The Wondering Prince

TWO

The Princess was happy. No sooner had she and her faithful little party set foot on French soil at Calais than her dear Nan discarded her hump, kissed her rapturously and called her Beloved Princess. The indignity she had suffered was now over; there was no need to remind people now that she was a princess. There were fine clothes to be worn, there were many to kiss her hand and pay her the homage she had missed when dressed as the child of a servant. The crowds welcomed her. They called to her that she was the granddaughter of great Henri, and therefore France was her home and all French men and women were ready to love her.

How she crowed and waved her little hands! How she smiled as she smoothed down the folds of her dress! Occasionally she would turn to Nan and look with happy pleasure at the tall and beautiful governess whom it seemed she had sought in vain to revive from those dirty rags. Henrietta was happy; she did not know that she came to France as a suppliant; that she was a beggar far more than she had appeared to be on the road to Dover.

“You are going to see your mother, the Queen,” Anne told her.

The child was wide-eyed with wonder. Her mother, the Queen, was just a name to her. Nan, during the Princess’s two years of life, had been the only mother she had known.

“You must love her very dearly,” Anne explained. “She will be so happy to see you, and you will be the only one of all your brothers and sisters who may be with her to make her happy.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because the others cannot be with her.”

“Why not?”

“Because your brothers, James and Henry, must stay with your sister Elizabeth; and your big brother, Charles, cannot stay with his mother in France because he has other matters to which he must attend. Your big sister, Mary, is the Princess of Holland, so she cannot be with your mother either.”

But Henrietta did not understand. She only knew that she was happy again, that she had bright clothes to wear and that people called her Princess.

So she was escorted from Calais to Saint-Germain.

The news had spread that her infant daughter was about to be restored to the poor sad Queen. There was a romantic story of a brave governess who had brought the child out of a war-torn country under the very eyes of the King’s enemies. The story was one to delight the warmhearted French. They wanted to see the little Princess; they wanted to cheer the brave governess. So they gathered along the route from Calais that they might cry “Good Luck” to the little girl, and let her know that as granddaughter of their greatest King, they were ready to welcome her to their country.

The people cheered her. “Long live the little Princess from England! Long live the granddaughter of our great Henri! Long live the brave governess!”

And the Princess smiled and took this ovation as her right; she had already forgotten her uncomfortable journey. Anne was worn out with fatigue, and now that her anxiety had lifted, she felt light-headed; she could not believe that the people of France were cheering her; and while she smiled she felt as though she were not really there in France but sitting on a bank while the Princess betrayed their secret, or that she was in an attic, terrified while a groom told her that her hump was slipping.

When they came to the château on the edge of the forest, Henrietta Maria was waiting to greet them. She had been granted the use of the château at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and she had her own apartments in the Louvre; she had been given a pension by her royal relatives of France, and at the time of Henrietta’s arrival she lived at Court with all the state of a visiting Queen.

She was waiting in her salon—surrounded by her attendants and some of the exiles from England who visited her from time to time—magnificently dressed in blue brocade decorated with frills of fine lace and pearls; her black eyes were filled with tears, and her usually sallow cheeks were aflame. This was the happiest moment of her life since she had left England, she declared.

When the Princess was brought to her she gave a great cry of joy; she dispensed with all ceremony and swooped on the child, pressing her against her pearl-decorated gown while tears gushed from her eyes. She began to talk in French, which the little girl could not understand.

“So at last, my little one, I have you here with me. Oh, how I have suffered! You, my little one, my baby, whom I had to leave when I fled from those wicked men! But now you are back with me. Now you are here and we shall never be parted as long as we live. Oh see, this is my daughter, my youngest and my most precious. She is returned to me and it is such a miracle that I must give great thanks to God and all the saints. And I do so here in this happy moment.” She turned her tearful yet radiant face to Cyprien de Gamaches, her priest, who stood beside her. “Père Cyprien shall instruct this child of mine. She shall be brought up in the true faith of Rome. Rejoice, for she is not only snatched from her enemies—those round-headed villains who would destroy her father—she is saved from a subtler enemy; she is saved for Holy Church!”

Henrietta wriggled; the pearls on her mother’s gown were hurting her; she turned and held out her hand to Anne who was standing close by.

The Queen’s brilliant eyes were now on the governess.

“And here is my dearest Lady Anne … my dear faithful servant! We shall never forget what you have done. All Paris, all France talks of the wonderful deed. You have behaved with great courage and I shall never forget you.”

The Queen put down the child and would have embraced Anne, but as she was about to do so, Anne, worn out by the terrible fatigue of her long tramp and by all the anxieties of the previous days, sank fainting to the floor.

It seemed that her determination to hand over the Princess to none but the child’s mother had kept her going; now that her task was completed she must pay the price of the mental strain and physical hardship she had suffered.

Henrietta Maria sat with her niece Mademoiselle de Montpensier in her apartments in Saint-Germain. Henrietta Maria was a schemer; when she decided she wanted something, she could be very single-minded. There were several things she wanted very badly; the first was to see an end to the war in England, with her husband victorious; the second was to bring her children up in the Roman Catholic faith; and the third was to arrange suitable marriages for her children.

