He left the King a nullity, and the Queen all powerful. She was
young and beautiful then, you see; her husband was marked for death,
her son was an infant. All France was hers--a kingdom of courtiers and
flatterers. And now she is old and ailing; and Mazarin being gone, the
young King will submit to no minister who claims to be anything better
than a clerk or a secretary. Colbert he must tolerate--for Colbert means
prosperity--but Colbert will have to obey. My friend, the Duchesse de
Longueville, who is now living in strict retirement, writes me the most
exquisite letters; and from her I hear all that happens in that country
which I sometimes fancy is more my own than the duller climate where my lot
is now cast. Fifteen years at the French Court have made me in heart and
mind almost a Frenchwoman; nor can I fail to be influenced by my maternal
ancestry. I find it difficult sometimes to remember my English, when
conversing with the clod-hoppers of Oxfordshire, who have no French, yet
insist, for finery's sake, upon larding their rustic English with French
words.
"All that is most agreeable in our court is imitated from the Palais Royal
and the Louvre.
"'Whitehall is but the shadow of a shadow,' says Fareham, in one of his
philosophy fits, preaching upon the changes he has seen in Paris and
London.
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