Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/434

take advantage of the approaching visit of the French court to Flanders to pay a short visit to her relatives in England. The real object of the visit was carefully concealed. Louis further condescended to request his brother to return, and the duke was only too glad to accept the overture. On 24 Feb. 1670 he and the duchess reached Paris. Their return to court was followed by an apparent reconciliation to each other, but before long their quarrels recommenced. Philippe roundly abused his wife, while Henrietta spoke of her husband more cautiously, yet none the less contemptuously. She now had constant consultations with the king, who often took her opinion upon home affairs independently of his ministers. At length the duke was induced to allow Henrietta to cross to Dover, but she was by no means to proceed to London, nor to be absent for more than three days. The journey into Flanders commenced on 28 April. In Flanders Henrietta surprised M. de Pomponne, agent of Louis in Holland, by her business capacity. She embarked from Dunkirk for England on 24 May. In her train went as a maid of honour Louise de Querouaille, upon whom Louis relied to captivate Charles. Before Henrietta reached Dover the king, the Duke of York, Prince Rupert, and the young Duke of Monmouth rowed out to welcome her. Dover Castle was fitted up for her reception. Henrietta, in her own name and that of Louis, recommended ‘the restoration of the Roman Catholic religion and of absolute power.’ She advised Charles to ‘flatter the English Protestant Church, and by alternately coaxing and persecuting dissenters to render them at last … subservient to his will.’ He was also to join with France against Holland, the commercial rival of England, and to support the claim of the house of Bourbon to the monarchy of Spain. Louis engaged to pay a large subsidy, and promised to support Charles with an army against any insurrection in England. ‘She concluded her harangue,’ writes one who was present, ‘and spoke the rest with an eloquence of a more transcendent kind, and which, though dumb, infinitely surpassed the force of her reasons or of her more charming words.’ Charles was greatly impressed by the ‘wonderful patheticalness of her discourse,’ but urged a few objections. On 1 June, within six days of her landing, she obtained his signature to the treaty. Colbert went over with it to Calais, where Louis was in readiness to add his signature, and hastened back in triumph to Dover. Henrietta even flattered herself that in a few more days, if Turenne were sent over on pretext of conducting her home, she could persuade her brother to a declaration of war against Holland. But Philippe, who had already been compelled by Louis to grant his wife an extension of time, would hear of no further delay, and Louis also was fearful lest the presence of Turenne in England should excite the suspicions of the Dutch. Henrietta re-embarked for France on 12 June. Charles promised her a present of six thousand pistoles for her travelling expenses, for which she had pawned some of her jewels; gave her a parting gift valued at two thousand pistoles; and told her that he wished her to leave him one of her jewels, namely Louise de Querouaille, as a token of affection. Henrietta refused to leave her maid of honour, but promised not to oppose the girl's return to England in case he should obtain for her an appointment as maid of honour to his queen. On reaching St. Germains (18 June) Henrietta found that her husband had been annoyed by the reports of the secret negotiation and by the warmth of Louis's gratitude. Louis took every opportunity of showing her honour in public, and privately presented her with six thousand pistoles that she might redeem her pawned jewels and reserve for her own use the money promised by her brother. To mortify his wife the duke retired with her to St. Cloud on 24 June. On 26 June, during a visit to the court at Versailles, Philippe was irritated by surprising the king and Henrietta in a confidential conversation, which ceased the moment he entered the room. He left Versailles in anger, and took away his wife bathed in tears. Her health was uncertain, but, in spite of the remonstrances of her chief physician, she persisted in bathing in the Seine. On the afternoon of 29 June, after drinking a cup of chicory-water, she was seized with violent pains and vomiting. She declared repeatedly that she was poisoned. She died about half-past two o'clock in the morning of 30 June 1670, within ten hours from the commencement of the attack. A post-mortem examination was hurriedly conducted by a young and unskilful French surgeon, and the death assigned to natural causes. Horrible suspicions, however, arose. Saint Simon asserts that she was deliberately poisoned, with her husband's connivance, by his first squire, D'Effiat, and the Count de Beuvron, captain of the guards, acting on the instructions of the Chevalier de Lorraine, who supplied the drug. None of these persons were punished or even removed from their places, from fear of exciting suspicion. Lorraine was even recalled. On 21 Aug. Henrietta was buried with extraordinary magnificence at St. Denis. Bossuet pronounced the funeral oration. The