On September the 14th the foundation-stone was laid. The site of the new building, which was the tennis courtyard of Somerset House, was fitted up as a temporary church with tapestries for walls and stuffs of great price for roof. A large and brilliant company, numbering at least two thousand persons, was present, while at the beautifully decked altar stood M. du Perron to sing a Mass, which was accompanied by rare voices and choice instrumental music, and at which the attendant ceremonies were so magnificent that a Frenchman who happened to be present confessed[124] that nothing more splendid could be seen at Notre-Dame de Paris, even when a King of France honoured that cathedral with his presence. The Mass ended, Henrietta stepped forward, handed by her brother's ambassador, M. de Fontenay-Mareuil, to whom the establishment of the Capuchins was so largely due. A trowel delicately fringed with velvet was offered to her, together with mortar served in a silver-gilt bowl. Thrice she threw the mortar on to the stone of foundation, which was then lowered into its place, bearing on a plate an inscription telling how she, the Queen of England and the daughter of France, had founded this temple for the honour of Catholicism and for the use of her servants the Capuchin Fathers. This was one of Henrietta's brightest days, in which she tasted the joy her disappointed life knew so seldom, of seeing a happy result of her works and prayers. It began by a devout confession and reception of the Eucharist. It ended with cannon and fireworks and every sign of public rejoicing. So cordial seemed the attitude of the London populace that the rosiest hopes for the future were entertained, specially by the French,[125] who would have welcomed the conversion of England by a French Queen as a delicate triumph, not only over the heretic, but over the Spaniard.[126] These sanguine persons did not go about in the streets and taverns of the city to hear, under the official rejoicings, the curses, "not loud but deep," of the Puritan citizens.