But, of course, it was nothing to do with the masque.

I curtsied to my mother, who beckoned me to come closer. She laid her hands on my shoulders and said: “You have grown into a very pretty young woman, Henriette. I am glad. That will please your husband.”

I did not answer and she went on: “I have good news for you. It may well be that you will be the bride of the Prince of Wales. You understand what that means? You will, in due course, be Queen of England.”

I tried to look greatly impressed but I was only extremely nervous.

“I always wanted crowns for you children. Elizabeth has hers, and now it is your turn, my daughter…although of course it is not yet yours. I want you to do all you can to please Lord Kensington who will carry back a report to his master. You are to have a miniature painted and he will take it back with him to England. I am sure we shall get a lovely picture. Stand up straight, child. It is a pity you do not grow a few more inches.” She looked at me critically. I had always been a little self-conscious about my height for I was an inch or so shorter than most people of my age. Mamie used to say: “Little and good. You are dainty and feminine. Who wants to be a strapping hoyden?” But I could see that my mother did not agree with that and was regretting that my lack of height might be a handicap in the matrimonial stakes.

I tried to stand as tall as I could.

“That’s better,” she said. “Now when you meet Lord Kensington make sure you hold yourself erect. Talk to him confidently. Do not mention that you know about the trip to Spain. It is better to say nothing of that. But it is a stroke of luck for us that it was not successful and it leaves the Prince of Wales free for us.”

I was dismissed and went immediately to Mamie to report the conversation.

“It seems very certain that there will be an offer of marriage,” she said.

“If I go to England you are coming with me.”

“Of course I shall come with you. I’ll be the chief maid of honor. You couldn’t go without me.”

“I wouldn’t go at all…unless you came too.”

“There!” said Mamie, speaking more lightly than she felt; knowing the world far better than I she could see difficulties looming ahead, but I did not understand all this until later. “It will be interesting to be in England,” she said quickly, “if we go that is…to be among strange people. We’ll find lots to amuse us, I don’t doubt.”

She discovered that Lord Kensington was staying with the Duc and Duchesse de Chevreuse. I liked the Duchesse very much; she was very beautiful and vivacious and had a reputation for being what was called “a little naughty.”

“I’ll swear my Lord Kensington is enjoying his stay with the Duc and Duchesse,” said Mamie. “With the Duchesse in any case…so rumor has it.”

She made a point of discovering all she could about Lord Kensington, so that when I met him I should not be at a disadvantage. He was Henry Rich, the son of Penelope Rich who was the daughter of the Countess of Leicester—so his stepgrandfather was the famous Leicester who had become notorious as the favorite of Queen Elizabeth. Lord Kensington was an extraordinarily handsome man—tall, with very gracious manners, and I could see why he was a temptation to the Duchesse’s not very strict morals.

My mother presented me with a certain pride, and he took my hand and, bowing very deferentially, kissed it.

I must forgive him, he said, if he appeared dumbfounded. I might have retorted that he did not appear in the least so. But he was overwhelmed by my charms. He had heard of my beauty but no accounts could do justice to the reality.

Such fulsome flattery should, of course, have irritated me but it did not. I delighted in it and I conversed with him for fifteen minutes before my mother broke up the meeting. She was smiling benignly and I was not quite sure whether this meant that she was pleased with my performance or whether it was merely the facial expression politeness demanded. If it were not the former, I had no doubt that I should hear in due course.

At the masque I had an opportunity of speaking to the Duchesse de Chevreuse who was present with her husband and Lord Kensington. I danced with the Queen and we were very loudly applauded, but I was most eager to have a word with the Duchesse about Lord Kensington.

I said to her: “Lord Kensington seems to be a very happy guest.”

The Duchesse laughed. It seemed to me that she was constantly laughing; she had reason to be content; she was very pretty and had something beyond prettiness. I noticed how her eyes sparkled as they rested on certain gentlemen, and I was aware of the warm responses she had from them.

“Oh, Madame Henriette, I assure you he is a most contented guest.”

“Does he talk to you much of the English Court?”

“Constantly. He is devoted to Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham.”

“So he talks of them?”

“Most glowingly. He says that the Prince of Wales is the most cultivated and handsome gentleman he ever set eyes on.”

“Does he mention that journey to Spain?”

“Oh, that. A fiasco…nothing more. My Lord Kensington says he is grateful for it. If it had succeeded that would have been an unhappy day for the Prince.”

“Is that what he truly says?”

“Yes…now his envoys have come to France. I can tell you this: the Prince is very handsome.”

“How can you know? Did you see him when he came here as Tom Smith or was it John Brown?”

“No. But I have seen a miniature of the Prince, which Lord Kensington keeps on a ribbon about his neck. It is hidden by his coat.”

“But you have seen it!”

She laughed and put her lips to my ear. “Many times,” she whispered. “I say to my lord: ‘Let me see the picture.’ I declare he grows quite jealous. He demands to know whether I think the Prince more handsome than he is.”

“And do you?”

“Strictly for your ears…yes. Though of course the Prince is young but my Lord Kensington is a man well practiced in the ways of love.” She evidently thought she had betrayed too much for she put her hand over her lips and giggled.

