Lives of the last four princesses of the royal house of Stuart

16C9.] TEMrOEAEY EEUNION WITH MONSIEUR. 269
Little could the eloquent preacher have been aware
how small was the share of felicity secured to either
Henrietta or her consort, by this union. They were pro-
bably drawn more together by their mutual grief for the
loss of her whom Bossuet commemorated, and his touching
allusions to the events of the early youth of the lovely
weeping Henrietta.
Tenderness for each other was for a brief season revived,
on this solemn occasion, but the revival was evanescent.
Monsieur could not forgive the mental superiority of his
wife, and the charm her winning manners exercised over
the mind of his royal brother.
The loss of Queen Henrietta Maria, was severely felt
both by her daughter and Monsieur. There was, now, no
one to mediate and persuade them into practising their
duties to each other, especially the duties of self-control
and forbearance from angry words and jealous reproaches.
There was one thing in which they acted with generous
unanimity of purpose. Monsieur placed Montagu, the
almoner of his deceased aunt, at the head of his ecclesi-
astical establishment, and Madame received her mother's
aged friend, the Pere Cyprian Gamache, into her house-
hold, as her almoner ; but he did not long survive to enjoy
the bounty of his young royal patroness, or to weep over
her untimely death.
Henrietta gradually recovered her health, and appeared
once more in the gay world. The following glowing
portrait of her was given by Philip, the second Earl of
Chesterfield, in a letter to his friend the Countess of Derby,
in the last year of Henrietta's life.
" The Princess, whom all the world so much admires, at
the first blush, appears to be of the greatest quality, and
has something in her looks, besides her beauty, so new and
unusual, that it surprises the beholders. Her statue