Would Mazarin be his next master? Charles de Cygne had no idea, but with all his heart he wished Richelieu long life.

Richelieu folded the letter, dripped a little sealing wax onto the paper and gently pressed his signet ring down upon the hot wax.

“My friend,” he said softly, “I want you to walk across to the Louvre. You are to ask, in my name, to be taken to the queen. Please give this letter into her hands—and her hands only. When that is done, and she has it, there is no need to wait for a reply, but be so good as to return here and let me know that this little mission is accomplished.” He smiled. “I entrust this errand to you personally because the subject of the letter is exceedingly sensitive.”

Leaving the palace, Charles wrapped his cloak about him tightly. A cold rain was falling with the gusting wind. Foul winter weather. He crossed the square in front of the cardinal’s palace. Ahead of him, the long mass of the Louvre’s north side loomed dark and solemn. Through the rain, he could see the dim lamps by a side door.

He announced his business. The sentries knew him. A young officer conducted him along the dimly lit stone halls and galleries toward the queen’s apartments.

As he walked along in silence, he had time to reflect.

Anne, the daughter of the Hapsburg king of Spain, had married King Louis XIII of France when they were both fourteen. It was the usual dynastic marriage, on this occasion to lessen tensions between her Hapsburg family and the kingdom of France.

What had it been like for her? Charles wondered. It couldn’t have been easy.

For by the time they met, Louis XIII of France was exhibiting a very rare medical condition: a double set of teeth. Perhaps because of this, or perhaps for other reasons, he had a terrible stutter. If the girl found this off-putting, what agonies, Charles wondered, had the fourteen-year-old boy suffered?

When they were both eighteen, they conceived a child, but it was stillborn. The same thing happened again, three years later, then another four years after, then another five after that, in 1631. And then, nothing. It was said that when they did sleep in the same bed, his wife kept a bolster between them.

Charles felt sorry for the king. People complained that he was constantly off hunting. Poor devil, he thought, it’s probably to get away from them all. He seemed to have no mistresses. Was that piety, lack of inclination, or the fear that women found him repulsive? Who knew?

“He’s bedded one or two young men,” the king’s hunting companions told him. Perhaps that was what Louis preferred. Or perhaps he’d turned to men because he’d given up on women.