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History of King Charles II of England
Chapter V. The Prince's Reception At Paris.
by Abbott, Jacob
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So complicated a story as that of the family of Charles can not be
related, in all its parts, in the exact order of time; and having now
shown under what circumstances the various members of the family made
their escape from the dangers which threatened them in England, we
return to follow the adventures of Prince Charles during his residence
on the Continent, and, more particularly in this chapter, to describe
his reception by the royal family of France. He was one of the first
of the children that escaped, having arrived in France in 1646. His
father was not beheaded until two years afterward.
In order that the reader may understand distinctly the situation in
which Charles found himself on his arrival at Paris, we must first
describe the condition of the royal family of France at this time.
They resided sometimes at Fontainebleau, a splendid palace in the midst
of a magnificent park about forty miles from the city. Henrietta, it
will be recollected, was the sister of a king of France. This king was
Louis XIII. He died, however, not far from the time of Queen Henrietta's
arrival in the country, leaving his little son Louis, then five years
old, heir to the crown. The little Louis of course became king
immediately, in name, as Louis XIV., and in the later periods of his
life he attained to so high a degree of prosperity and power, that he
has been, ever since his day, considered one of the most renowned of
all the French kings. He was, of course, Prince Charles's cousin. At
the period of Prince Charles's arrival, however, he was a mere child,
being then about eight years old. Of course, he was too young really
to exercise any of the powers of the government. His mother, Anne of
Austria, was made regent, and authorized to govern the country until
the young king should arrive at a suitable age to exercise his
hereditary powers in his own name. Anne of Austria had been always
very kind to Henrietta, and had always rendered her assistance whenever
she had been reduced to any special extremity of distress. It was she
who had sent the supplies of money and clothing to Henrietta when she
fled, sick and destitute, to Exeter, vainly hoping to find repose and
the means of restoration there.
Besides King Louis XIII., who had died, Henrietta had another brother,
whose name was Gaston, duke of Orleans. The Duke of Orleans had a
daughter, who was styled the Duchess of Montpensier, deriving the title
from her mother. She was, of course, also a cousin of Prince Charles.
Her father, being brother of the late king, and uncle of the present
one, was made lieutenant general of the kingdom, having thus the second
place, that is, the place next to the queen, in the management of the
affairs of the realm. Thus the little king commenced his reign by
having in his court his mother as queen regent, his uncle lieutenant
general, and his aunt, an exiled queen from a sister realm, his guest.
He had also in his household his brother Philip, younger than himself,
his cousin the young Duchess of Montpensier, and his cousin the Prince
Charles. The family relationship of all these individuals will be made
more clear by being presented in a tabular form, as follows:
ROYAL FAMILY OF FRANCE IN THE TIME OF LOUIS XIV.
Louis XIII. Louis XIV.
Anne of Austria. Philip, 8 years old.
HENRY IV Gaston, duke of Orleans. Duchess of Montpensier
Duchess of Montpensier.
Henrietta Maria. Prince Charles, 16.
King Charles I.
In the above table, the first column contains the name of Henry IV.,
the second those of three of his children, with the persons whom they
respectively married, and the third the four grandchildren, who, as
cousins, now found themselves domesticated together in the royal palaces
of France.
The young king was, as has already been said, about eight years old
at the time of Prince Charles's arrival. The palace in which he resided
when in the city was the Palace Royal, which was then, and has been
ever since, one of the most celebrated buildings in the world. It was
built at an enormous expense, during a previous reign, by a powerful
minister of state, who was, in ecclesiastical rank, a cardinal, and
his mansion was named, accordingly, the Palace Cardinal. It had,
however, been recently taken as a royal residence, and its name changed
to Palace Royal. Here the queen regent had her grand apartments of
state, every thing being as rich as the most lavish expenditure could
make it. She had one apartment, called an oratory, a sort of closet
for prayer, which was lighted by a large window, the sash of which was
made of silver. The interior of the room was ornamented with the most
costly paintings and furniture, and was enriched with a profusion of
silver and gold. The little king had his range of apartments too, with
a whole household of officers and attendants as little as himself.
