She had been placed in the charge of her maternal grandmother, the Marquise
de Montrond, who had taken ship for Calais when the Court left London,
leaving her royal mistress to weather the storm. A lady who had wealth and
prestige in her own country, who had been a famous beauty when Richelieu
was in power, and who had been admired by that serious and sober monarch,
Louis the Thirteenth, could scarcely be expected to put up with the shifts
and shortcomings of an Oxford lodging-house, with the ever-present fear of
finding herself in a town besieged by Lord Essex and the rebel army.
With Madame de Montrond, Hyacinth had been reared, partly in a mediaeval
mansion, with a portcullis and four squat towers, near the Chateau
d'Arques, and partly in Paris, where the lady had a fine house in the
Marais. The sisters had never looked upon each other's faces, Angela having
entered upon the troubled scene after Hyacinth had been carried across the
Channel to her grandmother. And now the father was racked with anxiety lest
evil should befall that elder daughter in the war between Mazarin and the
Parliament, which was reported to rage with increasing fury.
Angela's awakening reason became conscious of a world where all was fear
and sadness.
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