The appearance of Walter Montagu--a frail worldling, as he calls himself--in the rôle of a spiritual writer probably caused much the same sort of amusement in Parisian circles as was caused in later days in those of London by the publication of Richard Steel's _Christian Hero_. But it was soon found that the long years of prison and danger had wrought a real change in the whilom courtier, who now became a _dévot_ of the fashionable Parisian type. He lost no time in putting into execution his former project of embracing the ecclesiastical state. "Your old friend, Wat Montagu," wrote Lord Hatton in February, 1650-1, "hath already taken upon him the _robe longue_ and received the first orders and intends before Easter (as I am credibly assured) to take the order of Priesthood."[384] He sang his first Mass at Pontoise in the following April, and in the autumn of the same year received by the favour of Queen Anne the Abbey of Nanteuil, which gave him the title of Abbé and a sufficient income. A few years later the same royal patroness bestowed upon him the richer and more important Abbey of S. Martin at Pontoise,[385] whose ample revenues he expended with such liberality and tact as to win the gratitude of his less fortunate compatriots, Catholics and Protestants alike. One of the earliest questions which the Queen had to settle after her husband's execution was that of her eldest son's plans. At first a journey to Ireland was contemplated, but finally it was decided that the young King should go to Scotland and try his fortune among those who had betrayed his father. Henrietta herself was inclined to the Presbyterian alliance, in which opinion she was encouraged by the Louvre party. English and French Catholics alike believed that the silly Anglican compromise had met with the fate it deserved, and that henceforward the spoils would be divided between themselves and the Presbyterians. The remnant of Anglicans who showed a gallant faith in their position which later events justified distrusted these latter so deeply that they would almost have preferred the King to remain an exile for ever to seeing him restored by their means, who had sold the Blessed Martyr. As for the Presbyterian alliance with the Catholics, that they considered the most natural thing in the world;[386] for in their opinion both schools of thought aimed at an undue subordination of the civil to the religious power, or as a Royalist rhymester put it:-- "A Scot and Jesuit, join'd in hand, First taught the world to say That subjects ought to have command And princes to obey."[387]