She said firmly: “My daughter shall dance. Come, Henriette.”

Henriette, blushing and miserably unhappy, obeyed her mother.

For an instant the King did not move to take her hand. Why should he—a man as well as a King—be told with whom to dance? Why should he not choose whom he pleased? He was no longer a boy. Madame de Beauvais understood that; all the Court … all the world must understand it too.

Then he looked at the little girl beside him. He saw her lips tremble and he noted the misery in her eyes. He realized her humiliation and he was ashamed suddenly. He was behaving more like a spoiled boy than the man he had become last night.

He took his cousin’s hand and began to dance. He did not speak to her. He saw that she was fighting back her tears, so he pressed her hand tightly. He wanted to say: it is not that I do not wish to dance with you, Henriette. It is just that I am in no mood for the company of children.

But he said nothing and the dance continued.

That night the Princess Henriette cried herself to sleep.

Henriette was with her mother in the great Cathedral of Notre Dame de Rheims. It was an honor to be here, she knew; her mother had impressed that upon her. They were participating in the Coronation of the King of France to which they had been invited, although it seemed that there was very little hope of the royal house of England’s ever reinstating itself.

Charles was wandering around Europe, never staying long in one place, now and then daring to hope that there might be a chance of a little help from some important monarch who had reason to dislike the Protector of England. Plans … plans … plans … which never seemed to materialize. Then he would return to his dicing and women. Rumor reached France that the profligacy of the roaming English Court was becoming notorious.

Henriette longed for news of him, longed to see his face again. Each day, she hoped, would bring some news of him. At least, when he idled with his profligate friends, he was not endangering his life.

Once she had found consolation for the loss of her brother in the exciting company of her magnificent royal cousin, but that had changed recently. She and her mother spent most of their time in seclusion now at the Palais-Royal, Chaillot or Colombes, this last being a pretty house on the Seine, which Henrietta Maria had acquired, and where it was pleasant to spend the hot summer months. Life was growing quieter. Henriette was studying a good deal; her education was opening out into a course hardly ever pursued by ladies of her rank. There was little to do but study. She was thinner than ever and growing too quickly. Already she was aware of a slight deformity in her spine. She dared not tell her mother of this. One could not add to the sorrows of La Refine Malheureuse. Henriette knew that her mother longed for her to grow plump, with rounded cheeks and limbs. She, the daughter of an exiled family, would have nothing to recommend her as a wife but rank and beauty; and at this stage it seemed that the latter would never be hers.

Sometimes she worked in a frenzy that she might please her tutors and Père Cyprien; her knowledge increased and her wits sharpened; for recreation she played the lute and harpsichord and also practiced singing. She improved her dancing, practicing often, sometimes alone, sometimes with her women; she wished to excel at that because Louis set such store by it. Her slenderness gave her grace, and she learned to disguise her slight deformity by the dresses she wore, so that only her intimate attendants were aware of it.

She longed to be able to please her mother. She dreamed sometimes that she had become a bel esprit of the Court; she devised clever remarks; she imagined that Louis himself laughed heartily at her bon mots. It was pleasant dreaming.

Often she was at Chaillot with her mother, and there she was able to please the Queen by waiting at table on the Abbess and her Filles de Marie. They all declared that she was charming, graceful and modest.

And now there had come this invitation to attend the Coronation. Henrietta Maria was delighted.

“So we are not forgotten!” she cried. “On an occasion they realize, do they not, that it would be a great breach of etiquette to ignore such close relationships.”

It was not as her mother believed, Henriette was sure. Louis had wanted them to be present, for Louis—King though he was, haughty though he could be—was more sorry for them than anyone else at the Court. Henriette remembered how he had danced with her and that the frown on his face had meant that he was sorry he had slighted her. He was ashamed of what he had done. Therefore he would take great pains to be kind. That was the sort of boy Louis was. While he had strong desires, while the sycophants about him assured him that his conduct was as perfect as his person, he yet wished to do what was right in his own eyes.

He was sorry for his thin little cousin; therefore he made a point of graciously inviting her and her mother to his Coronation. That was all. Henriette kept reminding herself of this.