These children were occupied continually with ceremonies, and pageants,
and mock military parades, in which they figured in miniature arms and
badges of authority, and with dresses made to imitate those of real
monarchs and ministers of state. Every thing was regulated with the
utmost regard to etiquette and punctilio, and without any limits or
bounds to the expense. Thus, though the youthful officers of the little
monarch's household exercised no real power, they displayed all the
forms and appearances of royalty with more than usual pomp and splendor.
It was a species of child's play, it is true, but it was probably the
most grand and magnificent child's play that the world has ever
witnessed. It was into this extraordinary scene that Prince Charles
found himself ushered on his arrival in France.
At the time of the prince's arrival the court happened to be residing,
not at Paris, but at Fontainebleau. Fontainebleau, as has already been
stated, is about forty miles from Paris, to the southward. There is
a very splendid palace and castle there, built originally in very
ancient times. There is a town near, both the castle and the town being
in the midst of a vast park and forest, one of the most extended and
magnificent royal domains in Europe. This forest has been reserved as
a hunting ground for the French kings from a very early age. It covers
an area of forty thousand acres, being thus many miles in extent. The
royal family were at this palace at the time of Prince Charles's
arrival, celebrating the festivities of a marriage. The prince
accordingly, as we shall presently see, went there to join them.
There were two persons who were anticipating the prince's arrival in
France with special interest, his mother, and his young cousin, the
Duchess of Montpensier. Her Christian name was Anne Marie Louisa.
[Footnote: She is commonly called, in the annals of the day in which
she lived, Mademoiselle, as she was, par eminence, the young lady
of the court. In history she is commonly called Mademoiselle de
Montpensier; we shall call her, in this narrative, simply Anne Maria,
as that is, for our purpose, the most convenient designation.] She was
a gay, frivolous, and coquettish girl, of about nineteen, immensely
rich, being the heiress of the vast estates of her mother, who was not
living. Her father, though he was the lieutenant general of the realm,
and the former king's brother, was not rich. His wife, when she died,
had bequeathed all her vast estates to her daughter Anne Maria was
naturally haughty and vain, and; as her father was accustomed to come
occasionally to her to get supplies of money, she was made vainer and
more self-conceited still by his dependence upon her. Several matches
had been proposed to her, and among them the Emperor of Germany had
been named. He was a widower. His first wife, who had been Anne Maria's
aunt, had just died. As the emperor was a potentate of great importance,
the young belle thought she should prefer him to any of the others who
had been proposed, and she made no secret of this her choice. It is
true that he had made no proposal to her, but she presumed that he
would do so after a suitable time had elapsed from the death of his
first wife, and Anne Maria was contented to wait, considering the lofty
elevation to which she would attain on becoming his bride.
But Queen Henrietta Maria had another plan. She was very desirous to
obtain Anne Maria for the wife of her son Charles. There were many
reasons for this. The young lady was a princess of the royal family
of France; she possessed, too, an immense fortune, and was young and
beautiful withal, though not quite so young as Charles himself. He was
sixteen, and she was about nineteen. It is true that Charles was now,
in some sense, a fugitive and an exile, destitute of property, and
without a home. Still he was a prince. He was the heir apparent of the
kingdoms of England and Scotland. He was young and accomplished. These
high qualifications, somewhat exaggerated, perhaps, by maternal
partiality, seemed quite sufficient to Henrietta to induce the proud
duchess to become the prince's bride.
All this, it must be remembered, took place before the execution of
King Charles the First, and when, of course, the fortunes of the family
were not so desperate as they afterward became. Queen Henrietta had
a great many conversations with Anne Maria before the prince arrived,
in which she praised very highly his person and his accomplishments.
She narrated to the duchess the various extraordinary adventures and
the narrow escapes which the prince had met with in the course of his
wanderings in England; she told her how dutiful and kind he had been
to her as a son, and how efficient and courageous in his father's cause
as a soldier. She described his appearance and his manners, and foretold
how he would act, what tastes and preferences he would form, and how
he would be regarded in the French court. The young duchess listened
to all this with an appearance of indifference and unconcern, which
was partly real and partly only assumed. She could not help feeling
some curiosity to see her cousin, but her head was too full of the
grander destination of being the wife of the emperor to think much of
the pretensions of this wandering and homeless exile.
