ANNE OF AUSTRIA

Ruth Kleinman is Professor of History at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

Adapted from the Preface: Wife of Louis XIII, Mother of Louis XIV and regent for her son during his youth, she deserves to be called Anne of France rather than Anne of Austria. Much that has been written about her by historians is less revealing of her than of the writers’ own political preoccupations and historical tastes, or about the changing fashions in historiography. What has been missing up to now is a portrait of Anne as she was: a woman who certainly had faults but who also had the strength to survive difficult circumstances, to go beyond what she had been taught, and to adopt a new allegiance. It is quite true that Anne did not usually act directly or independently, and that she did not spend her time reading dispatches—she was not trained for it. Her upbringing had fitted her to be a royal wife and mother, not a queen ruling in her own right; and when she had to act in political matters, she was content to act through men. But biology itself can become a political matter, and in her love for her firstborn son, she learned to take advice, overcome old prejudices, and give up old loyalties—all for the sake of handing on to him intact the state his father had left him.