ent upon the reluctant hospitality of her relatives; and
of her son-in-law, so soon to expiate the errors of his government upon
a scaffold; and in the month of August 1641 she quitted the Court of
London, under the escort of the Marquis of Arundel, and proceeded to
Holland, where the States-General informed her on her landing that the
country was so much impoverished by the long war which it had
sustained, that they were unable to provide funds for her maintenance.

The English Parliament had not, however, suffered her to leave their
shores entirely destitute, but had voted the sum of three thousand
pounds for her immediate expenses, pledging themselves, moreover, to
supply twice that amount at given periods.[229] On her arrival in
Holland Lord Arundel received her final commands, and returned to report
her safe passage to her daughter Henriette; while she herself, attended
only by a few attached followers, painfully pursued her way to Antwerp,
where she resolved, despite the prohibition of the Government, to take
up her temporary abode in the house of Rubens, and to remain in perfect
seclusion. The unfortunate and desolate Queen felt that she should not
experience such utter isolation while she could hold communion with one
true and loyal heart; and the past zeal of the artist-prince in her
service convinced her that from him she should still receive a welcome.

How does destiny at times mock human greatness, and reverse all social
rules! Here was a sovereign Princess, the wife and the mother of kings,
who, after eighteen weary years of struggle and suffering, was about to
solicit a shelter for her gray hairs from the man whom, in 1622, she had
invited to Paris, and upon whom she had lavished both riches and
honour, in order that he might perpetuate with his brilliant pencil the
short-lived triumphs of her regency. Nor was she, in this instance,
fated to disappointment, as her reception by the great painter was as
earnest and as respectful as though she still swayed the destinies
of France.

As Rubens knelt before her, and pressed her thin hand reverently to his
lips, the eyes of Marie de Medicis brightened, and a faint colour rose
to her wasted cheeks. For a time she forgot all her sufferings; and they
talked together of the proud period of her power, when she had laboured
to embellish her beloved city of Paris, and summoned Rubens to the
Luxembourg to execute the magnificent series of pictures which formed
its nob