It is idle to blame her overmuch. It cannot be denied that hers were the mind and the will which impelled her husband along this fatal road; but he fell in gladly with her suggestions, and he was almost as eager as she for help from any quarter. She believed, moreover, that the Scotch rebels had set the example by intriguing with Richelieu, and she knew that the English Puritans had made it possible for an army of Scots, who at that time were looked upon almost as foreigners, to enter into England and to remain upon its soil. It would have required the brain of an Elizabeth to perceive that a king, by following such precedents, was courting disaster. Henrietta's brain, acute, lively, but never profound, was incapable of perceiving this. Besides, she was a Bourbon, and her simple political creed was identical with that of her husband: a King should be no tyrant, he should rule his people with justice and mercy; but it was his to command and theirs to obey, without asking questions as to matters with which they had no concern. The exiled Queen spent some weeks at "ces admirables Fontaines Où par douzaines et centaines Pluzieurs gens vont pour être sain Et qu'on nomme Bourbon-les-Bains."[308] Their healing influence, together with the care of some of the most distinguished physicians of France,[309] restored her to such a small measure of health as enabled her to turn her steps towards Paris. The kindness she had received since her arrival in her native land was a preparation for the magnificent reception which awaited her at the capital. Her brother, the Duke of Orleans, came out as far as Bourg la Reine to meet her, and was quickly followed by his daughter, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, the richly dowered girl of whom Henrietta was already beginning to think as a possible bride for her eldest son. At Montrouge, on the southern outskirts of the city, the Queen of England received an even more distinguished attention, for there the Queen of France, accompanied by her two little sons, met her. Anne's kind heart was touched when she saw the sister-in-law from whom she had parted nearly twenty years earlier as a bride returning sad, sick almost to death, and bereft by ill-health and sorrow of the brilliant beauty which had then been hers. Forgetting the girlish unkindness which Henrietta had shown her in the past, remembering nothing but their common friends and enemies--Richelieu, Madame de Chevreuse, Jars, Montagu--the Queen of France took the Queen of England into her arms, and the two women clung together weeping and embracing. Then they climbed up into the royal coach, and Henrietta made the acquaintance of the little King, whose unexpected appearance in the world six years earlier had caused so much excitement, and of the still younger Duke of Anjou, "the real Monsieur" (as he was called in contradistinction to his uncle), who was one day to be her son-in-law. In such company there can