Editing Anne of Austria (section)

==Queen of France==

At age eleven, Anne was betrothed to King [[Louis XIII]] of France.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=15}} Her father gave her a [[dowry]] of 500,000 crowns and many beautiful jewels.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=15}}{{sfn|Freer|1864|page=5}} For fear that Louis XIII would die early, the Spanish court stipulated that she would return to Spain with her dowry, jewels, and wardrobe if he did die.{{sfn|Freer|1864|page=6}} Prior to the marriage, Anne renounced all succession rights she had for herself and her descendants by Louis, with a provision that she would resume her rights should she be left a childless widow. On 18 October 1615, Louis and Anne were [[married by proxy]] in [[Burgos]] while Louis's sister, [[Elisabeth of France, Queen of Spain|Elisabeth of France]], and Anne's brother, [[Philip IV of Spain]], were married by proxy in [[Bordeaux]].{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|pages=22–23}} These marriages followed the tradition of cementing military and political alliances between France and Spain that began with the marriage of [[Philip II of Spain]] to [[Elisabeth of Valois]] in 1559 as part of the [[Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis]]. Anne and Elisabeth were exchanged on the [[Isle of Pheasants]] between [[Hendaye]] and [[Fuenterrabía]].{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=24}} She was lively and beautiful during her youth.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=26}}{{sfn|Freer|1864|page=18}} She was also a noted [[Equestrianism|equestrian]], a taste her son, Louis, would inherit. At the time, Anne had many admirers, including the handsome [[George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham|Duke of Buckingham]], although her intimates believed their flirtations remained chaste.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=64}} Historian [[Desmond Seward]] alleges that during his 1625 visit to France, when the French court took official leave of the English embassy at [[Amiens]], "Buckingham climbed into a private garden where the Queen was taking an evening walk", and "may even have tried to rape her", although "Anne's shrieks summoned her attendants."{{sfn|Seward|2022|pages=60–61}}
[[File:Anna of Austria by Rubens (1622-1625, Norton Simon Museum).jpg|thumbnail|right|Anne of Austria, coronation costume, by [[Peter Paul Rubens]]]]

Anne and Louis, both fourteen years old, were pressured to consummate their marriage in order to forestall any possibility of future [[annulment]],{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=26}} but Louis ignored his bride.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=42}} Louis's mother, [[Marie de' Medici]], continued to conduct herself as queen of France, without showing any deference to her daughter-in-law. Anne, surrounded by her entourage of high-born Spanish [[ladies-in-waiting]] headed by [[Inés de la Torre]],{{sfn|Freer|1864|page=24}} continued to live according to Spanish etiquette and failed to improve her French.

In 1617, Louis conspired with his favourite [[Charles d'Albert de Luynes]] to dispense with the influence of his mother in a palace ''[[coup d'état]]'' and had her favourite [[Concino Concini]] assassinated on 26 April of that year. During the years he was in the ascendancy Luynes attempted to remedy the formal distance between Louis and his queen. He sent away Inés de la Torre and the other Spanish ladies and replaced them with French ones, notably the Princess of Conti ([[Louise Marguerite of Lorraine]]) and his wife [[Marie de Rohan]],{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=54}} with whom he organized court events that would bring the couple together under amiable circumstances. Anne began to dress in the French manner and, in 1619, Luynes pressed the king to bed his queen.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=43}} Some affection developed, to the point where it was noted that Louis was distracted during a serious illness of the queen.

A series of miscarriages disenchanted the king and served to chill their relations. On 14 March 1622, while playing with her ladies, Anne fell and suffered her second stillbirth. Louis blamed her for the incident and was angry with Marie de Rohan, now the Dowager Duchess of Luynes, for having encouraged the queen in what was seen as negligence.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=56}} The king's already strained relationship with the duchess{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=55}} worsened after the incident, leading him to demand her departure from the court.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=57}} However, Rohan returned just a few months later with her new husband [[Claude, Duke of Chevreuse]].{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=58}}

Louis turned now to [[Cardinal Richelieu]] as his advisor, who served as his first minister from 1624 until his death in 1642. Richelieu's foreign policy of struggle against the Habsburgs, who surrounded France on two fronts, inevitably created tension between Louis and Anne, who remained childless for another sixteen years.

