Henrietta Maria, Queen, consort of Charles I, King of England, 1609-1669
Within the city, in the palace of the Louvre, the Queen of England yet
lingered; she would gladly have escaped to her relatives at S. Germain, but
when she attempted to do so she was stopped at the end of the Tuileries
Gardens. However, she had little fear; she knew that she was popular with
the people, who preferred her sprightly ways to those of the _dévote_
Spanish Queen, who thought of nothing but convents and monks, and she was
content to wait upon events. It is true she was exceedingly uncomfortable;
little by little the seemly establishment she had kept up in the early days
of the exile had dwindled as she strained every nerve to send supplies to
her husband, but she had never known need until now, when for six months
her allowance from the King of France had not been paid. However, one day,
when in the bitter cold of January she could not even afford a fire, she
received a visit from the Coadjutor Bishop, who was a man of great
importance among the Frondeurs. Little Princess Henrietta, who had been
smuggled over to France in 1646 and who was now about four years old, was
lying in bed. "You see," said the Queen, indicating the little girl and
speaking with her usual cheerfulness, "the poor child cannot get up, as I
have no means of keeping her warm." De Retz, in spite of his leanings to
liberalism, was so shocked that a daughter of England and still more a
granddaughter of Henry the Great should be in such a plight, that he
prevailed upon the Parliament to send a considerable sum of money to the
Queen of England.
It was never the physical accidents of life that weighed upon
Henrietta--these she could bear so lightly as to shame her attendants into
a like courage; but there was worse than cold or privation, worse even than
the fear lest her native land might be rushing to the same fate as had
overwhelmed the land of her adoption.[367] The real misery was the anxiety
which was gnawing at her heart for her children, and above all for her
husband. During the day she was able in some degree to divert her mind from
it, but in the silent watches of the night it overwhelmed her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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