Mademoiselle patronised this afflicted relative, and frequently visited her. But she does not appear to have ministered to her necessities. Henrietta was resigned, even humble to the exalted princess, her niece; and dwelt often on the personal charms of her eldest son, Charles Stuart.
She painted him with a brush dipped in the roseate colours of a mother's fancy. He was, she said, brave, gallant, handsome, witty, accomplished. He had splendid black hair, a rich complexion, as of one much exposed to battles and an adventurous life, and the bearing of a Paladin. He would be certain to crush his enemies, and sit upon his father's throne, she told her niece. But the wily heiress, while she listened to the eager gossip of the broken-hearted Queen, was preoccupied by a matrimonial intrigue carried on by a certain Abbé de la Rivière, to make her Empress of Germany.
"I perfectly understood my aunt's drift," she says; "but I liked the Emperor better."
When Charles Stuart, having escaped almost by a miracle from England, arrived at Fontainebleau, where the Court was staying, he was presented to Mademoiselle by his mother. Charles saluted her as a cousin and a friend, saluted her in dumb show, however, for he could speak no French. The exiled Queen, therefore (already grasping in anticipation the revenues of the principalities, dukedoms, forests, and castles of her wealthy niece), set herself to act interpreter.
Charles Stuart had a melting eye and a manly presence. He dallied with his cousin, sat beside her when she played, led her to her coach, held the flambeau while she adjusted her dress, was again found at her door—having run on in front—to assist her to descend, and generally ogled, languished, gazed, and sighed, to the very utmost of his power. But a dumb lover is dull, and love-making by proxy never answers. La Grande Mademoiselle, already in imagination invested with the diadem of an Empress, did not fancy a prince who was only an exile, and who could not even plead his own cause. She looked on him as a bore—indeed, worse than a bore, an object of pity.
The Queen of England tried hard to melt her heart. She even coaxed her; with her own hands she decked her soft hair with jewels for her Majesty's ballet. She flattered her into a belief that she was as beautiful as Venus. She declared that Charles Stuart's heart was breaking, that his health suffered, that he would die. No mother ever served a son better than did this poor distracted lady. But there was her son, with his swarthy, hard face, as strong and hale as an oak sapling, his wanton black eye wandering over the belles of the French Court,—a living contradiction to all she said! At last, Charles Stuart, who cared less for the well-filled purse and boundless dominions of his cousin than his mother, who knew what it was to be pinched with cold and hunger, grew impatient, and insisted on an answer. He sent Lord St. Germains to Mademoiselle to say that he was so passionately in love with her, he could no longer bear suspense. Mademoiselle replied with the discretion of a maiden, and the judgment of an heiress, conscious that she was dealing with a royal fortune-hunter—
"The Prince of Wales did her great honour, but as she understood that he required much pecuniary assistance to recover the Crown of England, his birthright, she feared she might find herself overwhelmed with expenses incompatible with the wants of a person of her exalted rank. That she must, in consequence, make sacrifices and adopt resolutions difficult to contemplate. That she might risk the loss of her entire possessions on the chance of Charles's re-conquering his kingdom; and that, having been educated in splendour as one of the greatest princesses in the world, the prospect alarmed her."
Yet there must have been some charm about the hard-featured, stalwart youth that attracted her; she would not say, "No." In order to throw down a bait, she hinted that she desired him to change his religion.
"Impossible, madame," was the reply of Lord St. Germains. "A king of England cannot change his religion. He would exclude himself for ever from the throne!"
Again, however, Charles was permitted to approach her, and to make a last attempt. She relished a little mild flirtation with an exiled King, although she vastly preferred marriage with an Emperor. Nevertheless, she curled her hair in honour of the occasion, a thing not usual with her.