‘What! Harry, hast not a word for thy poor battered elder brother?’
And the boy’s face, as he turned, was a sight to see, as Eustace told us.
He had left Queen Henrietta embracing her son in tears of joy for his safe return, and very thankful we were, though it did but take out first reception at the Louvre to see that though the King was as good-humoured, gracious, and merry as ever, he was not changed for the better by all he had gone through. He had left the boy behind him, and now seemed like a much older man, who only laughed and got what amusement he could out of a world where he believed in nothing noble nor good, and looked forward to nothing.
The old ladies said he had grown like his grandfather, Henri IV., and when this was repeated Eustace shook his head, and told Meg that he feared it was in one way true enough, and Meg, who always hoped, bade us remember how many years the Grand Monarque had to dally away before he became the preserver and peace-maker of France.
However, even Meg, who had always let the King be like an old playfellow with her, was obliged to draw back now, and keep him at the most formal distance. I never had any trouble with him. I do not think he liked me; indeed I once heard of his saying that I always looked like a wild cat that had got into the salon by mistake, and was always longing to scratch and fly. He would be quite willing to set me to defend a castle, but for the rest—-
It was not he whom I wished to scratch—at least as long as he let me alone—but M. de Poligny, who took to paying me the most assiduous court wherever I went, for his little schoolboy of a son, till I was almost beside myself with fear that Clement Darpent might believe some false report about me.
And then spring was coming on, and Eustace as yet made no sign of going to Holland. He only told me to be patient, and patience was becoming absolutely intolerable to my temper. Meantime, we heard that the First President, Mathieu de Mole, who had some time before been nominated Keeper of the Seals, but had never excised the functions of the office, had nominated M. Darpent to be his principal secretary at Paris, remaining there and undertaking his correspondence when he was with the Court. Clement had been recommended for this office by his brother-in-law, one of the Gneffiers du Roi, who was always trying to mediate between the parties. Mole was thoroughly upright and disinterested, and he had begged Clement to undertake the work as the one honest man whom he could trust, and Clement had such an esteem for him that he felt bound to do anything he could to assist him, in his true loyalty.
‘I shall tell the King the truth,’ said the good old man, ‘and take the consequences.’
And his being in office gave another hope for better counsels and the States-General.
So Lady Ommaney told me, but I was anxious and dissatisfied. I had like Clement better when he had refused to purchase an office, and stood aloof from all the suite of the Court. She soothed me as best she could, and, nodding her head a little, evidently was hatching as scheme.