way, and led him towards the
garden.

CHAPTER 35. On the Canal

Upon the green waters of the canal bordered with marble, upon which time
had already scattered black spots and tufts of mossy grass, there
glided majestically a long, flat bark adorned with the arms of England,
surmounted by a dais, and carpeted with long damasked stuffs, which
trailed their fringes in the water. Eight rowers, leaning lazily to
their oars, made it move upon the canal with the graceful slowness of
the swans, which, disturbed in their ancient possessions by the approach
of the bark, looked from a distance at this splendid and noisy pageant.
We say noisy--for the bark contained four guitar and lute players, two
singers, and several courtiers, all sparkling with gold and precious
stones, and showing their white teeth in emulation of each other, to
please the Lady Henrietta Stuart, grand-daughter of Henry IV., daughter
of Charles I., and sister of Charles II., who occupied the seat of honor
under the dais of the bark. We know this young princess, we have seen
her at the Louvre with her mother, wanting wood, wanting bread, and
fed by the coadjuteur and the parliament. She had, therefore, like her
brothers, passed through an uneasy youth; then, all at once, she had
just awakened from a long and horrible dream, seated on the steps of
a throne, surrounded by courtiers and flatterers. Like Mary Stuart on
leaving prison, she aspired not only to life and liberty, but to power
and wealth.

The Lady Henrietta, in growing, had attained remarkable beauty, which
the recent restoration had rendered celebrated. Misfortune had taken
from her the luster of pride, but prosperity had restored it to her.
She was resplendent, then, in her joy and her happiness,--like those
hot-house flowers which, forgotten during a frosty autumn night, have
hung their heads, but which on the morrow, warmed once more by the
atmosphere in which they were born, rise again with greater splendor
than ever. Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, son of him who played so
conspicuous a part in the early chapters of this history,--Villiers of
Buckingham, a handsome cavalier, melancholy with women, a jester
with men,--and Wilmot, Lord Rochester, a jester with both sexes,
were standing at this moment before the Lady Henrietta, disputing the
privilege of making her smile. As to that young and beautiful princess,
reclining upon a cushion of velvet bordered with gold, her hands hanging
li