It was not long before Mazarin fixed on a suitor in the person of Armande de la Porte, son of the Marquis de la Meilleraye, one of the most powerful nobles in France.  But alas for his scheming!  Armande’s heart had already been caught while Marie was reciting her matins and vespers:  He had lost it utterly to her beautiful sister, Hortense; he vowed that he would marry no other, and that if Hortense could not be his wife he would prefer to die.  Thus Marie was rescued from a union which brought her sister so much misery in later years, and for a time she was condemned to spend unhappy months with her mother at the Louvre.

To this period of her life Marie Mancini could never look back without a shudder.  “My mother,” she says, “who, I think, had always hated me, was more unbearable than ever.  She treated me, although I was no longer ugly, with the utmost aversion and cruelty.  My sisters went to Court and were fussed and feted.  I was kept always at home, in our miserable lodgings, an unhappy Cinderella.”

But Fortune did not long hide his face from Cinderella.  Her “Prince Charming” was coming—­in the guise of the handsome young King, Louis XIV. himself.  It was one day while visiting Madame Mancini in her lodgings at the Louvre that Louis first saw the girl who was to play such havoc with his heart; and at the first sight of those melting dark eyes and that intoxicating smile he was undone.  He came again and again—­always under the pretext of visiting Madame, and happy beyond expression if he could exchange a few words with her daughter, Marie; until he soon counted a day worse than lost that did not bring him the stolen sweetness of a meeting.

When, a few weeks later, Madame Mancini died, and Marie was recalled to Court by her uncle, her life was completely changed for her.  Louis had now abundant opportunities of seeking her side; and excellent use he made of them.  The two young people were inseparable, much to the alarm of the Cardinal and Madame Mere, the Queen.  The young King was never happy out of her sight; he danced with her (and none could dance more divinely than Marie); he listened as she sang to him with a voice whose sweetness thrilled him; they read the same books together in blissful solitude; she taught him her native Italian, and entranced him by the brilliance of her wit; and when, after a slight illness, he heard of her anxious inquiries and her tears of sympathy, his conquest was complete.  He vowed that she and no other should be his wife and Queen of France.

But these halcyon days were not to last long.  It was no part of Mazarin’s scheming that a niece of his should sit on the throne.  The prospect was dazzling, it is true, but it would inevitably mean his own downfall, so strongly would such an alliance be resented by friends as well as enemies; and Anne of Austria was as little in the mood to be deposed by such an obscure person as the “Mancini girl.”  Thus it was that Queen and Cardinal joined hands to nip the young romance in the bud.