'
I brightened up when I heard of Father Vincent, and my mother engaged
for me that I should do all that was right, and appealed to my
brother De Solivet to assure the Queen that there had been much
malignant exaggeration about the presumption of my measures and the
discontent of other people's peasants.
Queen Henrietta was quite satisfied, and declared that she would at
once conduct me to her sister-in-law, the Queen-Regent, at the
Tuileries, since she had of course the 'petites entrees,' take her by
storm as it were, and it was exactly the right hour when the Queen
would be resting after holding council.
She called for a looking-glass, and made one of her women touch up
her dress and bring her a fan, asking whether I had ever been
presented. No, my first stay in Paris had been too short; besides,
my rank did not make it needful, as my husband was only Viscount by
favour of his uncle, who let him hold the estate.
'Then,' said the Prince, 'you little know what court is!'
'Can you make a curtsey?' asked the Queen anxiously.
I repeated the one I had lately made to her Majesty, and they all
cried out:
'Oh, oh! that was all very well at home.'
'Or here before I married,' added Queen Henrietta. 'Since Spanish
etiquette has come in, we have all been on our good behaviour.'
'Having come from a barbarous isle,' added the Prince.
The Queen therewith made the reverence which you all know, my grand-
daughters, but which seemed to me unnatural, and the Prince's face
twinkled at the incredulity he saw in mine; but at the moment a
private door was opening to give admission to a figure, not in itself
very tall, but looking twice its height from its upright, haughty
bearing.
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