Unhappily for Anne, at the time that Buckingham arrived in Paris, Madame de Chevreuse was passionately in love with the handsome and dangerous Earl of Holland, and made no secret of that disgraceful attachment.[209] It was, therefore, her endeavour to promote everything that could produce a continued intercourse between France and this country.
Of the first meeting between Anne of Austria and Buckingham, during his embassy, there is no account. We can suppose it to have occurred under circumstances of dazzling splendour, to which many considerations, not guessed by the public, lent a strong interest. The suppressed and dangerous admiration of Richelieu might not be penetrated by Buckingham; but it was notorious that whilst Louis XIII. distrusted, and apparently neglected, his Queen, he was really disposed to respect and cherish her; and was known to have confessed to a confidant one day, in speaking of the Queen’s personal attractions, that “he dared not show her any tenderness, lest he should displease the queen-mother and the Cardinal, whose aid and counsels were much more essential to him than the affection of his wife.”[210]
Thus situated--bound to a husband of whose indifference she was by no means certain, but who, she well knew, had not the mental strength to cope with the Cardinal, and to avow any kindness for her--admired at a distance by the courtiers--passionately loved and fiercely persecuted by Richelieu, Anne must have presented a new source of interest and curiosity to Buckingham; and the course of her destiny, hard as it might seem, would give fuel to his presumption.
The dignity which Anne could assume on state occasions has been insisted upon by Madame de Motteville, when, speaking of her demeanour during the regency, she describes her then as equally fair with the fairest of the Court. A vast quantity of brown hair, powdered and frizzed, indeed, and worn in curls, set off a complexion not so delicate in colour as distinguished for the softness and smoothness of the skin. She disfigured herself, after the Spanish fashion, by wearing rouge; and one defect was striking--her nose was thick and large. Her eyes varied in colour from a perfect blue to green; and her glance was full of sweetness and expression. Her mouth was small, and her lips crimson, and the sweetest smiles played upon her countenance. The form of her face and forehead was admirable; her arms and hands were celebrated for their wonderful symmetry and for their whiteness, being, without exaggeration, white as snow. The delicacy of her habits amounted almost to monomania. “Madam,” observed Cardinal Mazarin to her, “should you incur everlasting condemnation, your punishment would be to sleep in sheets of Holland cloth.”[211] Her deportment in after life, during the minority of her son, Louis XIV., and her fortitude during the agonies of her last fatal illness, showed that the gentle and attractive Queen possessed a strong natural capacity, which circumstances eventually called into action.