“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.

I suppose my brother and my mother thought that if this marriage did not come about it might be difficult for me to find another opportunity as good as this one and decided that it was better to be a little lenient if by being so they could get me to England where I might be instrumental in doing good work for the Catholic cause.

A great deal of all this I learned later but the fact was that my brother and Lord Carlisle talked together privately and my brother hinted that the English King need not take the religious controversy too seriously. If he would just give his word that the Catholics might practice their religion privately all might be well.

Both sides hesitated. But the English, no less than the French, were eager for the marriage and finally they decided to make concessions to each other.

I was to have full freedom to worship in the true Faith; I was to be given control of the religious instruction of any children I should have up to the age of thirteen; I was to have my own chapel wherever I was, together with my priests and almoners and chaplains.

The next step was to get the dispensation from Rome.

It came at length and with it was a letter for me written by the Holy Father himself. I felt weighed down with responsibility when I read it.

It was simply because I was going to be Queen of a heretic country that he was giving the dispensation. I should have power—perhaps even over my husband—and it would be my duty to devote myself to the salvation of him and his poor sad subjects. I had the opportunity of being like Queen Esther—the Jewish virgin—who was chosen to be his Queen by the Persian King Ahasuerus and who brought about the deliverance of her people, or like Bertha who married Ethelbert of Kent—in that very country to which I was going—and converted him and spread Christianity among the Anglo Saxons. The eyes of the Catholic world would be turned on me.

My fingers shook as I penned my reply to the Holy Father. I assured him that I was aware of the great task which lay ahead of me and that I would endeavor with all my heart to carry out the work assigned to me by Heaven, and to raise my children in the Catholic Faith.

After I had written that letter I knelt and prayed that God would give me the strength to do what I had to do.

So with the Pope’s dispensation, there was no longer need for delay. Preparations for the proxy wedding began. It was decided that May would be the best month. It was then March.

News came from England that King James was ill. No one thought he was near to death so therefore it was a shock when on that cold March day news came to Paris that he was dead and his son, my bridegroom-to-be, was King Charles the First of England.

It was a beautiful May morning when I was escorted to the episcopal residence where I was dressed for my wedding. It would only be a proxy wedding and it seemed very strange to be married to a man whom I had never seen, although such an arrangement was commonplace in royal circles. At least I had seen a miniature of him. I wondered if he were thinking the same of me. But perhaps he would have other matters than his wedding with which to occupy himself as he had, only two months before, become a king.

I stood very still while they dressed me. I could not help feeling happy to wear such clothes. Clothes always had an effect on me and I believe I could not have been completely unhappy while I was wearing a beautiful gown. Of course I was very young then and perhaps more thoughtless and frivolous than many of my age. Now I stood patiently while they put on my gown. It was made of cloth of gold and silver and the material was spattered with golden fleurs-de-lis and here and there diamonds twinkled on it. My mother had said I must have the most elaborate of dresses to match the Duke of Buckingham, who would most surely be elegantly attired. At that time it had been thought that he would be my proxy bridegroom but he had been unable to leave England because his presence was necessary there on account of the death of the late King.