Dark Eminence Catherine De Medici And Her Children by Marguerite Vance (good e books to read .TXT) 📗

displeasure of her royal husband, try to dissuade her mother from her course? Had she ever dared to try to dissuade her from any course?

Chantonnay, the ambassador, close to despair, tried to reason with Catherine, explaining that the amount of luggage such a vast company would require would delay if not completely disrupt the long trek over the mountains now smothered in snow. She shrugged aside his words.

There were two chief ladies-of-honor; seven ladies-in-waiting; four ladies of the bedchamber and a principal dresser. Three chaplains, a confessor, and the Queen's old preceptor, the Abbe de Saint-Etienne, were sent as her spir-

itual advisers, and Andre de Vermont was appointed her chief maitre d'hotel who in turn had his own trained kitchen staff. Two physicians, two apothecaries and a surgeon were included to look after Elizabeth's health; there were twelve valets de chambre, twelve gentleman ushers, a treasurer of the household, a treasurer of the privy purse, a band of musicians and a dwarf. Several of the ladies were princesses of the blood and these each had her own train of attendants, so the company which finally set out for Spain was gigantic, almost a moving town.

However, Philip with surprising generosity sent convoys of mules with enormous baskets as far as Bayonne to replace the elaborate, heavy chests for transporting the clothing of the Queen and her ladies across the mountains. He sent also additional litters and beds and furs, and a wealth of silver to be distributed at his Queen's discretion among the laborers and muleteers. Certainly His Majesty spared nothing to expedite his bride's journey, and had she been able to conquer her fear of this stranger, she must have sensed there was something kind in his nature to go to such pains for her comfort. All this in spite of the army of French retainers she was bringing against his express wishes.

But Elizabeth, heartsick over farewells yet constrained by etiquette from showing any signs of grief, sat in rigid misery as her litter moved slowly, ponderously across the miles separating her from all she loved.

Ever south and east the cortege moved as the December days shortened and the temperature dropped. Through Pau it wound, down to the frontier of Spain, and now the moun-

tains folded around it, the bleak Pyrenees with their forbidding pealcs and sudden drops into distant valleys.

Arrived at the frontier, Elizabeth asked that her palfrey be brought; so, mounted and riding in queenly dignity, she entered her husband's kingdom. The curtained litter with its snug furs and down cushions would have been vastly more comfortable, but now perhaps this reflective girl, coming out of her depression, was beginning to glimpse something of her husband's generosity. Perhaps for the first time she consciously made a major personal effort to win his admiration. Deep within her may have been the thought that her father would have approved.

That day the cold increased; the wind in gale force brought snow in stinging sheets beating about her or tumbling in great masses from high crags as she urged her horse forward. Again and again she reined in whenever a natural shelter appeared in the mountainside. At twilight, from a high plateau, her party was able through the white blur to make out the roofs of the monastery of Nuestra Senora de Roncevalles in the valley below. Not certain of their location, unaware that it actually was the monastery, fearful of the dangerous descent, the Queen's gentlemen urged her to dismount and return to the litter while they led her palfrey down to safety. But she refused their help, charmingly but definitely.

Slowly, painfully through the winter twilight, the cortege crept slowly down the precipitous slopes, lighted by flambeaux dancing along its length like so many fireflies. So at last they arrived at the chapel where the prior and the monks

were assembled to greet them. By sheer good fortune the cavalcade had arrived at the very spot where the ceremony of the presentation of the Queen to the King's ambassadors had been arranged. To the right of the assembled brothers stood a group of grandees all eager for a glimpse of the bride of their sovereign, all muffled to the eyes in dark cloaks.

Unconscious of the lovely picture she made, Elizabeth sat for a moment looking into the faces of the assembled company, thrown into bold relief by the light streaming from the open doorway. Her cheeks crimsoned by the storm, her eyes feverishly bright with fatigue, she brushed the snow from her lashes and leaning forward in the saddle, smiled her greeting. It was a smile so warm, so touchingly winsome that it drew a murmur from the somber groups facing her. Her head equerry stepped forward and lifted her from the saddle and as he did, he whispered something quickly which brought even deeper color flooding her cheeks. One of the heavily cloaked figures, he murmured, was none other than King Philip himself, too eager to wait longer for a glimpse of her.

The days spent at the monastery where the blizzard shut them in were a seriocomic drama of outraged protocol, sovereign punctilio, and the weather. The French courtiers and the Spanish grandees cordially disliked one another—and showed it. For the ceremony of presentation the Spanish contingent requested the French to bring the Queen to a designated spot in the open country nearby "since true sovereignty knows no limitation of walls builded by man/' The French retorted that their sovereign lady could not be ex-

pected to ride out nor could her ambassadors be expected to kneel in snow over three feet deep! But Elizabeth, determined now to leave no stone unturned to please the King, dressed for the weather only to undress again and have her robes of state put on as the Spanish ambassadors and an impressive group of the clergy were seen approaching, floundering half-frozen through the storm. For them