CURRENT LITERATURE.
QUEEN AND CARDINAL.
Queen and Cardinal : a Memoir of Anne of Austria and of her Relations with Cardinal Mazarin. By Mrs. Colquhoun Grant. With Portraits. (John Murray. 12s. net.)—In its way this is an attractive and agreeable book. The period is one of the most picturesque in history, and the principal characters appear to have been carefully studied. But it seems odd that the author, once engaged among old French memoirs, did not carry her researches so far as to be sure of her facts with regard to the life, for instance, of so near a connexion of Anne of Austria as her brother-in-law, Gaston d'Orldans. Such a statement as this is misleading :—" In spite of opposition, Monsieur finally married Mademoiselle do Montpensier, a marriage which after all brought a great deal of happiness into Anne's life, for she learned to love her sister-in-law in the days to come." Monsieur did marry Mlle. de Montpensier, but she only lived a year, leaving him with a daughter a few days old, afterwards known as La Grande Mademoiselle. The Queen, then childless, was miserably jealous of her sister-in-law, during those months the possible mother of a future King of France. Later on, Monsieur married Princess Marguerite of Lorraine, who was always cordially disliked by Anne of Austria, so that she really owed no happiness to either sister-in-law. On the other hand, Mrs. Colquhoun Grant clearly and thoroughly appreciates the whole curious situation between Anne and her great Minister. Her extracts from Mazarin's letters, in the cypher to which she supplies the key, are full of information ; and the conclusion she draws as to the supposed marriage is in accordance with the most recent knowledge. Historians no longer repeat like parrots the assertion of that egregious gossip, Charlotte Elisabeth, Princess Palatine and Duchess of Orleans, that "the Queen-mother was not only in love with Cardinal Mazarin; she married him." The fact is now confessed to be most doubtful, even if the contrary is not certain. By the way, the famous letter containing that statement was not written, we venture to remind readers, by Anne de Gonzague, the Princess Palatine who was sister of the Queen of Poland. She died in 1685, more than thirty years before that letter was written.
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