"The Prince of Wales did her great honour, but as she understood that he required much pecuniary assistance to recover the Crown of England, his birthright, she feared she might find herself overwhelmed with expenses incompatible with the wants of a person of her exalted rank. That she must, in consequence, make sacrifices and adopt resolutions difficult to contemplate. That she might risk the loss of her entire possessions on the chance of Charles's re-conquering his kingdom; and that, having been educated in splendour as one of the greatest princesses in the world, the prospect alarmed her." Yet there must have been some charm about the hard-featured, stalwart youth that attracted her; she would not say, "No." In order to throw down a bait, she hinted that she desired him to change his religion. "Impossible, madame," was the reply of Lord St. Germains. "A king of England cannot change his religion. He would exclude himself for ever from the throne!" Again, however, Charles was permitted to approach her, and to make a last attempt. She relished a little mild flirtation with an exiled King, although she vastly preferred marriage with an Emperor. Nevertheless, she curled her hair in honour of the occasion, a thing not usual with her. "Ah, look at her!" said the Queen-Regent, when she appeared in the evening: "it is easy to see she is expecting a lover. See!—how she is decked out!" Mademoiselle blushed, but was too discreet to commit herself by a single word. When Charles Stuart entered the Queen's saloon he looked provokingly well. His mother, nervously alive to every trifle, felt this. A man with such a constitution was not adapted to play the part of a despairing lover. When questioned by the Queen about his affairs in England, he replied that he knew nothing. Mademoiselle instantly formed a bad opinion of him. She turned to her lady in waiting, Madame de Fiesque, and whispered— "He is too much of a Bourbon for me. Quite engrossed by trifles" (_the race has not changed_). "He can talk about dogs and horses and the chase to her Majesty, but he has nothing to say about the revolution in England." Later in the evening, at the royal table, Mademoiselle was shocked at Charles's coarse appetite. He despised ortolans and Italian pastry, and threw himself upon a joint of beef. Not satisfied with that, he ended by a shoulder of mutton. "A despairing lover ought not to have such a monstrous appetite, or he should satisfy the cravings of hunger beforehand," thought Mademoiselle. He stared fixedly at her, with his big black eyes shaded by heavy eyebrows, while he was shovelling huge pieces of meat down his throat, but he never spoke. Truly this was not a fashion of pushing his suit with a fastidious princess who desired to be an empress!