merchant's daughter to the proud rank of Duchesse d'Aubigny, in exchange
for which dignity she pledged herself to induce Charles to go to war
with Holland; to avow himself a Catholic; and to persuade his brother
and successor, the Duke of York, to take to wife a Princess of France.

Louise de Querouaille had now reached a dizzier height than, in the
wildest dreams of her girlhood, she had ever hoped to climb. She was a
double-Duchess, of England and of France, the mistress and counsellor of
a puppet-King, and an arbiter of the destinies of nations. Well might
her humble father, when he paid his Duchess-daughter a visit in London,
throw up his hands in amazement at the splendours with which his "petite
Louise" had surrounded herself! So high had she climbed that it seemed
at one time that even the Crown of England was within her reach; for
when Catherine was brought to the verge of death the Duchess was
probably not alone in thinking that she might be her successor on the
throne.

"She has got the notion," wrote the French Ambassador,
"that it is possible she may yet be Queen of England. She
talks from morning till night of the Queen's ailments as
if they were mortal."

But at least, if the crown was not to be hers, there was as much gold to
be had as she cared to garner. Not content with her allowance, which,
nominally £10,000 a year, in one year reached the enormous sum of
£136,000, she heaped fortune on fortune by trafficking in a wide range
of commodities, from peerages and Court appointments to Royal pardons
and slaves. A few years of such rich harvesting made her incomparably
the richest woman in England, although she squandered her ill-gotten
gold with a prodigal hand. Her apartments at Whitehall were crowded with