All of these seemed to her not only natural but virtuous desires. It was a fact that in their marriage contract, the King, her husband, had promised that their children should be instructed in the Catholic faith. In this he had not kept his word; the whole of England would have been against his keeping his word; England still remembered the reign of Bloody Mary, and the people had decided to run no risk of a recurrence of those terrible days.

Henrietta Maria loved her husband and was devoted to her family; but, she told herself, as a staunch Catholic, she loved her religion more. Fate had played into her hands by delivering to her the Princess Henrietta; here was one child who should not be contaminated by wrong teaching; Père Cyprien was already taking matters in hand. He had had a clear run so far, because the Protestant governess, Anne Dalkeith, had been seriously ill since her arrival at Saint-Germain, and had been unable to take a hand in the Princess’s upbringing or to remind the Queen of the King’s wishes which were those of the majority of the people of England. And she would have reminded her, thought Henrietta Maria grimly; even though her ears would have been boxed for it, even though she would have to protest to the Queen and the mother of the child, Anne would do what she considered her duty. It would have been a pity to quarrel with Anne so soon after her glorious adventure. Perhaps, as Père Cyprien said, the hand of God was in this; first, in bringing her daughter to France at an early age before the contamination of a hostile Church could be begun, and secondly, by striking the Protestant governess with a fever and so preventing her interference. Père Cyprien would go even further; he would say that the Great Rebellion and Civil War in England had doubtless been an act of God calculated to save the soul of the young Princess.

Henrietta Maria could not follow him as far as that, but she was at least satisfied that her young daughter would be safe from heresy and now she could turn her thoughts to the marriages of her children. There was one whose marriage was of the utmost importance: Charles, Prince of Wales.

He was a boy of sixteen, very young to marry; yet Princes married young. Henrietta Maria’s illogical mind darted hither and thither, taking up one idea, rejecting it for another, and then returning to the first. If young Charles were to remain an exile, he would need a very rich wife; if he were to be King, he would need a royal wife. But riches were always useful; she had not thought of that until she found herself an exile from her adopted country. What would have happened to her, she wondered, if, instead of being the daughter of the fourth Henri of beloved memory, she had been the daughter of the despised third Henri. Who could say?

Now she studied the young woman before her, for she had decided on Mademoiselle as the most fitting bride for her son Charles, and she had received reports that Charles was on his way to Paris.

Mademoiselle de Montpensier, known throughout France as the Mademoiselle of the French Court, was Henrietta Maria’s own niece, being the daughter of her brother, Gaston, Duke of Orléans. Mademoiselle unfortunately had a great opinion of herself. She was the richest heiress in Europe; she was a cousin of the young King Louis XIV; she believed herself to be peerless in charm and beauty and, although she was willing to be wooed by the Prince of Wales through his mother, she would give no assurance that she would even consider his suit.

Now she smoothed the folds of her rich brocade gown about her beautiful figure, and Henrietta Maria knew that she was thinking what a charming picture she made with her pink and white complexion and her abundant fair hair; the Queen knew that she considered herself not only the wealthiest heiress but the most beautiful young woman in France. Henrietta Maria’s fingers itched to box her ears; Henrietta Maria’s small foot tapped impatiently; there was a great deal of hot temper bottled up in the diminutive body of the Queen of England.

“My son will soon be with us,” said the Queen. “I live for the day.”

“Ah, my dearest Aunt, it must be wonderful for you—an exile from your country in a foreign land—to have your family escape from those villains.”

“A foreign land!” cried the Queen. “Mademoiselle, I was born in this country. I am my father’s beloved daughter.”

“A pity he died before he could know you,” said the malicious Mademoiselle.

“Aye! His death was the greatest tragedy this country ever suffered. I burn with indignation every time I pass through the Rue de la Ferronnérie where that mad monk pierced him to the heart.”

“My dearest Aunt, you upset yourself for something that happened years ago … when you have so many present troubles with which to concern yourself.”

Henrietta Maria flashed a look of irritation at her niece. Mademoiselle was clever; she granted her that; she knew how to make those little thrusts in the spots where they hurt most. There she was, the arrogant young beauty, reminding her aunt that she, Mademoiselle, cousin to the King, daughter of Monsieur de France, was really being rather gracious by spending so much of her precious time with her poor exiled aunt.

Henrietta Maria could subdue her anger when great issues were at stake.

“My son is of great height, already a man. They say he bears a striking resemblance to my father.”

“In looks only, I trust, Your Majesty. Your father, our great King, Henri Quatre, was France’s greatest King, we all know, but he was also France’s greatest lover.”

“My son will love deeply also. There is that charm in him which tells me so.”

“Let us hope, for the sake of the wife he will marry, that in one respect he will not resemble your great father whose mistresses were legion.”

“Ah! He has his father’s blood in him as well as that of my father. There never was a more noble man, nor a more faithful, than my Charles. I, his wife, tell you that, and I know it.”

“Then, dear Aunt, you were indeed fortunate in your husband. When I choose mine, fidelity is one of the qualities I shall look for.”

“Beauty such as yours would keep any man faithful.”