Under the influence of Marie de Rohan, the queen let herself be drawn into political opposition to Richelieu and became embroiled in several intrigues against his policies. Vague rumours of betrayal circulated in the court, notably her supposed involvement, first, with the [[Chalais conspiracy]] that Marie organized in 1626, and then those of the king's treacherous favorite, [[Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, Marquis of Cinq-Mars|Cinq-Mars]], who had been introduced to him by Richelieu.

In 1626, the Cardinal placed [[Madeleine du Fargis]] as ''[[Dame d'atour]]'' in the household of the queen to act as a spy, but she was instead to become a trusted confidant and favourite of the queen. In December 1630, Louis XIII reduced Anne's court and purged a great amount of her favourites as punishment for a plot in which the queen had cooperated with queen dowager Marie de' Medici in an attempt to depose Cardinal Richelieu, and among those fired were [[Madame de Motteville]] and Madeleine du Fargis.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=79}} Queen Anne asked the Cardinal to intervene so that she might keep du Fargis. When he refused, she swore that she would never forgive him.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=79}}{{sfn|Freer|1864|page=214}} Du Fargis left for Brussels, where her spouse had sided with the king's brother [[Gaston, Duke of Orléans]] against the monarch. After the invasion of Gaston in 1632, letters were discovered from du Fargis to people in Paris describing the plans of a marriage between Gaston and Anne after the death of Louis XIII.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=82}} Anne was questioned and confirmed that the letters were written by du Fargis, but denied any knowledge of the plans.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=83}}

In 1635, France [[Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659)|declared war on Spain]], placing the queen in an untenable position.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=84}} Her secret correspondence with her brother [[Philip IV of Spain]] was not the only communication she had with the Spanish. She also corresponded with the Spanish ambassador Mirabel and the governor of the [[Spanish Netherlands]].{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=83–84}} With the assistance of Anne's servant La Porte, who acted as courier, Madeleine du Fargis and Marie de Rohan acted as agents for her secret correspondence and channelled her letters to other contacts.{{sfn|Freer|1864|page=358}} In July 1637, Anne gave du Fargis the mission to examine whether there was any truth to the rumour of an alliance between France and [[Kingdom of England|England]], as this would force Spain to cut off diplomatic connections to France and disturb her network of couriers between the Spanish embassies of Paris and Brussels.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=98}}

On 11 August 1637, Anne came under so much suspicion that Richelieu issued an investigation. Her courier La Porte as well as the abbess of Anne's favourite convent Val-de-Grâce (where Anne had written many of her secret letters) were questioned and admitted to having participated in channelling the queen's secret correspondence.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=99}} Anne initially swore on the Holy Sacrament that she had participated in no illegal correspondence, but finally admitted her guilt on 15 August.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|pages=100–101}} On 17 August, Queen Anne was forced to sign covenants regarding her correspondence, which was henceforth open to inspection; she was further banned from visiting convents without permission and was never to be left alone but was always to be in the presence of one of her ladies-in-waiting.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|pages=102–103}} This was soon followed up by a purge of her household, where those officials loyal to the queen were replaced by those loyal to the king and the Cardinal. Consequently, count Jean de Galard de Bearn de Brassac, known to be loyal to Richelieu, was appointed chamberlain of her household, and his spouse [[Catherine de Brassac]] replaced [[Marie-Catherine de Senecey]] as her ''[[Première dame d'honneur]]'' to keep the queen and her household under control.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=113}}
 
===Birth of an heir===
[[File:Louis XIII, Anne of Austria, and their son Louis XIV, flanked by Cardinal Richelieu and the Duchesse de Chevreuse.jpg|right|thumb|[[Louis XIII]], Anne, and their son [[Louis XIV]], flanked by [[Cardinal Richelieu]] and the Duchesse de Chevreuse]]
{{Quote box|align=right|width=40%|salign=right|They saw in the arms of this princess whom they had watched suffer great persecutions with so much staunchness, their child-King, like a gift given by Heaven in answer to their prayers.|—Madame de Motteville{{Sfn|Fraser|2007}}}}

