[263]. Ibid.
Many plans of pleasure were set on foot, possibly to divert attention from the political business which was the real reason for Madame’s visit.
One day King Charles took his sister for an expedition to Canterbury, where they saw a ballet and comedy, and were entertained at a collation in the hall of St Augustine’s Abbey. Other diversions followed in due course, helped by the radiant summer season which shed its own influence on such merry meetings.[[264]]
[264]. Ibid.
To many it was, no doubt, a halcyon time. The pomp and splendour, the sparkle and gaiety of Whitehall were transferred to the ancient castle on the beetling white cliff for the moment, and the centre and core of everything, the chief luminary among many stars, was the fair princess whose short life, even now drawing swiftly to its close, had known such strange vicissitudes. Cradled in the very vortex of civil strife during Essex’s siege of Exeter; brought up as a child, for a time, at any rate, in grinding poverty, when she shared her mother’s dreary life of exile; then, in early youth, the supreme jewel of the most brilliant Court in Europe, its splendid king at her feet, she was now, though none could have foreseen it, at the very threshold of her mysterious doom. Only a few days in England, a few happy days to be remembered hereafter fondly and regretfully by those who saw her then, and, her mission fulfilled, the mission which, as has been said, she possibly did not fully comprehend, Madame set sail on her return.[[265]] For the last time, if either could have known it, she bade farewell to the brother whose affection for her was perhaps the strongest and purest feeling of his cynical, careless, insouciant nature. The letters he wrote to her testify to this fact, invested as they are with a charm all their own, and endorsed with a certain pathos, for “my deare, deare sister.” This final parting off Dover was a sorrowful one to both. The King and the Duke of York sailed for some distance with their sister before they could summon resolution to tear themselves away, and when the moment of farewell could no longer be delayed, the King held Henrietta long in his arms, embracing her again and again, while she clung to him, weeping passionately.[[266]] Alas for them! Only a week or two are to pass, and she, the beloved princess, the English rose, as she might well be termed, is cut down in her prime of beauty. The sombre picture of that scene unveils itself before us, dark and portentous. Out of the agonised death chamber at St Cloud comes the great Bossuet, who has borne the Last Sacraments to the dying girl, and exhorted her to the very end. As he sweeps past the shrinking, horror-struck crowd without, he surveys them with unsparing contempt, but his funeral sermon in the Chapel Royal rings down the centuries: “O nuit désastreuse, O nuit effroyable, où retentit tout-à-coup comme un éclat de tonnerre, cette étonnante nouvelle: Madame se meurt! Madame est morte!”[[267]] The suspicion of poison always raised in those days on the occasion of an unexpected death may be unfounded in this case; we cannot tell, but the attendant circumstances were sad and ominous enough without that. The crass stupidity of the doctors, the callous indifference of Monsieur, the decorous sorrow of King Louis—once it would have been something more—all make up the setting of a grim tragedy, only relieved by the courage and resignation of Henrietta herself.[[268]] Over in England there was deep and bitter grief at the news: Charles himself broke down into passionate tears, but after a while the memory of Madame remained only as a fair dream in the recollection of those who had known her. Nevertheless she had performed the work which King Louis had given her to do in England, and the secret treaty was concluded.[[269]]
[265]. “Histoire de Madame Henriette d’Angleterre,” par Marie de la Vergne, Comtesse de la Fayette. “Madame étoit revenue d’Angleterre avec toute la gloire et le plaisir que peut donner un voyage causé par l’amitié et suivi d’un bon succés dans les affaires.”
[266]. “Charles II. and his Court.” A. G. A. Brett.
[267]. “Madame de Brinvilliers.” Hugh Stokes.
[268]. “Histoire de Madame Henriette d’Angleterre,” par Dame Marie de la Vergne, Comtesse de la Fayette, 1742. “Dieu aveugloit les Médecins . . . on la voyoit dans des souffrances cruelles, sans néanmoins qu’elle parût agitée. . . . Le Roi voyant que selon les apparences il n’y avoit rien a esperer, lui dit adieu en pleurant.”
[269]. “Histoire de Madame Henriette d’Angleterre,” par Marie de la Vergne, Comtesse de la Fayette. “Elle se voyoit à vingt-six ans le lien des deux plus grands Rois de ce siècle . . . . Le plaisir et la considération que donnent les affaires se joignent en elle aux agrémens que donnent la jeunesse et la beauté.”