“Such as your father, Madame, would never be faithful to Venus herself. And as your son is so like him …”

“Tush! He is but a boy!”

“So very young that he need not think of marriage yet.”

“A Prince is never too young to think of marriage.”

“Mayhap while his affairs are in a state of flux, it would be wise to wait. A great heiress would more readily accept a King whose crown is safe than one who may live through his life with only the hope of regaining it.”

Mademoiselle was smiling absently to herself. Her thoughts were of marriage, but not of one between herself and the young Prince of England. Henrietta Maria fumed silently. She knew what was in the minx’s mind. Marriage, yes! And with her royal cousin, the King of France. And Henrietta Maria had already decided that Louis XIV was for her own Henrietta.

The Princess Henriette—she had been Henriette from the moment she passed into her mother’s care—loved her brother immediately she set eyes on him. He came into the nursery where she was with her governess, poor pale Lady Dalkeith, who had just risen from her sickbed to find herself fêted as the heroine of the year. Lady Dalkeith, serious-minded and conscientious, found little pleasure in the eulogies which came her way; she had discovered the Queen’s determination to bring up the child in the Catholic faith, which was against the wishes of the King of England and his people; and this disturbed her so much that she could feel only apprehension in contemplating the fact that she, having successfully conducted the child to her mother, was indirectly responsible.

But the little Henriette was unaware of the storms about her; all she knew was that she had a brother, and that as soon as she saw him, and he held her in his arms and told her that he had known her when she was a very tiny baby, she loved him.

“Charles!” she would cry in her high-pitched baby voice. “Dear Charles!”

And he would call her his baby sister. “But,” he said, “Henriette is such a long name for such a small person, and now I hear they are to add Anne to it out of respect for King Louis’ mother. It is far too long. My little puss … my little love, you shall be my Minette.”

“Minette?” she said wonderingly.

“It shall be my name for you. It is something we share, you and I, dear little sister.”

She was pleased. “Minette!” she said. “I am Minette, Charles’ Minette.”

He kissed her and let her pull his long dark curly hair.

“I wondered when I should see you again, Minette,” he told her. “I thought mayhap I never should.”

“You are so big to be a brother,” she said.

“That’s because I’m the eldest of the family. I was fourteen years old when you were born.”

She did not fully understand, so she laughed and clasped his arm to her little body to show how much she loved him.

He held her tightly. It was wonderful to be with one of his own flesh and blood. He wondered whether all his family would ever be together again. He was only a boy but he had been with his father in battle, and he knew that events were moving against his family. He was quiet and shy; he enjoyed the company of women, but they must not be haughty ladies like his cousin Mademoiselle de Montpensier; he liked humbler girls, girls who liked him because he was young and, although not handsome, had a way with him. He was particularly shy here in France because he knew that they laughed at his French accent; and although he himself was ready to laugh at it—for he knew it to be atrocious, and he never tried to see himself other than the way he was—he was too young, too unsure of himself, to be able to endure the ironic laughter of others. He remembered continually that he was a Prince whose future was in jeopardy, and that made him cautious.

So it was wonderful to be with this affectionate little sister; she was so frail but pretty, and she had the Stuart eyes and the promise of Stuart gaiety. It was good, Charles decided, to have a family.

He had escaped from his companion, his cousin Prince Rupert, who spoke French perfectly and was considered to be a fine soldier in spite of his defeat at Marston Moor. He had escaped from his mother and her continual prodding, her many instructions as to how he must set about wooing his cousin, Mademoiselle of France.

“I love you, little sister,” he whispered, “oh, so much more than haughty Mademoiselle.”

“Charles,” murmured the little girl, as she pulled his black hair and watched the curls spring back into place, “will you stay with me, Charles?”

“I shall have to go away soon, Minette.”

“No! Minette says no!”

He touched her cheek. “And Minette’s commands should be obeyed.”

Lady Dalkeith left them together; she was very fond of the Prince and rejoiced to see the signs of affection between the brother and sister. She thought: Perhaps I could speak to him about her religious instruction. He knows the wish of his father. But how could I go against the Queen? How could I carry tales of his mother to the Prince? The child is too young to absorb very much at this stage. I will wait. Who knows what will happen?

“Were you little once?” Henriette asked her brother when they were alone.

“Yes, I was little, and so ugly that our mother was ashamed of me; I was very solemn, so they thought that I was wise. Dear sister, when in ignorance remain silent and look wise. You will then be judged profound.”

Henriette could not understand what he meant, but she laughed with him; her laughter came of contentment.

He talked to her as he could not talk to others. He talked wistfully of his youth. He talked of England, where he had once been the most important of little boys; he told of playing in the gardens of palaces with his brother James and his sister Mary; they had played hide-and-seek on wet days through the great rooms of Hampton Court and Whitehall, and on fine days in the gardens, hiding among the trees, stalking each other through alleys of neatly trimmed yews. Best of all he loved to watch the ships on the river; so he told her how he used to lie in the grass for hours at Greenwich, watching the ships pass by.

