But Charles did not show his kingly firmness only on this occasion: it did not forsake him when the French Marshal Bassompierre was instantly sent over to awe the king; Charles sternly offered the alternative of war, rather than permit a French faction to trouble an English court. Bassompierre makes a curious observation in a letter to the French Bishop of Mende, he who had been just sent away from England; and which serves as the most positive evidence of the firm refusal of Charles the First. The French marshal, after stating the total failure of his mission, exclaims, "See, sir, to what we are reduced! and imagine my grief, that the Queen of Great Britain has the pain of viewing my departure without being of any service to her; but if you consider that I was sent here to _make a contract of marriage observed, and to maintain the Catholic religion in a country from which they formerly banished it to make a contract of marriage_, you will assist in excusing me of this failure." The French marshal has also preserved the same distinctive feature of the nation, as well as of the monarch, who, surely to his honour as King of England, felt and acted on this occasion as a true Briton. "I have found," says the Gaul, "humility among Spaniards, civility and courtesy among the Swiss, in the embassies I had the honour to perform for the king; but the English would not in the least abate of their natural pride and arrogance. The king is so resolute not to re-establish any French about the queen, his consort, and was so stern (_rude_) in speaking to me, that it is impossible to have been more so." In a word, the French marshal, with all his vaunts and his threats, discovered that Charles the First was the true representative of his subjects, and that the king had the same feelings with the people: this indeed was not always the case! This transaction took place in 1626, and when, four years afterwards, it was attempted again to introduce certain French persons, a bishop and a physician, about the queen, the king absolutely refused even a French physician, who had come over with the intention of being chosen the queen's, under the sanction of the queen mother. This little circumstance appears in a manuscript letter from Lord Dorchester to M. de Vic, one of the king's agents at Paris. After an account of the arrival of this French physician, his lordship proceeds to notice the former determinations of the king; "yet this man," he adds, "hath been addressed to the ambassador to introduce him into the court, and the queen persuaded in cleare and plaine terms to speak to the king to admit him as domestique. His majesty expressed his dislike of this proceeding, but contented himself to let the ambassador know that this doctor may return as he is come, with intimation that he should do it speedily; the French ambassador, willing to help the matter, spake to the king that the said doctor might be admitted to kiss the queen's hand, and to carrie the