Love Romances of the Aristocracy | Page 2

a
mother's pride.
Even before she emerged from short frocks, Frances Stuart had
established herself as the pet par excellence of the Court of France.
With Anne of Austria the little Scottish maiden was a prime favourite;
every gallant, from "Monsieur" to the rakish Comte de Guise, loved to

romp with her, and to join in her peals of childish laughter; and the
King himself, Louis XIV., stole many a kiss, and was proud to be
called her "big sweetheart." So devoted was His Majesty to La belle
Ecossaise that, when her mother talked of taking her away to England,
he begged that she would not remove so fair an ornament from his
Court, and vowed that he would provide the child with a splendid
dower and a noble husband if she would but allow her to remain.
But Madame Stuart had other designs for her pretty daughter; and when
Henrietta Maria took boat to England to shine again at the Court of
Whitehall, under her son's reign, Frances Stuart joined her retinue, and
found herself transported from the schoolroom to the most brilliant and
dangerous court in Europe. When this transformation came in her life
Walter Stuart's daughter was just blossoming into as sweet and fragrant
a flower as ever bloomed in woman's guise. Fair and graceful as a lily,
with luxuriant brown hair, eyes of violet, and a proud, dainty little head,
she had a figure which, although yet not fully formed, was faultless in
its modelling and its exquisite grace. And these physical charms were
allied to an unspoiled freshness, which combined the artless
fascinations of the child with the allurements of the woman.
Such was Frances Stuart when she made her appearance at the Court of
Charles II. as maid-of-honour, to his Queen, Catherine; and one can
scarcely wonder that, even among the most beautiful women in
England, the French "Mademoiselle," as she was called, was hailed as a
new revelation of female fascination, especially as she brought with her
the bubbling gaiety and passionate zest of life of the land of her exile.
To the "Merrie Monarch's" senses, sated with riper beauties and more
stolid charms, this unspoiled child of nature was as a wild rose
compared with exotic hot-house flowers. She was, he vowed, so
"dainty, so fresh, so fragrant," that none but the sourest of anchorites
could resist her--and he was no anchorite, as the world knew well.
Almost at sight of her he fell madly in love with her, and brought to
bear on her the battery of all his fascinations. Was ever maid placed, on
the threshold of life, in so dangerous a predicament? For the King, who
was her first lover, was also one of the most captivating men in

England, a past-master in the conquest of woman. But, in response to
all his advances, his honeyed words and oglings, the Stuart maid only
laughed a merry childish laugh. She would romp with him, as she had
done with the gallants at the French Court; to her he was only another
"big playfellow" to tease and play with. She knew nothing of love, and
did not wish to know more. He might kiss her--_vraiment_--why not?
and that Charles made abundant use of this concession, we know, for
we are told that "he would kiss her for half an hour at a time," caring
little who looked on.
And all her other Whitehall lovers--a legion of them, from the Duke of
Buckingham to the youngest page at Court, she treated in precisely the
same way. Was it innocence or artfulness, this assumption of childish
prudery? "She was a child," says Count Hamilton, "in all respects save
playing with dolls"--a child who refused to grow into a woman, and yet,
one shrewdly suspects that behind her childishness was a motive deeper
than is usually associated with so much simplicity.
She infected the whole Court with her exuberant youthfulness.
Basset-tables and boudoir intrigues were alike deserted to enjoy the
new era of nursery games which she inaugurated. Jaded gallants and
sedate Ladies of the Bedchamber mingled their shrieks of laughter in
blind-man's buff and hunt-the-slipper with the Stuart maid as Lady of
Misrule and arch-spirit of jollity. Pepys was shocked--or affected to
be--one day by seeing all the great and fair ones of the Court squatting
on the floor in the Whitehall gallery playing at "I love my love with an
A because he is Amorous"; "I hate him with a B because he is Boring,"
and so on; and no doubt rocking with glee at some sally of wit, for,
Pepys says, "some of them were very witty."
The little madcap even carried her games and toys into the sacred
environment of the Audience Chamber. Seated on the floor, innocently
exposing the prettiest pair