A Royal bride must be found for Louis, and that quickly; and negotiations were soon on foot to secure as his wife Margaret, Princess of Savoy.  In vain did the boy-King storm and protest; equally futile were Marie’s tearful pleadings to her uncle.  The fiat had gone forth.  Louis must have a Royal bride; and she was already about to leave Italy on her bridal progress to France.

It was, we may be sure, with a heavy heart that Marie joined the cavalcade which, with its gorgeous procession of equipages, its gaily mounted courtiers, and its brave escort of soldiery, swept out of Paris on its stately progress to Lyons, to meet the Queen-to-be.  But there was no escape from the humiliation, for she must accompany Anne of Austria, as one of her retinue of maids-of-honour.  Arrived too soon at Lyons, Louis rides on to give first greeting to his bride, who is now within a day’s journey; and returns with a smiling face to announce to his mother that he finds the Princess pleasing to his eye, and to describe, with boyish enthusiasm, her grace and graciousness, her magnificent eyes, her beautiful hair, and the delicate olive of her complexion, while Marie’s heart sinks at the recital.  Could this be the lover who, but a few days ago, had been at her feet, vowing that she was the only bride in all the world for him?

When he seeks her side and shamefacedly makes excuses for his seeming recreancy, she bids him marry his “ugly bride” in accents of scorn, and then bursts into tears, which she only consents to wipe away when he declares that his heart will always be hers and that he will never marry the Italian Princess.

But Margaret of Savoy was not after all to be Queen of France.  She was, as it proved, merely a pawn in the Cardinal’s deep game.  It was a Spanish alliance that he sought for his young King; and when, at the eleventh hour, an ambassador came hurriedly to Lyons to offer the Infanta’s hand, the Savoy Duke and his sister, the Princess, had perforce to return to Italy “empty-handed.”

There was at least a time of respite now for Louis and Marie, and as they rode back to Paris, side by side, chatting gaily and exchanging sweet confidences, the sun once more shone on the happiest young people in all France.  Then followed a period of blissful days, of dances and fetes, in brilliant succession, in which the lovers were inseparable; above all, of long rambles together, when, “the world forgetting,” they could live in the happy present, whatever the future might have in store for them.

Meanwhile the negotiations for the Spanish marriage were ripening fast.  Louis and Marie again appeal, first to the Cardinal, then to the Queen, to sanction their union, but to no purpose; both are inflexible.  Their foolish romance must come to an end.  As a last resource Marie flies to the King, with tender pleadings and tears, begging him not to desert her; to which he answers that no power on earth shall make him wed the Infanta.  “You alone,” he swears, “shall wear the crown of Queen”; and in token of his love he buys for her the pearls that were the most treasured belongings of the exiled Stuart Queen, Henrietta Maria.  The lovers part in tears, and the following day Marie receives orders to leave Paris and to retire to La Rochelle.