“But, Minette, you do not know of these things, and I am a fool to talk to you, for in talking to you I am really talking to myself, and that is a foolhardy thing to do when such talk brings self-pity; for self-pity is a terrible thing, dear Minette; it is the sword which is thrust against oneself; one turns the blade in the wound; one revels in one’s own pain, and that way lies folly.” He stopped, smiling at her.

“More! More!” cried Henriette.

“Ah, my little Minette, what will become of us … what will our end be, I wonder?” But it was not in his nature to be sad for long. He did not believe that his father could be victorious, but he still could turn a nonchalant face to the future. He could live in the moment, and at this moment he was discovering what a delightful sister was his; he was discovering the pleasures of family life. “Dearest Minette, you do not tell me I must go and court the haughty Mademoiselle, do you! You laugh at my maudlin talk as though it were precious wit. Small wonder that I love you, sweet Minette.”

“Minette loves Charles,” she said, putting her arms about his neck.

Then he told her of Mr. Fawcett who had instructed him and his brother James in archery. His mind raced on; he thought of his French master and his writing master, and the tutor who had made him read from his horn-book; he remembered, too, his mother, who had smothered him with her affection, and had impressed on him the importance of his position. “Never forget, Charles, that one day you will be King of England. You must be as great and good a King as your father.” He smiled wryly. Would the people of England now say that his father was a great and good King when they were doing their utmost—at least thousands of them were—to rid themselves of him? Would they ever welcome young Charles Stuart as their King?

“Poor Mam,” he said softly, “I have a feeling that she will never be satisfied. She is one of the unlucky ones of this world. It is a comfort to talk to you, sweet sister, because you are too young to understand all I say.” He put his lips against her hair. “You are lovely, and I love you. Do you know, I would rather be with you than with all the fine ladies of the Court—or with the King and Queen, and Mam … all of them.”

Then to amuse her he told her of the piece of wood which he always took to bed with him when he was a boy of her age. “In vain did they try to take it from me, for I would not let them. I loved my wooden billet, and I confess I kept it until it had to be taken from me by very force—and I knew then that I had long outgrown it. One day, Minette, I will tell you more. I will tell you of the fun we had—my brother and sister and I—and I’ll tell you how we thought we should go on forever and ever, laughing, playing our games; and then, suddenly, we grew up, all of us on the same day. It was worse for them, as they were younger than I; Mary only a year younger, James four years younger, and little Elizabeth five years younger. I was the big brother. Henry was the baby then, and there was no little Minette in our family, for she had not yet put in an appearance.”

“No Minette!”

“You cannot imagine a world without her, can you? Come, Minette, let us play a game together. I weary you with my talk.”

“No. Stay like this!” she said.

And thus it was that Mademoiselle, accompanied by his cousin Prince Rupert, found them.

“Your mother would not be pleased that you should spend your time playing with a baby in the nursery,” said Mademoiselle coquettishly. She told herself that she had little time to spare for this boy whose fortunes were in the balance, but she was never averse to a light flirtation, and there was something about him—in spite of his youth and inexperience—which interested her more than his cousin Rupert did.

“You must forgive me, Mademoiselle,” said Charles. “My French is not good enough to answer you in that language.”

She tapped his arm with her fan. “Are you not ashamed, cousin? You cannot speak French!”

“It is remiss of me. I fear I occupied myself riding and shooting at the butts when I should have been studying French, just as you, Mademoiselle, doubtless indulged in some pastime when you should have been studying English.”

Rupert translated, and Mademoiselle pouted.

“What would you say if I said you might wear my colors, Charles?”

“I should say you are very gracious,” he answered through Rupert.

“I might allow you to hand me into my coach.”

“Mademoiselle is most kind.”

“And perhaps to hold the flambeau while I am at my toilette.”

“Pray tell Mademoiselle that I am overwhelmed by her generosity.”

Mademoiselle turned to Rupert. “Do not translate this I only do these things because I am sorry for the poor boy. I would never marry him, as his mother hopes I will. I have set my aim higher … much higher.”

“I am sure,” said Charles, “that Mademoiselle is talking sound sense.”

Rupert smiled. He knew that the Prince of Wales understood every word, and that it was only his shyness which prevented his speaking French with Mademoiselle.

“Tell him,” said Mademoiselle, “that he may come to my apartment and sit at my feet while I am with my women.”

When Rupert translated this, Charles replied: “Mademoiselle is overwhelmingly generous, but I have a previous engagement with a lady.”

“A lady!” cried Mademoiselle.

“My little sister, Mademoiselle. My friend Minette.”

Henriette guessed that the beautiful Mademoiselle was being unkind to her brother. “Go away!” she said. “Minette does not like you.”

Mademoiselle answered: “I know she is young, but she should be taught how to conduct herself. She should be beaten for that.”

Henriette, recognizing the word “beaten,” put her arms about her brother and buried her face against him.

“No one shall hurt you, Minette,” he told her. “No one shall hurt you while your brother Charles is here.”

Mademoiselle laughed, and rising, commanded Rupert to lead her away.

“We will leave the boy to play with his sister,” she said; “for after all, he is but a boy and still concerned, I doubt not, with childish things.”

And when they were alone, Minette and her brother were soon gay again, and she loved him dearly.

