Great was the love with which Henrietta was received by the queen-regent and her young sons and all the French people. Anne of Austria gave her distressed sister-in-law 12,000 crowns per month, and inducted her into the royal apartments of the Louvre, the young king leading her to them by the hand. All the money Henrietta received she sent to the king her husband, reserving the smallest modicum for her own use. The fever hanging on her in France, in order that she might be near the baths of Bourbon for its cure, the queen-regent lent her the castle and park of Nevers. Her convalescence was stopped by an accident that grieved her. One of her most efficient aids in her misfortunes was her dwarf, Geoffrey Hudson. He had lately saved her life in her desperate retreat from Exeter; and she had found him faithful in all her fortunes, ever since the little man had stepped out of a cold pie to the side of her plate at Nonsuch; he was at that time eighteen years old, and eighteen inches high. He had grown four or five inches since he had been in royal service, and done heroic deeds. During the retirement at Nevers one of the queen's gentlemen of the household tormented and mocked Geoffrey, until the brave little man, who contrived to manage his steed better than many horsemen four feet taller, challenged Croft to fight him in the park at Nevers. The joking cavalier armed himself with a huge squirt, but Geoffrey took a pistol; and, as his hand was as unerring as his heart was bold, his persecutor fell at the first fire. Croft only met with his deserts; yet Queen Henrietta had to write very humbly to the all-powerful prime minister, Mazarine, that "Le Jofroy," as she called the little man, might not be put to death.