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.”