Each day they were together; each day he talked to her, and although she did not always understand what he said, she knew that he loved her as she loved him.

It had not occurred to her that life could change, until one day he came to her and sadly kissed her. “Minette,” he said, “we shall always love one an-other—you and I.” And the next day he did not come.

Angrily she demanded to know where he was. He had gone away, they told her.

She fretted; she would not eat; she so much longed for him.

Her mother warmly embraced her. “My dearest child, you are very young, but there are things you have to learn. Your father is fighting wicked men, and your brother must go to help him. Then, when they have beaten those wicked men, we shall all go home, and you will not only have one brother, but three—as well as a dear sister.”

“Don’t want three brothers,” sobbed Henriette. “Minette wants Charles.”

And all through the days which followed she was a sad little figure in the palace of Saint-Germain.

If any asked her what ailed her she would say: “Want Charles.” And each day she knelt on the window seat watching for him to come again; she waited, so it seemed to her, for years; but she never forgot him.

In the palace of the Louvre, the Princess Henriette lay in her bed. Her mother sat beside the bed, and about her shoulders were three cloaks, and her hands were protected by thick gloves. It was bitter January weather, and outside the Louvre, in the narrow streets of Paris, Frenchmen were fighting Frenchmen in that civil war which had been called the War of the Fronde.

Little Henriette, who was but four years old, shivered with the cold; her mother shivered also—but not only from cold. As her friend, Madame de Motteville, had said to her: “This year a terrible star reigns for kings and queens.”

Henrietta Maria was not thinking so much of the bloodcurdling shrieks which again and again reached her from the streets; her thoughts were across the Channel in her husband’s country, for he was now the prisoner of the Parliament, and awaiting trial. She had begged to be allowed to see him, but this had been denied her. If she came to England, she was told, it would be to stand on trial with him, for the Parliament considered her as guilty as her husband of High Treason.

What was happening in England? She knew little for no messengers could reach her, France having its own civil war with which to contend. She was alternately full of self-reproach and indignation towards others. She accused herself of ruining not only her own life but that of her husband and children; then she would rail against the wicked Cromwell and his Parliamentarians who had brought such suffering to her family.

And here she was—Queen of England—without food and warmth in this vast palace, alone with her child, the child’s governess, Père Cyprien and a few servants who were all suffering now as she and her daughter suffered.

Three of her children were prisoners in the hands of the Parliament—James, Elizabeth and Henry. Mary, she thanked God, had been safely married and out of England before the trouble grew beyond control; and Mary at the Court of Holland provided a refuge for her brother Charles and any of those who managed to escape thither. The family relied on Mary in these hard times.

When she had first come to France much honor had been given to Henrietta Maria; but little by little she had shed her pomp, her plate and jewels; her foremost thought had been to send all she possessed to her husband in England. If she was frivolous, if she had been in a large measure responsible for his downfall, at least she was wholehearted in her passionate desire to help him. Only now that she was separated from him did she realize the extent of her love for that good and noble man, the best of husbands and fathers, even if he were not the wisest of kings. And now what assistance could she hope for from her royal relatives of France? They had been forced to leave Paris; the little King, in charge of his mother, the Queen-Regent, had slipped away from Paris to Saint-Germain where they stayed during the siege of Paris. Mademoiselle de Montpensier had decided to place herself on the side of the Frondeurs, which was typical of her; trust Mademoiselle to call attention to herself in some way!

It was an evil star indeed which shone on kings and queens during that year. Henrietta Maria had in vain warned her sister-in-law. Had she herself not suffered so much because she had once believed as Anne believed, behaved as Anne behaved? It was hard to learn that their countries were moving forward, that new ideas had brought a new outlook. The Stuarts would have been as autocratic as the Tudors, but they did not understand the people, and that understanding had been at the very root of the popularity achieved by those great Tudor sovereigns, Henry VIII and Elizabeth. The common people denied the Divine Right of Kings to govern; there were some who remembered the revolt of the barons in an earlier century. The people wished to go back to those conditions when a king’s power was limited. How easy it was to see mistakes when one looked back, and to say: “Had I done this, that would not have happened. Had we not made mistakes, Charles I and Henrietta Maria would be reigning in England now, living happily together.”

And so it was with Anne of Austria, the Queen-Mother of France. The situation was tragically similar. Mazarin and the Queen-Regent had imposed crushing taxes on the people, and the people would have them know that the age when kings and queens could believe they ruled by Divine Right was over. France was divided. Anne, frivolous, as Henrietta Maria had been, and as unrealistic, had laughed in the face of Paul de Gondi, the Coadjuteur of Paris; she had encouraged her friends to laugh at him because he was something of a dandy, and that accorded ill with the soutane he wore as a man of the Church. Paul de Gondi was a strong man; he had declared he would be master of Paris and he had prepared himself to bring about that state of affairs.

It was last July, in the heat of summer, when, below that apartment in which the Queen of England and her daughter now shivered, Parisians had barricaded the streets. Great barrels, filled with earth and held in place by chains, were placed at the entrances of narrow streets. Citizens were detailed to guard these streets. This was reminiscent, and indeed inspired by the “Night of the Barricades” of the previous century.

