Nell Gwynn, she of the quick smile and quick tear, and vulnerable heart, was of the King's favour to the extent of honouring him with the little Duke of St. Albans; and on her Charles lavished accessories of elegant living similar to those he bestowed on Louise de Querouailles. The bewitching actress lived her quickly changing moods among the furniture that now graces our modern rooms here on this side of the water. We were not importing many of those elegances in 1664. That was the date when Charles' brother James, Duke of York, left the luxurious court at London and came to give royal dignity to the little American town of New Amsterdam on the day when its Dutch dominion ended and the city was re-christened New York. While considering the fascinating women of the court, Hortensia Mancini, for whom beautiful furnishings were made, must stand as the most alluring of them all because she ever eludes the critic or dissector. Somewhat of her uncle Cardinal Mazarin was in her astute secretiveness, but a baffling quality all her own made her proof against surrendering her soul to any man's probing or to any man's charm. So rich she was that money could not tempt; so clever, with Italian wit added to Italian culture, that none could surpass her in repartee or discourse; so full of mystery was her dark and piquant beauty that all might envy her--yet so passionately unhappy, that none would wish to exchange with her. Add to the list of women Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland, who represented a heavy voluptuousness and a prolific motherhood for the King, and we see the women favoured by the King's artisans, and for whom the beautiful furnishings of the time were produced. Though Charles II had no royal factories such as Louis XIV was conducting in France, plenty of rich objects of art were yielded by the workers. That astonishing aberration of taste, silver furniture, had a vogue at this time, the King considering his favourite worthy of such extravagance. It must have been ugly by its inappropriateness, however pretty was the woman it served. Louise de Querouailles had hers set in a room lined all with mirror glass, which at that time was an expensive novelty. But it pleased the King to wander into the apartment of his favourite satellite and see the lovely image of the Duchess of Portsmouth sitting among her silver movables, reflected so many times in the walls that the world seemed peopled only with adorable women. Nell Gwynn also had her mirror room. It was the Duke of Buckingham who made the mirror-lined room possible by establishing a factory for mirrors. Previous to this time they were exceeding rare in England. Now a leaf was taken from Italy's books and mirrors were made at home, with bevelled edges, and also with bright blue glass framing, inside the wooden frame.