true
representative of his subjects, and that the king had the same feelings
with the people: this indeed was not always the case! This transaction
took place in 1626, and when, four years afterwards, it was attempted
again to introduce certain French persons, a bishop and a physician,
about the queen, the king absolutely refused even a French physician,
who had come over with the intention of being chosen the queen's, under
the sanction of the queen mother. This little circumstance appears in a
manuscript letter from Lord Dorchester to M. de Vic, one of the king's
agents at Paris. After an account of the arrival of this French
physician, his lordship proceeds to notice the former determinations of
the king; "yet this man," he adds, "hath been addressed to the
ambassador to introduce him into the court, and the queen persuaded in
cleare and plaine terms to speak to the king to admit him as domestique.
His majesty expressed his dislike of this proceeding, but contented
himself to let the ambassador know that this doctor may return as he is
come, with intimation that he should do it speedily; the French
ambassador, willing to help the matter, spake to the king that the said
doctor might be admitted to kiss the queen's hand, and to carrie the
news into France of her safe delivery: which the king excused by a civil
answer, and has since commanded me to let the ambassador understand,
that he had heard him as Monsieur de Fontenay in this particular, but,
if he should persist and press him as ambassador, he should be forced to
say that which would displease him." Lord Dorchester adds, that he
informs M. de Vic of these particulars, that he should not want for the
information should the matter be revived by the French court, otherwise
he need not notice it.[216]

By this narrative of secret history, Charles the First does not appear
so weak a slave to his queen as our writers echo from each other; and
those who make Henrietta so important a personage in the cabinet, appear
to have been imperfectly acquainted with her real talents. Charles,
indeed, was deeply enamoured of the queen, for he was inclined to strong
personal attachments;[217] and "the temperance of his youth, by which he
had lived so free from personal vice," as May, the parliamentary
historian expresses it, even the gay levity of Buckingham seems never,
in approaching the king, to have violated. Charles admired in Henrietta
all those personal graces which he himsel