When Queen Henriette arrived in Paris she was received with honours and with promises. The courtiers donned their festive robes "broidered with gold and with silver,"[91] and went to Montrouge to meet her and escort her into Paris. Anne of Austria received her affectionately and seated her at her right hand at banquets. Mazarin announced that she was to draw a salary of twelve hundred francs per diem; in short, everything was done to flatter the English guest. The credulous Henriette accepted the flattery and the promises literally and she was dazed, when, awaking to the truth, she found that she was a beggar. Recording the history of that epoch, Mademoiselle said:
"The Queen of England had appeared everywhere in Paris attended like a Queen, and with a Queen's equipage. With her we had always seen her many ladies of quality, chariots, guards, and footmen. Little by little all that disappeared and the time came when nothing was more lacking to her dignity than her retinue and all the pomps to which she had been accustomed."
Queen Henriette was obliged to sell her jewels and her silver dishes; debts followed debts, and the penniless sovereign had no way to meet them. The little court of the Louvre owed the baker and could not pay its domestic servants. Mme. de Motteville visited the Louvre and found Queen Henriette practically alone. She was sitting, dejectedly meditating, in one of the great empty salles; her unpaid servitors had abandoned her and her suite had gone where they could find nourishment.
[Illustration: HENRIETTA, DUCHESSE D'ORLÉANS
In her account of her visit Mme. de Motteville said:
She showed us a little golden cup, from which she habitually drank, and she swore to us that that was all the gold of any kind that had been left in her possession. She said that, more than that, all her servants had demanded their wages and said that they would leave her service if she refused to satisfy their demands; and she said she had not been able to pay them.
The spectacle of royal poverty and the tragical turn taken by English affairs gave Mademoiselle cause for serious thought. She saw that whatever the Prince might be in the future, he was not a desirable suitor at the epoch existent; and she spoke freely: