Arlington said of him, that he saw at once what was to be done in every affair that was submitted to him, and supported his opinion with good reasons, but that he did not take the trouble to go into the objections that were made, and, if he was spoken to again, often allowed himself to be carried away by the opinions of others.[1] This description was now verified. Charles shrank from the incongruity of the life he was then leading with a conversion which would be an arduous political undertaking. "The danger," says Colbert, "greatly alarms all who are in the secret, yet it has no effect on the mind of the king. But his mode of life — un peu de libertinage, si j'ose parler ainsi — makes him put it off as long as he can." The famous journey of Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, to Dover, in May 1670, settled the question in favour of France. The treaty which was then signed by the four Catholic counsellors of Charles was first published from the English copy by Lingard. Mignet gives it from the French archives, and the texts do not entirely correspond.
Henrietta was in the secret of the whole scheme from the beginning, and we learn through her that Charles was at that time in direct communication with the Holy See. There was a French prelate whom she patronised, Daniel de Cosnac, Bishop of Valence and afterwards Archbishop of Aix, a clever, witty, and extravagant man, highly ambitious of a cardinal's hat. A year before the treaty was signed she wrote to him that, among a variety of affairs which were being treated between France and England, this country would soon have one with Rome of such consequence, and on account of which the Pope would be so happy to oblige the king her brother, that she was persuaded he would refuse him nothing. She had already taken her measures with him to make him ask for a cardinal's hat, without saying for whom ; Charles had promised, and it was to be for Cosnac.[2] After her return from Dover, but a few days before that
