Louis the Well-Beloved by Jean Plaidy Page B

Our daughter is to be the Queen of France.’

    The young King was not displeased to hear of the proposed marriage. He was now fifteen and eager for a wife. He had so far shown no interest in women, which was largely due to the influence of Fleury who was determined that he should not be dominated by anyone but himself.
    The proposed Queen seemed as ideal from Fleury’s point of view as she did from that of the Duc de Bourbon and Madame de Prie. A girl humbly brought up, plain and meek – what could be better? Fleury was as eager to promote this marriage as were the Duc and his mistress.
    The girl was twenty-one – only about seven years older than the King; and they need only wait until the little Infanta had been received by her outraged family in Spain before announcing the proposed marriage.
    On a Sunday in May, Louis himself told the members of the Council: ‘Gentlemen, I am going to marry the Princess of Poland. She was born on June 23rd, 1703, and she is the only daughter of Stanislas Leczinska who was elected King of Poland in July 1704. He and Queen Catherine will come to France with their daughter and I have put the Château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye at their disposal. The mother of King Stanislas will accompany them.’
    The news soon spread through Paris. The King to marry the daughter of an exile! It was incredible when any of the most important Princesses of Europe would have been ready to marry Louis, for not only was he the monarch of the greatest country in Europe, but he was young, and as handsome as a god. And he was to marry this woman, of whom so many of them had never heard, the daughter of an exile, penniless, of no account and some seven years older than himself.
    Rumour grew throughout Paris. One day, the proposed Queen was said to be not only plain, but downright ugly. By the next day she was deformed; by the next web-footed. The marriage, it was decided, could only have been arranged by Madame de Prie because she wished to remain the power behind the throne.
    Paris murmured angrily. Songs were sung in which the appearance of Marie was described as hideous. ‘The Polish woman’, she was called – the woman whose name ended in ska.
    They called her the Demoiselle Leczinska and waited in rising indignation for her arrival.

    Everything was changed now in the house at Wissembourg. Those who had followed Stanislas into exile wore expressions of sly content; when the Cardinal de Rohan and the Maréchal du Bourg visited the family there was a subtle change in their manner, particularly towards Marie.
    Queen Catherine ceased to regret the past; she even ceased to mourn the recent death of one of her daughters; she had Marie left to her, and Marie was going to make a great change in the lives of her parents.
    Stanislas was jovial, and it delighted Marie to see him thus, for the affection between her father and herself was greater than that they had for any other. They were alike inasmuch as they could accept good fortune with pleasure and bad with resignation – unlike the Queen, who had been unable to hide her grief and dissatisfaction during the long years of exile.
    ‘My dear,’ he told Catherine gaily, ‘now is the time to redeem your jewels.’
    ‘The Frankfurt Jews will never relinquish them unless paid in full,’ declared Catherine.
    ‘Ha, they shall be paid,’ laughed Stanislas. ‘I have lost no time in raising the necessary loans.’
    ‘You have done this!’
    ‘You forget, wife! I am no longer merely the exiled King of Poland; I am the father of the future Queen of France.’
    Preparations went on at great speed. Everyone worked feverishly, beset by one great fear. What if the King of France should change his mind? It was unbearable to contemplate and it seemed hardly likely that this was to be, for news was brought to the house that Madame de Prie herself had arrived in Strasbourg and was on her way to visit Marie and her father.
    Madame de Prie! How could they do enough for this