THE RUE ST. ANTOINE, PARIS (SHOWING THE CHAPEL OF THE VISITANDINES)
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY IVAN MERLEN

Nor were the sad associations of the past the Queen's only cause for sorrow. Her grief was still fresh for her dead son, and for her two living ones her mind was full of anxiety. "I am going to England to marry one and to unmarry the other," she had said on leaving Paris. She was revolving schemes in her head for a marriage between the King and a niece of Cardinal Mazarin, whose large dowry, it was thought, would be useful in paying off the army of Cromwell and in settling the discontent which surely must be still lurking in the newly converted country. But more painful thoughts were given to her second son. This young man, whose exploits, together with those of his younger brother, at the battle of the Dunes, had won the admiration of the French against whom they were fighting, and whose fame was so great that his praises were sung in the coffee-houses of distant Constantinople, had so far forgotten his high lineage as to contract an alliance with a young woman of low rank, of no compensating beauty and of somewhat doubtful character. It was small consolation to Henrietta that the lady she was called upon to welcome as Duchess of York was the daughter of Sir Edward Hyde. At first she sternly refused to recognize the marriage, and it was only the entreaties of her two most intimate friends and counsellors, Lord Jermyn and the Abbé Montagu, that induced her to be reconciled to her son and to receive his wife. Perhaps she was also influenced by the knowledge that her eldest son, who at this time was much under the power of Hyde, wished her to show mercy. Still, it was with an aching heart that she saw her gallant young son mated with a woman in every way inferior to him; and her chagrin would not have been decreased could she have looked into the future and seen the two daughters of Anne Hyde sitting, in succession, upon the throne from which they had thrust their father.

Queen Henrietta Maria was received with all kindness in England, which she found in such a fever of loyalty as to make it quite needless to think of the dowry of Mazarin's niece. The ever-fickle populace welcomed her with joy which made it difficult to believe that she had even been unpopular. Her dowry was restored to her, and her son rewarded his mother's faithful servants. Jermyn, whose advocacy of the Duchess of York had not perhaps been quite disinterested, received the title of Earl of St. Albans; and Montagu no doubt might also have obtained the recompense of his fidelity had he not by now regarded France and the Church as a truer patria than his own country. As Grand Almoner to the Queen he presided over her ecclesiastical establishment, which was again settled at Somerset House, whither the Capuchin Fathers had returned to carry on a vigorous religious campaign, in which their superior, Father Cyprien,[424] who preached sermons "to touch the heart of demons," took an active part. The palace had been much knocked about during the war, and it was one of Henrietta's pleasures to restore it to its former beauty, an achievement which her old admirer, Sir William Waller, celebrated in smooth, polished verses of the type which was rapidly ousting the literary fashions of an earlier day. The Queen showed a surprising memory for the persons and things of the past, and delighted her son's courtiers by the graceful tact with which she recalled their circumstances and asked after their wives and families. But she was not very happy. Probably she felt the loss of her former political influence. Certainly she felt all the bitterness of returning a lonely and widowed old woman to the scenes of her happy married life. Sometimes, when all was bright around her, she would be found in some retired corner, where, with eyes full of tears, she was dwelling in thought upon the happy days of the past, and thinking of him to whom her will had been law.

Thus by December, 1660, she had made up her mind to return to France; and after a parting saddened by the recent death of her eldest daughter, the Princess of Orange, who died of smallpox in London, she set out. Her journey was delayed by the serious illness of Princess Henrietta at Portsmouth, so that she did not reach Paris until the February of the next year. She was welcomed with much affection by her many friends, but perhaps the marriage of her daughter Henrietta, the daily companion of fifteen years, which took place with great éclat at the Palais Royal, made her life too lonely; for after the birth of the young wife's first child, a little girl to whom she was godmother, she determined to set out again for England, and report had it that there she meant to live and die. Her eldest son had just married a princess of Portugal, whose acquaintance she was anxious to make, and royal tact led her to add that she also wished to see the little daughter who had recently been born to the Duke and Duchess of York.

There was no lack of heartiness in the welcome of her sons. Both Charles and James put to sea to meet her; but, owing to stormy weather, their boat was driven back, and the Queen's first welcome was the joyous salvos of Dover which answered the thunder of the guns of Calais.

None but the most formal accounts remain to tell of Henrietta's impressions of her daughter-in-law, Catherine of Braganza. She can hardly have been pleased with the insipid girl whose bigoted piety and dull precision of character were not calculated to win the heart of an intellectual roué such as Charles II, who in women preferred a sparkling wit even to beauty. His mother, whose happy married life had made her shudder at the very name of illicit love, was no doubt judiciously blind where her sons were concerned; but she must have felt for this poor child whose chances of happiness were from the beginning very small. The two queens found a common interest in religion. Catherine was indeed dévote as Henrietta had never been; but the elder woman had throughout her life given sufficient proof of zeal, and she had recently written a letter to the Pope, informing him that the chief reason of her return to England was her desire to advance the Catholic religion in that land. The Court of Rome was getting weary of the ungrateful island on which "missioners, seminaires, regulars, seculars, archpriests, interposition of Princes, and what not,"[425] had all been thrown away. But Henrietta, true to her sanguine nature, still hoped to be the saviour of the English Catholics. Her chapel at Somerset House was once more the resort of the faithful, where hundreds abjured the heresy of their birth, some of which conversions were so amazing as to merit a place in the memoirs of Father Cyprien. Above all, the Queen knew that her eldest son, whose private opinions varied between the tenets of Hobbes and those of the Church of Rome, would have liked to be tolerant. What she failed to appreciate was that his wandering exiled life had taught him to sacrifice any private fancy or liking rather than go on his travels again.

Somerset House was not only a religious centre. Wherever Henrietta was there were laughter, wit, and cheerfulness. Even in the darkest days of the past she would dry her tears to laugh at anything which struck her as droll, and now, in her old age, though sorrow and self-discipline had softened the sharpness of her tongue, her conversation had the charm of that of a witty woman who had mixed with famous people, and who had borne a principal part in the events of the age which was just passing away. Life had been to her what books are to more studious people; for, like the father whose wit she had inherited, she did not care for reading, and this, in her later life, she frankly regretted. She was now a "little, plain old woman,"[426] always quietly dressed, and worn out by trouble and ill-health; but the charm which was her cradle gift had not left her, and her Court proved much more attractive than that of her daughter-in-law, to whom nature had been less bountiful, and whose prim youth was no match for the sprightly age of the daughter of Henry IV.

But the rivalry was not to be a long one. It seems that the air of England had not agreed with Henrietta, even when she was young and happy; and now her health daily became worse, until at last her physicians told her plainly that if she remained in England she would die. Perhaps she was not altogether sorry for this decision. She loved her sunny native land, and her heart yearned for her youngest and dearest child and for her nuns at Chaillot. Moreover, the troubles of her previous visit had not passed away. She bade a loving farewell to the two sons whose faces she knew she would never see again, and then made for the last time the familiar journey to Paris, where she was received with the customary kindness of the French royal family.

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