It was a system, an immemorial servitude, existing in Vincennes and Fontainebleau as at the Louvre,--a system that was not abolished without great difficulty. In a document dated posterior to 1670, mention is made of the thousand masses of all uncleanness, and the thousand insupportable stenches, "which made the Louvre a hot-bed of infection, very dangerous in time of epidemic." The great ones of earth accepted such discrepancies as fatalities; they contented themselves with ordering a sweep of the broom.
Neither Gaston nor the Princess, his wife, descended to the level of their critical surroundings. They were habituated to the peculiar features of the royal palaces; and certainly that year, in the intoxication of their prospects, they must have considered the palatial odours very acceptable.
It did not agree with their frame of mind to note that the always gloomy palace was more than usually dismal. Anne of Austria had been struck to the heart by the pregnancy of her sister-in-law. She had been married twelve years and she no longer dared to cherish the hope of an heir. She felt that she was sinking into oblivion. Her enemies had begun to insinuate that her usefulness was at an end and that she had no reason for clinging to life. The Queen of France lived so eclipsed a life that to the world she was nothing but a pretty woman with a complexion of milk and roses. The people knew that she was unhappy, and they pitied her. They never learned her true character until she became Regent. Anne of Austria was not the only one to drain the cup of bitterness that year. Louis XIII. also was jealous of the maternity of Madame. It was a part of his nature to cherish evil sentiments, and his friends found some excuse for his faults in his misfortunes. Since Richelieu had attained power, Louis had succumbed to the exigencies of monarchical duty. His whole person betrayed his distress, exhaling constraint and anxiety. The most mirthful jester quailed at the sight of the long, livid face, so mournful, so expressive of the mental torment of the Prince who "knew that he was hated and who had no fondness for himself."
Louis was timid and prudish, and, like his brother, he had sick nerves. Hérouard, who was his doctor when he was a child, exhibits the young Prince as a somnambulist, who slept with eyes open, and who arose in his sleep, walking and talking in a loud voice. Louis's doctors put an end to any strength that he may have had originally. In one year Bouvard bled him forty-seven times; and during that one twelvemonth the child was given twelve different kinds of medicines and two hundred and fifteen enemas. Is it credible that after such an experience the unhappy King merited the reproach of being "obstreperous in his intercourse with the medical faculty"?