“I swear it, Charles! I swear it!” she cried, tapping her foot as she did in moments of agitation. “He could deny me nothing. It was the last time I saw him. I swear to you, Charles. You would not wish to go against your father’s wishes, would you?”
“No, Mam,” was Charles’ answer. “That is why I wish you to allow Lady Morton to supervise my sister’s religious education in the faith of the Church of England.”
“But it was your father’s wish …”
The young King smiled gently at his mother. He was always extremely courteous to her, but he was not fond of her and he was too honest to pretend that he was. He loved his little sister dearly; but he also loved peace. A young King with a kingdom yet to be won had too many difficulties to face without making others with a fanatical Catholic such as his mother was. So Charles consoled himself with the thought: Minette is only a child. She will absorb little as yet. Later, something must be done. Perhaps then he could commission someone else to take up the struggle with his mother, and so escape the unpleasantness.
Meanwhile there was much to occupy him. Lucy had come to Paris with their son, and he was delighted with them both. Young Jemmy was a lusty youngster; Charles swore he had the Stuart eyes; he was certain that Robert Sydney could not claim him as his son. He often said: “If I were not the King, I’d marry Lucy to make the boy my heir.”
He had been alarmed because young Jemmy had already started to cause some trouble at The Hague. It was realized that he was a very important little boy, and there had been a plot to kidnap him which had nearly succeeded. Charles had declared that Lucy must come to Paris and bring the boy with her. This she had been quick to do. Paris suited Lucy better than The Hague—even Paris suffering from the disasters of the Fronde. So Charles, with plans for expeditions to the loyal territories of Jersey, Scotland and Ireland to be considered, and his playmate, Lucy, and his little son to enchant him, found it easy to shelve the problem of his sister’s religion.
Henrietta Maria looked on with quiet satisfaction.
Let the boy amuse himself. Soon he would have little time for amusement. It was natural that he should wish to dally with a mistress. Was he not the grandson of Henri Quatre?
So Henrietta Maria kept her daughter with her, and often she would take the child against her knee and, embracing her fiercely, tell her that only by learning all that Père Cyprien had to teach her could her soul be saved.
“And what will happen to those whose souls are not saved?” asked Henriette.
“They burn in the fires of hell eternally.”
“How long is eternally?”
“For ever and ever.”
“And Lady Morton will burn forever and ever?”
“If she does not become a Catholic.”
Tears filled Henriette’s eyes. “Oh no! Not dear Nan! Please Mam, pray to God and the saints not to burn poor Nan.”
“If she becomes a Catholic she will be safe. You must try to convert her.”
“Oh, Mam, I will … I will!”
So Henriette went to her governess and put her arms about her neck crying: “Do be converted, dear Nan. Dear Lady Morton, you must be a Catholic to be saved. Do be a Catholic, and I will love you more dearly than ever.”
“My dearest, we cannot easily change our convictions,” said Anne Morton.
“But you must be a Catholic … you must! All those who are not cannot be saved. They are tormented forever and ever.”
“So they have told you that, have they?”
“I cannot bear that you should be burned, dear Nan.”
“Come, dry your tears. I promise you this: I shall not be burned.”
“Then you will …”
“Let us not talk of this, my dearest. Might it not be that there are many ways to salvation?”
“But there is only one. Père Cyprien says so.”
“It may be that he knows only one. Now I will tell you how we came out of England, shall I?”
“Oh yes, please … and how I kept telling people that I was the Princess and that the clothes I wore were not my own.”
So she was appeased for the moment, and later she said to her mother: “I will tell Charles he must be saved, for, Mam, he too may burn eternally.”
“Do not speak of these matters to your brother, chérie.”
“But, Mam, he will not be saved if he is not a Catholic.”
Henrietta Maria was more brusque than she usually was with her little daughter. “Now … now … you talk too much. It is not for you to save souls. That is for Père Cyprien. You must learn what is told you. You are not yet ready to teach.”
“But if I may try to save dear Lady Morton, why should I not try to save Charles?”
Henrietta Maria pinched the soft cheek affectionately. “I have said you must learn first. There is so much you do not understand.”
Henriette nodded. She was content not to understand, for understanding, it seemed, could make people disagree, and that had already caused trouble between those whom she loved.
It seemed to Henriette that any day might bring news which made her mother weep and declare that she was the most unhappy Queen in the world and that no woman suffered as she did.
The troubles of the Fronde endangered the lives of royal people. It was a long time since Henriette had seen her cousins, Louis the King and his brother Philippe, so that she had forgotten she had ever known them. Her own beloved Charles had left again; he had gone to Jersey where the people were loyal. Henriette quickly learned that it was a sad thing to be an exile in a strange land. And although her mother told her stories of the days when she herself was a little girl and Paris had been her home, still they were looked upon as strangers. When the French were angry with the English government much was made of Henriette and her mother; when they were indifferent to the English government they had nothing but sullen looks for the exiles.
“It is the saddest thing in the world to have no country,” said Henrietta Maria.
“Shall we never have a country?” asked her daughter.
Her mother’s eyes, with the dark shadows beneath them, gleamed as she enlarged on one of her favorite topics. “If you marry, the country of your husband will be your country.”
Henriette nodded slowly; she knew that her mother had a husband in mind for her. It was a boy who would one day be the most important man in France. He was already a King, even as Charles was. He was Louis XIV. She had forgotten what he looked like so she began to picture him looking exactly like her brother Charles, although she knew that he was not so old. But he was a King, and people would kneel and kiss his hands as they kissed Charles’. She was not displeased at the thought of marriage with Louis since when she thought of him she thought of a boy who looked like Charles, spoke like Charles and indeed was another Charles—but instead of being called by that name he was Louis, and King of France instead of King of England.
Now, of course, on account of the Fronde, the little King and his brother did not come to Paris. Henrietta Maria and her daughter stayed there because they were not important and Paul de Gondi allowed them to.
So sometimes they were in the apartments of the Louvre, and sometimes they were in the house on the hills of Chaillot. Henriette studied; she found it easy to study and there were few distractions. She wanted to learn; there was so much to know. She wanted to understand why the people of England had killed her father and would not allow Charles to have his throne; she wanted to know why the people of France were threatening their monarch with the same treatment.
Mademoiselle de Montpensier visited them now and then. “La Grande Mademoiselle” she was called in Paris, for she was on the side of the Frondeurs; and she hoped to be remembered in the years to come as another Jeanne d’Arc who had saved France. She was very handsome and very anxious that everyone should pay homage to her, the cousin of the King, the richest heiress in Europe, and now … the heroine of the Fronde.