Prince Charles, on his arrival, went first to Paris, where he found
his mother. There was an invitation for them here to proceed to
Fontainebleau, where, as has already been stated, the young king and
his court were now residing. They went there accordingly, and were
received with every mark of attention and honor. The queen regent took
the young king into the carriage of state, and rode some miles along
the avenue, through the forest, to meet the prince and his mother when
they were coming. They were attended with the usual cortege of carriages
and horsemen, and they moved with all the etiquette and ceremony proper
to be observed in the reception of royal visitors.
When the carriages met in the forest, they stopped, and the
distinguished personages contained in them alighted. Queen Henrietta
introduced her son to the queen regent and to Louis, the French king,
and also to other personages of distinction who were in their train.
Among them was Anne Maria. The queen regent took Henrietta and the
prince into the carriage with her and the young king, and they proceeded
thus together back to the palace. Prince Charles was somewhat
embarrassed in making all these new acquaintances, in circumstances,
too, of so much ceremony and parade, and the more so, as his knowledge
of the French language was imperfect. He could understand it when
spoken, but could not speak it well himself, and he appeared,
accordingly, somewhat awkward and confused. He seemed particularly at
a loss in his intercourse with Anne Maria. She was a little older than
himself, and, being perfectly at home, both in the ceremonies of the
occasion and in the language of the company, she felt entirely at her
ease herself; and yet, from her natural temperament and character, she
assumed such an air and bearing as would tend to prevent the prince
from being so. In a word, it happened then as it has often happened
since on similar occasions, that the beau was afraid of the belle.
The party returned to the palace. On alighting, the little king gave
his hand to his aunt, the Queen of England, while Prince Charles gave
his to the queen regent, and thus the two matrons were gallanted into
the hall. The prince had a seat assigned him on the following day in
the queen regent's drawing room, and was thus regularly instated as
an inmate of the royal household. He remained here several days, and
at length the whole party returned to Paris.
Anne Maria, in after years, wrote reminiscences of her early life,
which were published after her death. In this journal she gives an
account of her introduction to the young prince, and of her first
acquaintance with him. It is expressed as follows:
"He was only sixteen or seventeen years of age, rather tall, with a
fine head, black hair, a dark complexion, and a tolerably agreeable
countenance. But he neither spoke nor understood French, which was
very inconvenient. Nevertheless, every thing was done to amuse him,
and, during the three days that he remained at Fontainebleau, there
were hunts and every other sport which could be commanded in that
season. He paid his respects to all the princesses, and I discovered
immediately that the Queen of England wished to persuade me that he
had fallen in love with me. She told me that he talked of me
incessantly; that, were she not to prevent it, he would be in my
apartment [Footnote: This means at her residence. The whole suite of
rooms occupied by a family is called, in France, their apartment.]
at all hours; that he found me quite to his taste, and that he was in
despair on account of the death of the empress, for he was afraid that
they would seek to marry me to the emperor. I listened to all she said
as became me, but it did not have as much effect upon me as probably
she wished."
After spending a few days at Fontainebleau, the whole party returned
to Paris, and Queen Henrietta and the prince took up their abode again
in the Palace Royal, or, as it is now more commonly called, the Palais
Royal. Charles was much impressed with the pomp and splendor of the
French court, so different from the rough mode of life to which he had
been accustomed in his campaigns and wanderings in England. The
etiquette and formality, however, were extreme, every thing, even the
minutest motions, being regulated by nice rules, which made social
intercourse and enjoyment one perpetual ceremony. But, notwithstanding
all this pomp and splendor, and the multitude of officers and attendants
who were constantly on service, there seems to have been, in the results
obtained, a strange mixture of grand parade with discomfort and
disorder. At one time at Fontainebleau, at a great entertainment, where
all the princes and potentates that had been drawn there by the wedding
were assembled, the cooks quarreled in the kitchen, and one of the
courses of the supper failed entirely in consequence of their
dissensions; and at another time, as a large party of visitors were
passing out through a suite of rooms in great state, to descend a grand
staircase, where some illustrious foreigners, who were present, were
to take their leave, they found the apartments through which they were
to pass all dark. The servants had neglected or forgotten to light
them.
