Chaillot was to Henrietta a peaceful retreat after all her sorrows, for the world was strictly excluded, and the convent never became, like Val de Grace, a centre of political intrigue. There, removed from the troubles of dangerous schemes, of jarring religions, and of perpetual disappointments, the Queen regained something of the brightness and more than the tranquillity of her earlier years. The quiet days, passed in a round of prayer, of conversation, and of reading, flowed on undisturbed; and as she grew older she pleased herself by talking of the time when she should take up her abode permanently with her dear nuns, only, she said, she feared the damp of the river-side house a little. The kindness of the nuns, who saw in her not only a royal foundress, but a much-tried and suffering woman, was very great. At one time they even permitted her to join them at their recreation; and when this was found to be undesirable, her particular friends among the community were still ready to cheer and amuse her by their agreeable conversation, while they in their turn were often much diverted by her witty talk and stories of the surprising adventures which had befallen her, and which assuredly lost nothing in the telling. She was too clear-sighted and humorous not to appreciate that a queen was of necessity a troublesome member of a religious household, and she set herself to mitigate the annoyance as far as possible. She kept a very small household, only one lady-in-waiting, two or three other attendants, and as many girls to do the cooking, and she was careful to select only such women as would conduct themselves with quietness and decorum. One of her chief objects in choosing a situation on the outskirts of Paris had been to avoid the flow of idle visitors who in the city itself were a real annoyance to religious houses, and she refused to receive those who came on idle and frivolous pretexts. No one, however high his rank or pressing his business, was permitted to enter the enclosure without the leave of the Superior; and once, when Henrietta herself was unable to walk and was carried out from Paris in a chair, she insisted upon waiting at the gate of the convent until permission for her bearers to enter had been obtained. On all ordinary occasions she came down to the parlour and interviewed her visitors through the grill, even when the matter in hand was so intimate as that of trying on new clothes. She was equally considerate in any question which might disturb the religious routine of the house; and this delicate woman of over fifty, a princess by birth and a queen by marriage, whose health had been ruined by her troubles and privations, dragged herself from her bed at an early hour in the cold winter mornings that the community Mass, at which she liked to assist, might not be delayed.