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Updated: May 20, 2025
Prince Rupert had rooms in the Stone Gallery, which ran along the south side of Privy Gardens, beyond the main buildings of the palace, and beneath him were the apartments of the king's mistresses, Barbara Palmer, Countess of Castlemaine, afterward Duchess of Cleveland, and Louise de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth.
"In my day I have seen King Charles at Hampton Court my Lady Castlemaine, and Mistress Frances Stewart, who married a Duke and had her eyes put out by smallpox and her face spoiled forever, poor soul; and De Querouaille the one you will call Carwell, which is not her name, but a French one and Mazarin and all could see Nell Gwynne who could pay for a seat in the play-house so I may well be a judge of women and have lived gayly myself about the Court.
The correspondence of Bussy-Rabutin furnishes us with a scene of that description: "It is rumoured that Querouaille has been sermonising the King, crucifix in hand, as well both to wean him from other women as to bring him back to Christianity: in fact, it appears that she herself has been very near the point of death.
As she was then placed through the death of the Duchess of Orleans, a convent was the only retreat Mademoiselle Querouaille could look forward to in France; and as religious seclusion was not at all congenial to the lively nymph, she was not found impracticable to Buckingham's overtures. Nor were the latter's efforts entirely disinterested in the matter.
All promotions spiritual and temporal pass under her cognizance." Louise de Querouaille. The Triple Alliance. Louise is created Duchess of Portsmouth. Her grace and the impudent comedian. Madam Ellen moves in society. The young Duke of St. Albans. Strange story of the Duchess of Mazarine. Entertaining the wits at Chelsea. Luxurious suppers. Profligacy and wit.
VERY little is known for certain concerning the antecedents of Louise Querouaille before she figured at the Court of France as one of the maids of honour to the unfortunate Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, sister of Charles the Second of England.
But neither king required urging to a resolution on which both had separately determined; and soon Mademoiselle Querouaille was ready for her journey to England. A yacht was therefore sent to Dieppe to convey her, and presently she was received at Whitehall by the lord treasurer, and her arrival celebrated in verse by Dryden.
Henrietta of England, to whom this romantic tale was carried, became desirous of seeing the heroine of it, and Louise Querouaille was therefore duly introduced to the Duchess. The fictitious Cherubino was cunning enough to represent herself as being the victim of a forcible abduction.
She was sharp, cunning, insinuating, and having gained the confidence and goodwill of the lady to whose care her father had entrusted her, the former introduced her amongst her relations and general society. In that circle Mademoiselle Querouaille ere long inspired passions, rumours of which reached the ears of the old wool-merchant.
In the preface to the French translation of this pamphlet, which bears the title of Histoire secrète de la Duchesse de Portsmouth, it is stated that the author desired to give, by these changes of name, some additional piquancy to the revelations contained in his book. According to such chronicle, the father of Louise Querouaille was a wool merchant of Paris.
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