Despite a climate of distrust, the queen became pregnant once more, a circumstance attributed to a single stormy night in December 1637{{efn|name=dec1637
|According to a contemporary account,{{sfn|Kleinman|1993|p=193}} on the night of 5 December 1637, the King was caught in a storm in the centre of Paris and was unable to reach his own bed, which had been arranged for him at the [[Princes of Condé|Condé]] estate in [[Saint-Maur-des-Fossés#Château|Saint-Maur]], south-east of [[Vincennes]]. Cut off from his household staff, he was persuaded by the Captain of the Queen's Guard to spend the night at the Louvre; as a result, the King and Queen ate together and, since there was no royal bed available except the Queen's, slept together as well, resulting in Louis XIV's birth exactly nine months later.{{sfn|Noone|1988|p=42}}{{sfn|Kleinman|1993|pp=193–194}}}} or, as historians deem more likely, to a royal tour that occurred sometime during the previous month.{{efn|name=nov1637
|The reliable ''[[La Gazette (France)|La Gazette]]'' recorded that the royal couple lodged in [[Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye|St Germain]] from 9 November till 1 December 1637, before heading to Paris. On 2 December, the King travelled from Paris to [[Crosne, Essonne|Crosne]]–instead of Saint-Maur–whence he went to [[History of the Palace of Versailles#Louis XIII|Versailles]] on 5 December while the Queen remained in Paris. Kleinman contends that the King might well have stopped over in Paris on his way to Versailles, but even if he had spent the night of 5 December with the Queen, it doesn't imply this was the first time they shared a bed since August. The Queen's doctor, [[Charles Bouvard]], calculated that her pregnancy had begun at the end of November.{{sfn|Kleinman|1993|p=194}}}} [[Louis XIV]] was born on 5 September 1638, an event that secured the Bourbon line. At this time, Anne was 37.{{Sfn|Fraser|2007}} The official newspaper ''[[Gazette de France]]'' called the birth "a marvel when it was least expected".{{Sfn|Fraser|2007}}

The birth of a living son failed to re-establish confidence between the royal couple. However, she conceived again fifteen months later. At [[Saint-Germain-en-Laye]] on 21 September 1640, Anne gave birth to her second son, [[Philippe I, Duke of Orléans]], who later founded the modern [[House of Orléans]]. Both of her children were placed under the supervision of the royal governess [[Françoise de Lansac]], who was disliked by Anne and loyal to the king and the cardinal.{{sfn|Kleinman|1985|page=146}} 

Richelieu made Louis XIII a gift of his palatial hôtel, the ''[[Palais-Royal|Palais Cardinal]]'', north of the Louvre, in 1636, but the king never took possession of it. Anne left the [[Louvre Palace]] to install herself there with her two small sons and remained as regent, hence the name Palais-Royal that the structure still carries.

===Issue===
The couple had the following children:
{| style="text-align:left; width:100%" class="wikitable"
! width=20% | Name !! Lifespan !! Notes 
|-
|stillborn child 
||December&nbsp;1619
||{{sfn|Dulong|1980|p=30}}{{sfn|Kleinman|1993|p=88}}
|-
|miscarriage 
||Spring&nbsp;1621
||{{sfn|Dulong|1980|p=30}}
|-
|miscarriage 
||14&nbsp;March&nbsp;1622
||{{sfn|Kleinman|1993|pp=105–107}}
|-
|miscarriage 
||November&nbsp;1626
||{{sfn|Dulong|1980|p=70}}
|-
|miscarriage
||April&nbsp;1631
||{{sfn|Kleinman|1993|p=159}}
|-
|[[Louis XIV of France]] 
||5&nbsp;September&nbsp;1638 – 1&nbsp;September&nbsp;1715
||Married [[Maria Theresa of Spain|Maria Theresa of Austria]] (1638–1683) in 1660. Had issue. Later secretly married [[Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon|Françoise d’Aubigné, “Madame de Maintenon”]], his last [[List of French royal mistresses|''maîtresse-en-titre'']], and had no issue.
|-
|[[Philippe I, Duke of Orléans|Philippe of France, Duke of Orléans]] 
||21&nbsp;September&nbsp;1640 – 8&nbsp;June&nbsp;1701
||Married (1) [[Princess Henrietta of England]] (1644–1670) in 1661. Had issue.<br />Married (2) [[Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate|Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, "Madame Palatine"]] (1652–1722) in 1671. Had issue.
|}