The War of the Fronde had started. It was typical of Parisian humor that the war should be so named. A law had recently been passed prohibiting young boys from gathering in the streets of Paris and attacking each other with the fronde (a sling for stones) then so popular. These games of stone-slinging had on more than one occasion proved fatal and there had been public concern. So it was that, during the heated discussions in the Parliament concerning the taxes about to be imposed by the hated Cardinal Mazarin, the favorite of the Queen-Regent, the President of the Parliament had begged the assembly to consider the terms which Mazarin was proposing. The President’s son—he was de Bachaumont and known throughout Paris as a bel esprit—had said that when his turn came to speak he would “frondera bien l’opinions de son père.” This bon mot was taken up and repeated; and Frondeur was adopted as the name of those who would criticize and “sling” rebellion against the Court party.

So, during those months, Paris was in danger; and the French throne seemed about to topple as had that of England. Henrietta Maria’s pension had not been paid since the war started; she had run short of food and wood, and now that the winter was upon her suffered acute discomfort; yet, soothing her little daughter, putting her arms about her and cuddling her in an attempt to keep her warm, she was not thinking of what was happening immediately outside her windows but of her husband who was about to face his trial in London.

“Mam,” said the little Princess, “I’m cold.”

“Yes, little one, it is cold, but perhaps we shall soon be warm.”

“Cannot we have a fire?”

“My love, we lack the means to light one.”

“I’m hungry, Mam.”

“Yes, we are all hungry, dearest.”

The Princess began to whimper. She could not understand.

“Holy Mother of God,” murmured the Queen, “what is happening to Charles?”

Anne, who was now Lady Morton as her husband’s father had recently died, came into the room. Her lips were blue, her beautiful hands mottled with the cold.

“What is it, Anne?” asked the Queen.

“Madame, Monsieur le Coadjuteur is here to see you.”

“What does he want of me?”

“He asks to be brought into your presence.”

The Coadjuteur was at the door; this was not a time when Queens should be allowed to stand on ceremony, and he was master of Paris.

Henrietta Maria did not rise; she looked at him haughtily.

But Paul de Gondi had not come as an enemy.

He bowed before the Queen, and she looked into the face of the man who was temporarily king of Paris. It was a dissolute face though a strong one. Paul de Gondi, who from childhood had wished to be a great power in the land, had been destined for the Church. His uncle had been Archbishop of Paris, and it was intended that Paul should succeed him. But Paul, having no vocation for the Church, had tried to prove himself unsuitable for the office by riotous living and frequent dueling. Finding himself unable to avoid acceptance of the archbishopric he decided to become a learned man and rule France as Richelieu had done. First he had set about winning the people of Paris, and having done this with some success he found himself in his present position of power.

But when he looked at the poor suffering Queen of England, stoically shivering by the bed of her daughter, and thought of what was happening to her husband and other children, he was filled with pity for her.

“Madame,” he said, “you suffer much.”

“Monsieur le Coadjuteur,” she replied, “if you have news for me, pray give it—I mean news from England.”

“That I cannot give, Madame, but I can give some comfort. I can have food sent to you—food and firewood.”

She said: “Monsieur, if you know anything, I beg of you give me news.”

“I have no news. But it shall not be said that I stood by and allowed the daughter of Henri Quatre to starve.”

Henrietta Maria shrugged her shoulders. “It is six months since I received my pension, and no one would supply me with food and the means to keep my apartment warm because I could not pay.”

“But this is terrible!”

“I keep my little daughter company. It was too cold for her to rise today.”

“Madame, I shall myself see that your daughter does not have to stay in bed for want of a faggot.”

“What can you do, Monsieur?”

“First I shall have comfort sent to you; then I shall put your case before the Parliament.”

“The Parliament!” Henrietta Maria laughed aloud and bitterly. “Parliaments do not love kings and queens these days, Monsieur.”

“Madame, the Parliament will not allow it to be said that it denied food and firewood to a daughter and granddaughter of Henri Quatre.”

The Queen wept a little after he had gone.

“Why do you cry, Mam?” asked the little girl. “Was the man cruel to you?”

“No, my sweetheart. He was not cruel; he was kind.”

“Then why do you cry?”

“There are times, dearest, when unexpected kindness makes us cry. Ah, you look at your poor Mam with those big black eyes and you wonder at my words. But there is much you do not yet know of life. Yet you are learning; you are learning fast for a little one.”

Paul de Gondi was as good as his word. That very day firewood and food were brought to the Louvre, and a few days later, at the instigation of de Gondi, the Parliament ordered that 40,000 livres should be sent to the Queen in memory of Henri Quatre.

In memory of Henri Quatre! Henrietta Maria could not help comparing her father with her husband. She could not remember her father, yet she had heard much of him; she had seen pictures of that great man, depicting the full sensuous mouth, the large nose, the humorous eyes and the lines of debauchery. She remembered stories she had heard of the stormy relationship between her father and mother; she had heard of the continual quarrels and the ravings of her mother whose temper she knew to be violent. She could imagine that angry temper roused to madness by the cynically smiling King; she knew that many times her mother had struck him, and she had heard how such blows reduced him to helpless laughter in spite of the fact that she was, as he himself said, “terribly robust.” He had been called the ugliest man in France, but people would always add “and its bravest gentleman.” They had loved him as they had loved no other King; the lecher (who, at the time of his assassination in his fifty-seventh year had been courting Angelique Paulet, a girl of seventeen) had declared, old as he was, that conquest in love pleased him better than conquest in war—and he was the most popular King who had ever ruled France.

