But such shameless arrogance only served to estrange the King still further, and to make him seek still more the company of the young sister, who had already captured his heart as the Comtesse had never captured it.  When Louis made his memorable journey to Lyons to meet the Princess Margaret of Savoy, it was to Marie that he paid the most courtly and tender attentions.  “During the journey,” says Mademoiselle, “he did not address a word to the Comtesse de Soissons”; and, indeed, on more than one occasion he showed a marked aversion to her.

At St Jean d’Angely, Louis not only himself escorted Marie to her lodging; he stayed with her until two o’clock in the morning.  “Nothing,” her sister Hortense records, “could equal the passion which the King showed, and the tenderness with which he asked of Marie her pardon for all she had suffered for his sake.”  It was, indeed, no secret at Court that he had offered her marriage, and had taken a solemn vow that neither Margaret of Savoy nor the Infanta of Spain should be his wife.  But, as we have seen in a previous chapter, both the Queen and Mazarin were determined that the Infanta should be Queen of France; and that his foolish romance with the Mancini girl should be nipped in the bud.

There was also another powerful influence at work to thwart his passion for Marie.  The indifference of the Comtesse de Soissons had given place to a fury of resentment; and she needed no instigation of her uncle to determine at any cost to recover the place she had lost in Louis’ favour.  She brought all her armoury of coquetry and flatteries to bear on him, and so far succeeded that, we read, “the King has resumed his relations with the Comtesse; he has recommenced to talk and laugh with her; and three days since he entertained M. and Madame de Soissons with a ball and a play, and afterwards they partook of medianoche (a midnight banquet) together, passing more than three hours in conversation with them.”

Meanwhile Marie, realising the hopelessness of her passion in face of the opposition of her uncle and the Queen, and of Louis’ approaching marriage to the Spanish Princess, had given him unequivocally to understand that their relations must cease, and the rupture was complete when the Comtesse told the King of her sister’s dallying with Prince Charles of Lorraine, of their assignations in the Tuileries, of their mutual infatuation, and of the rumours of an arranged marriage. “Cela est bien” was all Louis remarked, but the dark flush of anger that flooded his face was a sweet reward to the Comtesse for her treachery.

A few days later her revenge was complete when, in the King’s presence, she rallied her sister on her low spirits.  “You find the time pass slowly when you are away from Paris,” she said; “nor am I surprised, since you have left your lover there”; to which Marie answered with a haughty toss of the head, “That is possible, Madame.”