History of King Charles the Second of England by Jacob Abbott (best biographies to read TXT) 📖

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,