This ugly man, this cynic, without any deep religion, ready to turn from the Huguenot faith to the Catholic faith (for “was not Paris worth a mass?”) was the hero of France; and even after his death those who had rebelled against the Court remembered him, and for his sake would not let his daughter starve.

When he had been stabbed by a fanatical monk, all France had mourned him; his assassin had died the horrible death which the nation demanded as the penalty of such a deed. And yet in England a good and noble man, religious, faithful and striving to act in a manner he considered to be right, might die and the people would cry: “God’s will be done.”

It was February of that tragic year. There was a little more comfort in the bare rooms of the Louvre than there had been during previous months. But a worse tragedy overhung the palace; the servants knew of it; Anne knew of it; but there was no one who dared speak of it to the Queen. So they kept her in ignorance.

Henrietta Maria, during those weeks, was subdued yet determined to be hopeful.

“I often wonder why there is no news,” she would say to those about her. “But good it is that there should be no news. I know the people love the King, my husband. Perhaps they have already released him from captivity. Oh, it is a sad and wicked thing that he should be a captive. So good … so noble … the best husband any woman ever had. No child ever had a more kindly father. How happy we could have been!”

Towards the middle of February she would wait no longer. Paul de Gondi had shown his goodness to her; he would not deny her in her great need. She would ask that a messenger be sent to Saint-Germain where there would certainly be tidings of her husband.

Then they knew that they could withhold the truth no longer.

Anne asked Lord Jermyn, the Queen’s most faithful adviser, to break the news to her. “For,” she said, “you will do it better than any of us could. You will know how to soothe her.”

He went to Henrietta Maria in her apartments. With her was the little Princess, Anne Morton and Père Cyprien de Gamaches.

Jermyn knelt before the Queen.

She said at once: “You have news from England?”

He lifted his face to hers; his lips quivered, and she knew, even before he spoke. A blank expression crept over her face; her eyes were mutely pleading with him not to speak, not to say those fateful words.

“Madame, dear Madame, on the 30th of January, the King, your husband, laid his head upon the block …”

She did not speak.

“Madame,” resumed Jermyn, his voice broken with a sob. “Madame … Long live King Charles II.”

Still she did not speak. Anne placed her hand on the shoulder of the little Princess who was looking at her with wondering eyes, and gently pushed her towards her mother. The Queen, putting out her hand, reached for her daughter and held her fast to her side; she still looked blankly before her and said not a word.

The little Princess was bewildered. She was five years old; she lived in the great Palace of the Louvre, but the vast rooms were deserted and there was war in the streets. She could not understand her mother’s sudden passionate embraces, the great floods of tears and what seemed to her the incoherent ramblings. Her mother had changed. She wore somber widow’s mourning; she was constantly in tears; she referred to herself as La Reine Malheureuse; and little Henriette would cry with her, not knowing why she cried.

“Ah, you do well to weep!” the Queen would say. “Do you know that but for you I should not be here now. I should be with the Carmelite nuns in the Convent of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques; that is where I yearn to be, to pray for strength to help me bear this burden of living. Ah, ma petite, I pray that you will never feel as I do. I pray that you will never be beset with doubts as your poor mother is this day. There are many who say I brought him to this—that good and noble man! They say that had he never attempted to arrest the Five Members seven years ago, civil war would have been averted. I urged him to do that. I did not believe that any would dare oppose the King to the extent of going to war. I believed that we could govern without a Parliament. Oh, my little Henriette, have I, who loved him, brought him to the scaffold?”

Henriette did not know what to answer; she could only take her little kerchief and wipe away her mother’s tears.

And now her mother had gone away to stay with the nuns, and she could only feel relieved because of this. She was left to the care of dear Anne Morton and Père Cyprien. But these two were beginning to cause her some anxiety; and their teachings often seemed to be contradictory. She was conscious of some vague strife between them, of triumphs enjoyed by one to the discomfiture of the other; and in some way, which she herself did not understand, she was involved in their polite warfare.

“I wish my brother would come,” she often said to herself. “All would be well if he were here.”

She thought of him constantly; he had always been kind and loving; he was so big and clever, yet not too big and clever to make a little girl feel she was of some importance to him.

And then, one day, he came to the Louvre.

He had grown up since she had last seen him; he was a young man of nineteen now. He was taller, but he still had the same luxuriant black hair and humorous eyes.

When he came into the apartment Lady Morton and Père Cyprien both fell on their knees, but Henriette ran to him and flung herself into his arms.

“My child,” said Anne reprovingly, “you forget the respect due to His Majesty.”

“But it is Charles!” cried the little girl.

“Come now. You should kneel to him. He is your King first … your brother second.”

