The royal children were barricaded all that dreary night in the guard-room at the Louvre, next to the chamber where the king's bleeding corpse lay. No one slept in the palace excepting the infant Henriette, whose peaceful slumbers in her nurse's arms were in strange contrast to the grief and terror of all around, for it was believed that an insurrection would follow the regicidal act. Again the infant princess appeared in her nurse's arms, at the funeral of the royal hero of France, and once more, at the coronation of her young brother at Rheims, when she was only ten months old. Her governess was Mademoiselle de Monglat, whom she used to call Mamanga. She received her education from her brother Gaston's school-master, M. de Bevis: she was the constant companion of Duke Gaston, who was only eighteen months older than herself. Henriette was the darling of her mother, perhaps her spoiled darling, for Maria de Medicis, queen-regent of France, was neither wise nor judicious. When the queen was deprived of the regency and her liberty, Henriette was permitted to share her royal mother's captivity. When the queen-mother recovered her liberty, the young Henriette, not then fifteen, became the ornament of the court. Anne of Austria, the young queen-consort of Louis XIII., cherished love and friendship for her sister-in-law, of which Henriette found the benefit in her worst fortunes. When Henriette was only in her fourteenth year, she and her future consort, Charles, Prince of Wales, unknown to each other, met at a ball in the palace of the king her brother, early in February, 1623. The Prince of Wales and his father's favourite minister, George Villiers, Earl of Buckingham, were travelling incognito to Madrid, under the homely names of Tom Smith and Jack Smith. The object of the Prince of Wales was to see the infanta Donna Maria (with whom he was engaged by the king his father in a treaty of marriage), and to make acquaintance with her before they should be irrevocably bound in wedlock. The prince and his companion halted at Paris, and went like others to see the Louvre, and look at the royal family of France on the night of the ball. Struck by their personal appearance, the Duke de Montbazan gave the handsome and distinguished-looking strangers advantageous places in the hall of the Louvre, where Charles saw the beautiful Henriette dance. The circumstance was afterward mentioned to Henriette, who sighed, and said, "Ah! the Prince of Wales needed not have gone so far as Spain to look for a wife." She had not noticed Jack Smith in the gallery of the Louvre, yet she had seen portraits of Charles, who was the most graceful prince in Europe. The Spanish match was broken off. Donna Maria afterward married the Emperor of Germany. James I. demanded the hand of the beautiful Henriette for his heir.