is it to be peace?’ ’More than that, Madame; I bring your Majesty both peace and the Infanta.’” The Spaniards had become uneasy; and Don Antonio de Pimentel had arrived at Lyons at the same time with the court of Savoy, bearing a letter from Philip IV. for the queen his sister.  The Duchess of Savoy had to depart and take her daughter with her, disappointed of her hopes; all the consolation she obtained was a written promise that the king would marry Princess Margaret, if the marriage with the Infanta were not accomplished within a year.