When it is remembered how devotedly Rupert had exposed his person and all that he had in Charles's service, how his mother's jewels had helped to fit out the fleet, and how freely he had surrendered his private share in the prizes to the King, it is scarcely credible that he could have put forward an unjust, or even a selfish claim. Campbell corroborates the Prince's own statement that the sale of the goods did not realise enough to pay off all the sailors; and there still remained the debts at Toulon, which Charles had been begged to pay two years before. Nor were they paid now, in 1662, one Guibert Hessin petitioned Charles II for 29,480 livres tournois, being the debt for victualling the fleet at Toulon in 1650, of which Rupert had ordered payment in 1654.[22] It is therefore fairly evident that Rupert did not claim the money for {272} his own use, but in order to satisfy the just claims of others. The payment of his debts was a point on which he was particularly sensitive, but the practice may well have failed to commend itself to Charles. An important witness on Rupert's side is Hatton, who, a little before the quarrel, had written to Nicholas: "I am sure they now owe Prince Rupert L1,700, ... and that will, at the day of reckoning, breed ill-blood."[23] The day of reckoning came in February 1654, and all happened as Hatton had predicted. "You talk of money the King should have upon the prizes at Nantes!" wrote Hyde indignantly. "Alas, he hath not only not had one penny from thence, but Prince Rupert pretends that the King owes him more money than ever I was worth."[24] The quarrel raged for a month before Rupert would give any explanation of his claims. At last, in March, he condescended to give the King "a little short paper, not containing twenty lines," which he charged his cousin not to show to Hyde. But Charles of course suffered Hyde to see it, charging him, in his turn, to conceal his knowledge of it from Rupert.[25] The result was a worse quarrel than ever. Seeing that the King was not going to acknowledge his claim, Rupert prompted his creditors to arrest the guns. Charles remonstrated,--"kindly expostulated," Hyde phrased it,--whereupon Rupert lost his temper, and protested that "justice would have justice," speaking, said Hyde, "with isolence enough."[26] The affair was "exceedingly taken notice of,"[27] and it was rumoured that Rupert would leave his cousin's service. Mazarin, who realised that the sooner Charles got some money, the sooner he would leave France, enabled him to {273} rescue the guns from the creditors' clutches; but Queen Henrietta gave all her support to her nephew. "It is not possible to believe how much, in so gross a thing, the Queen and Lord Jermyn side with Prince Rupert," complained Hyde.[28] Probably Henrietta and her favourite cared little whether the creditors were paid or not; but more than a mere question of debts was at stake, the exiled Court was as factious as ever.