Yes, to you I will say it, that there was a
face among the ladies here which I could not look on calmly, and I
knew it was best for her and for myself that I should be away.'
'Is she there still?' I asked.
'I know not. Her husband had taken her to his country-house last
time I heard, and very few know that I am not gone with the King. It
was but at the last moment that he forbade me. It is better so.'
I thought of what his hostess had told me, but I decided for the
present to keep my own counsel.
We thought it right to pay our respects to the Princess of Orange,
but she was keeping very little state. Her husband, the Stadholder,
was on bad terms with the States, and had just failed in a great
attack on Amsterdam; and both he and she were indisposed. The
Princess Royal replied therefore to our request for admittance, that
she could not refuse to see such old friends of her family as the
ladies of Ribaumont, but that we must excuse her for giving us a
private reception.
Accordingly we were conducted through numerous courts, up a broad
staircase of shining polished wood, through a large room, to a
cabinet hung with pictures, among which her martyered father held the
foremost place. She was a thin woman, with a nose already too large
for her face, inherited no doubt from her grandfather, the Grand
Monarque, and her manner had not the lively grace of her mother's,
but seemed as if it had been chilled and made formal by her being so
early transported to Holland.
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