What a change it was when my son and I had to go into waiting at the
Louvre! Before the Queen-Regent there was nothing but vituperation
of the Parliament, but the Duke of Orleans hates the Cardinal quite
as much as the Parisians did; and his daughter, Mademoiselle, wanted
him to lead the Frondeuse, and chatted to me of her plan of leading
the party, together with the Prince of Conde, whom she eagerly
desired to marry if his poor wife could be divorced. I used to shake
my head at her and say I knew she was too good at the bottom to
desire anything so shocking, and she took it in good part. She was
much better than she chose to seem.
Thus the eve of the Epiphany came, and there was a feast for the King
and his little companions. Gaspard had the Bean, and the Queen
crowned him and made him King of the night. King Louis himself had
to bend the knee, which he did with the best grace in the world.
(You must all have seen the little enamelled Bean-flower badge that
your father received on that night.)
Every one went to see the children at their feast, where the little
English lady Henrietta sat between her two royal cousins, looking
like a rosebud, all ignorant, poor child, of the said disaster which
was falling on her. Her mother was looking on, smiling in the midst
of her cares to see the children's glee.
The Queen-Regent was in the highest spirits. We had never seen her
dignity so relax into merriment as when she set the little ones to
dance together after the supper was over; but she sent them to bed
early, much earlier than her sons desired.
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