Now they were bringing Louis into the Cathedral.

At six o’clock that morning, two Bishops, preceded by the Canons of the Chapter, had gone to the Archbishop’s Palace—where Louis had had his lodging—and up to the King’s bedchamber. The Precentor had knocked on the door with his silver wand.

“What do you want?” the Grand Chamberlain had asked from within.

“We desire the King,” said the Bishops.

“The King sleeps.”

“We desire Louis, the XIV of that name, son of the great Louis XIII, whom God has given us to be our King.”

Then they entered the chamber where Louis had been lying in the state bed, pretending to be asleep. He wore a cambric shirt and red satin, gold-braid-trimmed tunic slit in certain places to allow him to be anointed with holy oil. Over this he wore a robe of cloth of silver, and on his head there was a black velvet cap decorated with feathers and diamonds.

The Bishops and their followers then helped him to rise and conducted him to the Cathedral.

As he entered, between the Bishops, Henriette studied this beautiful boy. All eyes were on him; he was sixteen and the eulogists had not greatly exaggerated when they declared that his youthful beauty was unequaled.

Between the Swiss Guards the procession made its way to the chancel where the King’s chair and prie-dieu, upholstered in purple velvet decorated with the golden lilies of France, had been placed on Turkey rugs.

As she watched the ceremony, Henriette thought of another man whom she loved very dearly indeed. If he could have been in a similar position, how wonderful that would be! If it were Charles who was being anointed with oil, and this ceremony was taking place, not in France but in England, she told herself, she would have felt complete contentment, for then he would take her home with him, and she would live at his Court where there would be no slights, no humiliations; she need not then be disturbed by her feelings for her cousin Louis; she could give herself up to the pleasure of the King of England’s company and forget those incomprehensible longings which were aroused within her by the King of France.

The Bishops were asking those present if they were willing to have this Prince as their King; and the purple velvet sandals were being put on Louis’ feet while he was helped into the robe and dalmatica, and the great ceremonial cloak of purple velvet embroidered with golden lilies was placed about his shoulders. Now he looked indeed magnificent. He held out his hands that the consecrated gloves might be slipped over them and the ring placed on his finger; then he took the Sceptre in his right hand and the Hand of Justice in his left, after which the great Crown of Charlemagne was set upon his head, and he was led to the throne, there to receive the homage of the peers.

“Long live the King!” echoed through the Cathedral and the streets beyond.

Louis XIV, the Roi-Soleil, had been crowned. It was an inspiring ceremony. Tears dimmed Henriette’s eyes. She was praying fervently for the King of England, but the magnificent image of the King of France would come between her and her prayers.

How tired one grew of exile! thought Charles. How weary of moving from place to place in search of hospitality! One had to suppress one’s finer feelings when one was a beggar.

“Ah,” he said one day, as he looked on the river from his lodgings in the town of Cologne, “it is a mercy that I am a man of low character, for how could one of noble ideals tolerate my position? From which we learn that there is good in all evil. A comforting thought, my friends!”

He smiled at his Chancellor, Edward Hyde, who had joined him in Paris some years ago and had since been his most trusted adviser. He liked Hyde—a grim old man, who did not stoop to flatter the King in case he should one day come into his own.

That amused Charles. “Others,” he said, “wish to ensure their future—not that they have any high hopes that I shall be of much use to them—but flattery costs little. Reproaches cost far more. That is why I will have you with me, Edward, my friend. And if there should come that happy day when I am restored to my own, you shall be well paid for those reproaches you heaped upon me when I was in exile. There! Are you not pleased?”

“I should be better pleased if Your Majesty would not merit these reproaches. I would rather have the pleasure of praising you now, than the hope of rewards in the future.”

“Would all men had your honesty, Chancellor,” said the King lightly. “And would I had a state whose affairs were worthy of your counsel. Alas! How do we pass our days? In vain hopes and wild pleasure. What new songs are there to be sung today? Shall we throw the dice again? Any pretty women whose acquaintance we have not made?”