Cecile was never strong enough to give her attendance there, but she made clothes which were given to the patients when they came out.  We spent our mornings much as of old; the two elder children generally went to mass with me at St. Germain l’Auxerrois, and if the day were fine, I would take them for a few turns in the Tuileries Gardens afterwards before I taught them their little lessons, and gave my orders to the servants.

Then all the family met a breakfast, after which Gaspard had half an hour more of study with the Abbe, for he was beginning Latin, and was a very promising scholar.  He prepared his tasks with me before breakfast, and got on admirably.

Then, unless I had to be at the hospital, we sat together at our embroidery—­Cecile, Annora, and I—­while the Abbe read to us.  It was very hard to poor Nan to sit still, work, and listen.  She had been used to such an active unsettled life during the war, and had been put to so many shifts, having at times for months together to do servant’s work, that she knew not how to be quiet.  Embroidery seemed to her useless, when she had cooked and washed, and made broths, and scraped lint for the wounded, and she could not care for the history of the Romans, even when Eustace had given her his word they were not Roman Catholics.

She used to say she had the cramp, or that her foot was asleep, and rush off to play with the children, or to see if my mother wanted her.  My mother did not care for the reading, but she did want Nan to learn to sit in her chair and embroider, like a demoiselle bien elevee, instead of a wild maiden of the civil wars.  However, my mother spent most of her day in waiting on the Queen of England, who was very fond of her, and liked to have her at her levee, so that we really saw very little of her.

My brother, when not needed by his Queen, nor in consultation with the cavaliers, or with his lawyers, would often join in our morning’s employment.  He was not strong, and he liked to recline in a lager chair that I kept ready for him, and listen while the Abbe read, or sometimes discuss with him questions that arose in the reading, and this was a great relief to Nan, who seldom declared that her feet tingled when he was there.

After our dinner we either walked in the garden where the children played, or went out to make visits.  In the evening there were receptions.  We had one evening to which, as I said, came our poor exiled countrymen, and there were other assemblies, to some of which we went by invitation; but at the Hotel de Rambouillet, and one or two others we knew we were always welcome.  There we heard M. Corneille read the Cid, on of his finest pieces, before it was put on the stage.  I cannot describe how those noble verses thrilled in our ears and heart, how tears were shed and hands clasped, and how even Annora let herself be carried along by the tide.  Clement Darpent was often there, and once or twice recited again, but Madame de Rambouillet always took care first to know what he was going to say.  A poem upon St. Monica was the work of his that I liked bets, but it was not so much admired as verses more concerned with the present.