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Anne of Austria can be primarily identified by her deeply held religious faith. She was raised Catholic, as her father was a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Her mother encouraged her to be pious. Anne trusted in God more than anything or anyone else and often went on pilgrimages and to various religious places.
When she was married, she was 14 and given the largest dowry of any Infanta (first born daughter) of Spain. In return for the dowry, she renounced any rights or claim to the Spanish throne before she was married. Anne was a tool to cement a long-sought alliance between Spain and France- at the same time as her marriage, a French Princess was sent to Spain, in a situation rather like a hostage exchange. Some French people were friendly to her; most were definitively not. She spoke French adequately at the time of her marriage; other than that, she was regarded as inferior to the Princess she had been exchanged for. Anne was managed constantly by a staff of people who supervised her and told her how and what to do. Anne took those lessons to heart and was a shrewd politician later on in life. After Louis XIII's death, she was able to hold onto the absolute power her husband had cultivated. She kept the nobility from overthrowing the government during The Fronde and was able to install her son as ruler without incident. Anne and her son, Louis XIV, were very fond of one another. She was a hands-on parent, tending to her children herself. She also kept in touch with her family back in Spain throughout her life. It could be said that Anne was a very family-oriented, loving woman, who had the bad luck of an unhappy marriage. |