I was not very interested in her affairs, but I kept thinking about the miniature which hung round Lord Kensington’s neck. I longed to look on the face of Prince Charles.

I told Mamie what the Duchesse had said and she herself asked Lord Kensington to show her the miniature. This he did readily and Mamie said that it was indeed a handsome face depicted there. She told me that he withdrew the ribbon from where it was hidden and displayed the miniature to several of the ladies who had gathered round.

“It seems,” I said coldly, “that everyone has seen this picture except me.”

“I think,” replied Mamie, “it would be considered unseemly if you showed a great interest in the picture at this stage.”

“Yet how I long to see it. I think I should be the one to see it first.”

“As soon as there has been agreement between the English ambassadors and your mother, you can ask to see it. But I think you can hardly show a great interest before that.”

I grew angry to think that all my ladies knew what he looked like and that I did not, so I decided to act. When I next saw the Duchesse de Chevreuse, I asked her if she could procure the portrait at the right moment…and bring it to me.

The Duchesse, who loved intrigue, swore she would do it. “The very next time he takes it off,” she said, “which he does…” she smiled at me, “on occasions….”

Within a day or so the portrait was in my hands.

My fingers trembled as I opened it for it was in a gold locket. And there he was! My heart leaped as I looked at it. He was handsome, yes, but there was a fineness—a refinement—about his features…something almost ethereal, which I found enchanting.

I could not stop looking at it, and I held it in my hands for the best part of an hour until I knew every part of that handsome face, and the more I looked the happier I felt.

When I gave the picture back to the Duchesse I thanked her for her help. She said that Lord Kensington had missed the locket and she had told him where it was.

“It did not seem to disturb him in the least. In fact I think he was very happy about the matter. He assured me that the Prince of Wales is even more handsome than his portrait.”

Matters were progressing very fast and Lord Kensington asked my mother if she would permit him to have a private interview with me.

After some hesitation she allowed this and I spent a pleasant half hour in the company of the man who, everyone was saying, was not only the English envoy but the lover of Madame de Chevreuse.

He was very courteous to me and implied again that he thought me very pretty. He said he would go back to England and tell his Prince what a charming Princess I was, and that any man who had the good fortune to marry me would be very lucky.

This was the sort of talk which delighted me.

“Doubtless you have some growing to do yet,” he said, and that was the only allusion to my somewhat short stature.

Then he told me about the Court of England. “Less elegant, I fear, than yours here in Paris, but we manage to enjoy life.”

I replied that I could well imagine he did that wherever he went.

He told me that he very much hoped to complete his mission successfully. “My Prince is a very impatient man where some matters are concerned,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

I liked him very much and during those days I lived in a whirl of excitement.

It was Mamie who told me that everything was not going as smoothly as they had at first expected.

“If you married Prince Charles there would have to be a dispensation from the Pope,” she said, “because of the difference in religion. Catholic France and Protestant England.”

“If ever I became Queen of England I should try to save my subjects from damnation,” I replied firmly.

“Yes,” said Mamie lightly, “but what if they should determine to save you?”

“How could they? I am a Catholic and therefore saved.”

She looked at me with her head on one side as she did sometimes but she did not pursue the matter; but when I had interviews with my mother which I did constantly at this time, she impressed on me the need to remember always that I was a Catholic and that it was my duty to bring people to the true Faith.

But Charles, the handsome young man in the miniature, what of him?

“It is the English,” my mother explained. “They insist on their Kings being Protestant. It is very misguided of them and your first task will be to bring him to the true Faith…if there should be a marriage.”

I thought about it and burned with zeal. I imagined Charles in time thanking me. “But for your coming I should have died in ignorance. I should have spent eternity burning in hell.”

It was a pretty picture.

Then there was Mère Magdalaine who was constantly advising me. If it should be God’s will that I should go to England I must not give myself up to frivolous pleasures. I must remember that I had a duty there.

There came a time when it seemed that the marriage might not take place. There were too many difficulties, but the main one was the difference in religion. The English were very reluctant to accept a Catholic Queen. They had deplored the idea of a Spanish marriage—for they saw the Spaniards as their greatest enemies; but because an alliance with that country through marriage had been mooted and had come to nothing they were so pleased and almost ready to accept the French proposition as the lesser of two evils. But, of course, the religious aspect still persisted, and it was growing to such proportions that the Duke of Buckingham—who was in charge of negotiations and eager to see them successful—came to the conclusion that Lord Kensington, suave and charming court gallant though he might be, was not capable of handling complicated politics. So he sent out Lord Carlisle.

It was some time afterward that I discovered why the marriage almost did not take place.

The matter of Frederick and the Palatinate which had put an end to the Spanish negotiations cropped up again. King James wanted the Palatinate restored to his son-in-law, but the French had no wish to support Germany, which was staunchly Protestant.

There was another reason for delay. The French wanted King James to promise to protect Catholics in England and without his promise they refused to conclude a marriage treaty so it certainly seemed at one point that marriage negotiations were about to be broken off and I should have to forget the handsome face in the miniature, which had haunted my dreams since I had seen it.