embassy, after ten days of high revelry at Dover, is well-known history.
Charles, in response to his favourite sister's pleading and bribes, not
only consented to desert his allies, but, as soon as he decently could,
to follow in the steps of his brother, the Duke of York, to Rome; and in
return for these evidences of friendship, Louis was gracious enough to
promise him substantial aid and protection; and, further, to grant him a
subsidy of £1,000,000 a year if he would take up arms with France
against Holland.

It is more to our purpose to know that among the gay galaxy of courtiers
who accompanied Madame to England was Louise de Querouaille, who thus
first set eyes on the King, in whose life-drama she was to play so
brilliant and baleful a _rôle_; and that before Charles, with streaming
eyes, said "good-bye" to his scheming sister, she had made excellent use
of her opportunities to enslave this English "King of Hearts." So much
at least was reported to Louis on the return of the embassy, when he
was assured by Madame that, of all the beautiful women in her train, the
only one to make any impression on her Royal brother was Louise de
Querouaille.

This information, no doubt, was in Louis' mind when, later, it became
necessary to cement Charles's allegiance to his compact. Gold was always
a potent lure to the "Merrie Monarch," whose purse was never deep enough
for the demands made on it by his extravagance; but a still more
seductive bait was a beautiful woman to add to his seraglio. The Duchess
of Cleveland had now lost her youth and good looks; the incomparable
Stuart's beauty had been fatally marred by small-pox. Of all the fair
and frail women who had held Charles in thrall there was none left to
dispute the palm with the French maid-of-honour except Nell Gwynn, the
Drury Lane orange-girl, whose sauciness and vulgarity gave to the jaded