ABSTRACT
The marriage of Louis and Maria Teresa was first celebrated by proxy on 2 June 1660, in Fuentarabia. By custom a Spanish princess could not leave Spanish soil unmarried and a French king’s wedding had to take place in France. The Spanish cortège, fifteen miles long, then moved ponderously towards the frontier, the Isle of Pheasants and further ceremonies. On both sides there was a desire to exhibit status while proving commitment. The sheer weight of significance attached by family and councillors might still have been less daunting to the little Infanta, to all appearances a docile doll, than the curiosity and comment of the French. She was only a few days younger than her cousin-husband, yet a child in experience. To one beady-eyed observer she emerged with credit from her prolonged ordeal – though Mme de Motteville’s description has a sting in the tail: ‘If her body were a little bigger and her teeth more beautiful she would deserve a place among the most beautiful women of Europe … but her costume was horrible, neither cut nor style pleasing to the eye.’ She also observed that the blue and gold of the French banners were more pleasing than Spain’s predominating red and black.