“A poor King, my Minette,” he said, as he swung her up that her face might be on a level with his; “a King without a kingdom, but a brother rich in love. Which will you have?”

She did not understand him, but she had never had need to understand his words; she only knew that he loved her; his eyes told her that, as did his loving arms about her.

His mother, who hearing of his arrival had left the convent and returned to the Louvre, embraced him warmly. She wept afresh for his father. She was La Reine Malheureuse, she declared. “Life has nothing left to give me. I have lost not only a crown but a husband and a friend. I shall never regret enough the loss of that good man—so wise, so just, so worthy of the love of his subjects.”

The young King smiled his melancholy smile. “’Tis no use to weep, Mam,” he said. “We must look forward as he would have had us do. We’ll defeat them yet.”

“Amen, my boy, my Charles, my King.”

When the Queen-Mother of France heard that the King of England was at the Louvre, she asked the royal party to join the French Court at Saint-Germain.

“I have warned Queen Anne,” said Henrietta Maria, “that my husband lost his life because he was never allowed to know the truth, and I have implored her to listen to her advisers before it is too late … before the crown of France goes the way of that of England.”

Charles smiled ruefully. “It is difficult enough to learn through one’s own experience, Mam, let alone the experience of others.”

His mother smiled at him sadly. Even when he was a baby—an ugly, solemn little fellow—she had felt he was cleverer than she was. Now she hoped that was true. He would need to be clever. He had to fight his way back to his throne.

She had heard that there were plans afoot, that soon he would be returning to Scotland where he could hope for support which would help him make an onslaught on England.

“May God go with you then, dear son,” she said. “You will need His help.”

“That’s true, Mam,” he answered. “But ’tis better to die in such at enterprise than wear away one’s life in shameful indolence.”

“I heard rumors concerning your visit to The Hague.”

“There will always be rumors concerning our family, Mam.”

“This was concerning a young woman named Lucy Water. You know of such a one?”

“Yes, Mam. I know of such a one.”

“They say she is a foolish little thing … though beautiful.”

“I doubt not that they who say it are often foolish—and never beautiful.”

“Now, Charles, this is your mother speaking, your mother who had you beaten when you would not take your physic.”

He made a wry face. “That physic, Mam; it was no good to any. Lucy is not in the least like a dose of physic.”

“A woman of easy virtue … too ready with her smiles and caresses, I understand.”

“What should I want of one who was niggardly with the same?”

“You are no longer a boy, Charles. You are a King.”

“You speak truth, Mam. I am a King. Pray thee do not think to make of me a monk. Come! We prepare ourselves for the journey to Saint-Germain. The crowds in the streets are ugly. But never fear. I shall be there to protect you. I must tell Minette that we are going.”

“Henriette is a child. She will not understand.”

He lifted his sister in his arms. “Minette will wish to know that we are going on a journey. Minette, do you wish to go on a journey?”

“Are you going, Charles?”

“I am taking you and Mam.”

Henriette smiled. “Yes, please; Minette will go.”

“Dearest, the crowds may shout at us as we pass through the streets. You’ll not be afraid, will you, if I am there?”

She shook her head.

“Nobody would dare hurt Minette while King Charles is there to protect her. You know that, don’t you?”

She put her arms round his neck and kissed him.

“How much do you love me, Minette?”

“Forty thousand livres,” she answered, remembering that amount which Paul de Gondi had urged the Parliament to grant to her mother.

“Forty thousand livres! That’s a lot of money.”

She nodded happily. “But it’s all for you—and something else.”

“What else, Minette?”

“The silver laces in my shoes.”

He kissed her. “And what shall I give you in return for those you give me, eh?”

She thought awhile, then she said: “Never go away.”

“Ah, Minette,” he said, “if only that could be! And if all loved me as you do what a happy man I should be!”

Then he thought of Lucy, charming, gay and very loving; Lucy who had initiated him into delights which he had scarcely been aware existed, and had promised more revelation; Lucy, practiced harlot, some said, but nevertheless his love.

He had much love to give; he loved them both—Lucy and Minette; he loved them with all the capacity of a nature deeply concerned with the pleasures of loving.

He continued to think of Lucy, who was now with child.

“Your child, Charles,” she had said. “Your royal bastard—that is unless you marry me and so make an honest woman of your Lucy … and your bastard, heir to the throne of England.”

He smiled. Lucy was amusing; Lucy was light, but Lucy was gay; he would look forward to enjoying her amusing and erotic company as soon as he possibly could.

But in the meantime he had his little sister to love, and deeply he loved her.

She sat with him and their mother in the coach which carried them through the dangerous streets of Paris; about them swirled the mob of angry men and women, and among them were those to whom Madame d’Angleterre—as they called Henrietta Maria—owed much money.

Minette felt safe; she did not fear the people, for there was her big brother, one hand on the door of the coach, the other on the hilt of his sword, ready to repulse any who dared come too near.

And so they came to Saint-Germain; and as the little girl observed the homage paid to her brother, she was thrilled with pride and pleasure.

And he, turning suddenly, caught her earnest eyes upon him.

Ah, he thought, if only I could be as sure that Lucy loves me as does my sweet Minette!