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On reaching Dunkirk, the Duchess of Orleans embarked for England with her maid-of-honour and a small but chosen retinue, and met Charles at Dover, where this secret negotiation was initiated. The result anticipated came to pass, and proved that Louis had not miscalculated the power of his sister-in-law over her easy-going and unscrupulous brother.
The look in the eyes of the Duke's Daughter became like steel and her voice hardened, and Angele realised that Leicester had in this beautiful and delicate maid-of-honour as bitter an enemy as ever brought down the mighty from their seats; that a pride had been sometime wounded, suffered an unwarrantable affront, which only innocence could feel so acutely.
Lady Bloomfield, while maid-of-honour to the Queen, was much in the society of royalty. The following are extracts from her Reminiscences, giving a sketch of the life at Windsor in 1843: 'I went to the Queen's rooms yesterday, and saw her before we began to sing. She was so thoroughly kind and gracious. The music went off very well.
He had the soft purring ways of a cat, the tact of a Jesuit, the penetration of a money-lender, the sensibility of a musical amateur, and the morals of a maid-of-honour. He had extraordinary command over himself; he seemed able to do everything, and wishful to win nothing. It was the very boundlessness of his desires which reined him in.
Miss Clifford dismissed the maid-of-honour. She was sitting in her own special easy-chair, and Beth stood before her. "My dear child," she said to Beth, "why are you always alone? Are the girls not kind to you?" "Oh yes, thank you," Beth answered, "they are quite kind." "Then why are you always alone?" "I like it best."
Aiming rather to stimulate than gratify the languid desires of her brother for fresh feminine novelty, the Duchess of Orleans, with finished finesse, appeared not to perceive the attention which the piquant charms and almost childish grace of her young maid-of-honour won from the captivated King. Nor did she, at her departure, leave Louise in England, as some historians have erroneously supposed.
The revolutionists had sworn to kill the King's son, and by some means discovered his whereabouts in England; whereupon four of them were chosen to go there and assassinate him. By good fortune I learnt the truth, and as maid-of-honour to the Queen resolved to say nothing, but to go alone to England in secret and rescue the Crown Prince.
One of the windows of Miss Clifford's sitting-room overlooked this part of the garden, and Beth noticed the old lady once or twice standing in the window, but it did not occur to her that she was watching her. One day, however, Miss Clifford sent a maid-of-honour to fetch her; and Beth went in, wondering what she had done, but asked no questions; calm indifference was still her pose.
Though the date is uncertain, it was at the Court of Lorraine that Agnes became maid-of-honour to the Duchess Isabelle, wife of René, Duke of Anjou and Lorraine, and Count of Provence, a prince distinguished for chivalry and learning. This intellectual and chivalrous atmosphere must have been peculiarly congenial to the sympathetic and versatile nature of Agnes Sorel.
She had in her veins the blood of the ducal Hamiltons of Scotland, and of many a noble family of Russia, from which her more immediate ancestors had taken their wives; and it was an ill fate that took her, when little more than a child, to the most debased Court of Europe to play the part of maid-of-honour, and thus to cross the path of the most unprincipled lover in Europe.
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