Anne of Austria
The queen of France, twenty-six or twenty-seven, Spanish-born and watched by her husband and his minister, who gives Buckingham the studs.
To keep her honour intact in a court where her husband and his minister both want it damaged.
The book
At a glance
- Twenty-six or twenty-seven in 1625
- Donna Estafania, her last Spanish woman; Laporte, her valet; Constance Bonacieux, her seamstress
- Anne of Austria · 1601–1666 · Valladolid, Spain
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeAnne of Austria was the real queen of Louis XIII, and the novel takes her at twenty-six or twenty-seven, in what the narrator calls the full splendour of her beauty. She has been stripped of her Spanish women by the king's jealousy and the cardinal's persecution, and she is loved from a distance by the English minister Buckingham. The twelve diamond studs she gives him are the king's gift, and the plot of the first half is the race to get them back onto her dress.
How Anne of Austria Is Portrayed
- The portrait, Chapter XIITwenty-six or twenty-seven, with emerald eyes full of sweetness and majesty, a small rosy mouth with the slightly protruding underlip of the House of Austria, and chestnut hair worn plainly with much powder.
- Buckingham at her feet, Chapter XIIIn the Louvre, in a plain white satin robe, she tells the duke that everything separates them, the sea, the enmity of kingdoms and the sanctity of vows, and that they must never meet again. He kisses the hem of her robe.
- The keeper of the seals, Chapter XVIOn the king's order the chancellor Séguier searches her for Buckingham's letter, and she gives it up from her bodice rather than be touched.
- The ring, Chapter XXIIAt the ballet she takes d'Artagnan's hand behind a tapestry and leaves a ring in it, which he later sells for seven thousand livres to equip the four.
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