Nor did she fail to attract the exiles of England to her own Court, where she gathered round her some of the men of wit and learning whom the evil times had forced to quit their native land. Thither came "Master Richard Crashaw, Master of Arts of Peterhouse, Cambridge, well known for his excellent poems,"[311] who was introduced to the Queen's notice by a brother poet, Abraham Cowley, at this time Jermyn's secretary. It can hardly be supposed that Henrietta understood the highly difficult poems of the Cambridge mystic, but perhaps she talked with him of S. Teresa,[312] whose praise inspired some of his choicest work, and whom she herself had learned to love as a child among the Carmelites in Paris. Moreover, Crashaw was interesting as a recent convert to Catholicism. "Being a meer scholar and very shiftless,"[313] he was quite destitute in the French capital when he was found by Cowley, and he was delighted to accept Henrietta's hospitality. He dwelt nearly a year at her Court, making many friends by his talents and virtues, of whom the chief was Lady Denbigh. Her he exhorted, not without success, to follow his religious example, and to her he dedicated his book of poems, _Carmen Deo Nostro_, which was published after he had passed on to the Court of Rome, bearing a letter of introduction written to Innocent X by the Queen's own hand.[314] To the exiled Court of England came also another poet, Sir William D'Avenant, whose welcome was the warmer because he had been concerned in the army plot. At the Louvre he wrote the dreary verses of _Gondibert_, and dedicated them to Thomas Hobbes, that daring philosopher who had likewise found a refuge in Paris, where, apart from the turmoils of England, he was able to reflect upon those principles of government wherewith he startled the world a few years later on the publication of _The Leviathan_. To these literary refugees must be added English Catholic nobles, such as Lord Montagu, and ladies of the same persuasion, among whom was prominent the Dowager Countess of Banbury, a lady who, after a not irreproachable career in England, had settled down in Paris to enjoy the reputation of a rich _dévote_. But no social pleasures and attentions could satisfy Henrietta, whose heart was with her struggling husband. "There is nothing so certain as that I do take all pains I can imaginable to procure you assistance, and am as incapable of taking any delight or being pleased with my being here, though I have all kinds of contentments, but as I hope it may enable me to send you help."[315] These words, written to the King on November 18th, 1644, were no idle sentiment; they are the truest epitome of her life in Paris.