These and similar incidents show that there may be regal luxury and
state without order or comfort, as there may be regal wealth and power
without any substantial happiness. Notwithstanding this, however,
Prince Charles soon became strongly interested in the modes of life
to which he was introduced at Paris and at Fontainebleau. There were
balls, parties, festivities, and excursions of pleasure without number,
his interest in these all being heightened by the presence of Anne
Maria, whom he soon began to regard with a strong degree of that
peculiar kind of interest which princesses and heiresses inspire. In
Anne Maria's memoirs of her early life, we have a vivid description
of many of the scenes in which both she herself and Charles were such
prominent actors. She wrote always with great freedom, and in a very
graphic manner, so that the tale which she tells of this period of her
life forms a very entertaining narrative.
Anne Maria gives a very minute account of what took place between
herself and Charles on several occasions in the course of their
acquaintance, and describes particularly various balls, and parties,
and excursions of pleasure on which she was attended by the young
prince. Her vanity was obviously gratified by the interest which Charles
seemed to take in her, but she was probably incapable of any feelings
of deep and disinterested love, and Charles made no impression upon
her heart. She reserved herself for the emperor.
For example, they were all one night invited to a grand ball by the
Duchess de Choisy. This lady lived in a magnificent mansion, called
the Hotel de Choisy. Just before the time came for the party of visitors
to go, the Queen of England came over with Charles to the apartments
of Anne Maria. The queen came ostensibly to give the last touches to
the adjustment of the young lady's dress, and to the arrangement of
her hair, but really, without doubt, in pursuance of her policy of
taking every occasion to bring the young people together.
"She came," says Anne Maria, in her narrative, "to dress me and arrange
my hair herself. She came for this purpose to my apartments, and took
the utmost pains to set me off to the best advantage, and the Prince
of Wales held the flambeau near me to light my toilet the whole time.
I wore black, white, and carnation; and my jewelry was fastened by
ribbons of the same colors. I wore a plume of the same kind; all these
had been selected and ordered by my aunt Henrietta. The queen regent,
who knew that I was in my aunt Henrietta's hands, sent for me to come
and see her when I was all ready, before going to the ball. I
accordingly went, and this gave the prince an opportunity to go at
once to the Hotel de Choisy, and be ready there to receive me when I
should arrive I found him there at the door, ready to hand me from my
coach. I stopped in a chamber to readjust my hair, and the Prince of
Wales again held a flambeau for me. This time, too, he brought his
cousin, Prince Rupert, as an interpreter between us; for, believe it
who will, though he could understand every word I said to him, he could
not reply the least sentence to me in French. When the ball was finished
and we retired, the prince followed me to the porter's lodge of my
hotel, [Footnote: In all the great houses in Paris, the principal
buildings of the edifice stand back from the street, surrounding a
court yard, which has sometimes shrubbery and flowers and a fountain
in the center. The entrance to this court yard is by a great gate and
archway on the street, with the apartments occupied by the porter,
that is, the keeper of the gate, on one side. The entrance to the
porter's lodge is from under the archway.] and lingered till I entered,
and then went his way.
"There was another occasion on which his gallantry to me attracted a
great deal of attention. It was at a great fete celebrated at the
Palais Royal. There was a play acted, with scenery and music, and then
a ball. It took three whole days to arrange my ornaments for this
night. The Queen of England would dress me on this occasion, also,
with her own hands. My robe was all figured with diamonds, with
carnation trimmings. I wore the jewels of the crown of France, and,
to add to them, the Queen of England lent me some fine ones of her
own, which she had not then sold. The queen praised the fine turn of
my shape, my air, the beauty of my complexion, and the brightness of
my light hair. I had a conspicuous seat in the middle of the ballroom,
with the young King of France and the Prince of Wales at my feet I did
not feel the least embarrassed, for, as I had an idea of marrying the
emperor, I regarded the Prince of Wales only as an object of pity."
Things went on in this way for a time, until at last some political
difficulties occurred at Paris which broke in upon the ordinary routine
of the royal family, and drove them, for a time, out of the city.
Before these troubles were over, Henrietta and her son were struck
down, as by a blow, by the tidings, which came upon them like a
thunderbolt, that their husband and father had been beheaded. This
dreadful event put a stop for a time to every thing like festive
pleasures. The queen left her children, her palace, and all the gay
circle of her friends, and retired to a convent, to mourn, in solitude
and undisturbed, her irreparable loss.
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