* * * * * At the end of September of that year, Bassompierre was despatched on another important diplomatic mission, this time to England, where the differences between Charles I and Henrietta Maria over the thorny question of the Queen’s French attendants had reached a crisis. In the marriage treaty, signed on November 24, 1624, the French Government had succeeded in obtaining practically all that it had demanded, though when one reads the articles of this astonishing document, it is impossible to believe that James I, or Charles, when after his accession he confirmed them, ever intended that they should be carried out, or that they conceived it possible to do so. The treaty stipulated that the free exercise of the Catholic religion should be permitted to Henrietta, and likewise to all the children who should be born of the marriage, who were to be brought up by their mother until they reached the age of thirteen. The Queen was to have a chapel in all the royal palaces, “and in every place of the King of Great Britain’s dominions where he or she should reside.” She was to have in her house twenty-eight priests and ecclesiastics, almoners and chaplains included, to serve in her chapel, and if there were any regular clergy amongst them, they should wear the habit of their Order. Her domestic establishment was to consist exclusively of French Catholics, chosen by the Very Christian King. These terms, if decidedly obnoxious to British prejudice, were, with the exception of the exclusively French composition of the Queen’s Household--a most startling innovation and one which was bound to lead to trouble--only what might have been expected if the King of England chose for his wife a Catholic princess. But the treaty contained in addition private or secret articles, which, admitting as they did the right of a foreign power to meddle in domestic affairs, were unlikely to be tolerated for a moment by a self-respecting people. These secret articles stipulated:-- 1. That the Catholics, as well ecclesiastical as temporal, imprisoned since the last proclamation which followed the breach with Spain, should all be set at liberty. 2. That the English Catholics should be no more searched after nor molested for their religion. 3. That the goods of the Catholics, as well ecclesiastical as temporal, that were seized since the aforementioned proclamation, should be restored. The insertion of these secret articles in the marriage treaty is the more extraordinary, since, on his return from Spain, Charles had pledged his word, in response to a petition from the Commons, that, in the event of his marrying a Catholic princess, “no advantage to the recusants at home” should accrue from the match. He had therefore to choose between breaking faith either with Parliament and the nation or with France.