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

well, for which I greatly rejoice, and pray you to persevere in as the greatest good that can befall you in this world. For the gifts which we owe to Nature are of short duration, and age will deprive us of them. Fortune may likewise withdraw her favors: but that good thing which Virtue bestows (and she is wooed only by the diligent pursuit of letters) is immortal and will remain with us always.

Thus wrote the schoolgirl back in the sixteenth century.

So the schoolroom quarrels of the two girls were quickly over, but between Mary and Queen Catherine there existed an antagonism which one day caused Mary's Scottish temper to flare. Catherine, her maternal instinct to reprimand overcoming for the moment the realization that her young guest was a queen and she, Catherine, merely a queen consort,

corrected Mary sharply for some childish fault. Too late she saw her mistake when Mary, manners tossed to the winds, lashed out in royal fury.

'Til not be scolded by a merchant's daughter!'' shouted the little Queen as she ran from the room. Reared in an atmosphere of petty gossip, she had picked up the slur easily enough, probably abetted by her uncles, the Guises. But Catherine never forgave her.

However, Mary seemed incapable of bearing a grudge. Busy with her Latin, Greek, Spanish, French and Italian during the study hours, she was ringleader in the games the royal children played in the grand salon of the palace during the morning and afternoon recess periods,

In 1548 another princeling arrived in the nursery, little Louis, who became one of Mary's favorites but who died of croup two years later, about the time his brother Charles was born. Then came Henry, then Marguerite, and last of all, in 1554, Hercules, to be known as the Duke of Alengon.

As time passed the Dauphin found himself becoming more and more attached to the pretty girl whom he now knew he would one day marry. She was beautiful and gay; she sang love rondels in a surprisingly rounded voice, accompanying herself on the lute; and young Francis, delicate lad that he was, did his utmost to make a good showing himself in the masculine arts. He begged his father to let him join him hunting and learned with agonizing effort to handle a heavy crossbow. He was a young boy deep in the turmoil of his first love, and when on an April morning in 1558 he knelt beside the lovely little Scottish Queen in Notre Dame, he

held his breath and let it out in great gulps lest his happiness overcome him and he break into noisy sobs of joy.

Escorted by his two younger brothers and the King of Navarre, a relative, and surrounded by princes of the blood, he awaited his bride at the west door of the Cathedral. King Francis escorted her, and an old history describes the fifteen-year-old girl as being "fair as unto a lily/' Her wedding gown was cloth of silver, its train borne by two young noblewomen, and on her head, that proud beautiful head one day to fall under the executioner's ax, she wore a crown studded with priceless jewels.

Behind her walked Catherine, Elizabeth, Claude, and little five-year-old Marguerite who pranced a little in her heavy velvet gown with its stiff Spanish ruff and false sleeves. Just outside the portals of the Cathedral, Francis slipped the wedding ring on Mary's finger, then hand in hand the young couple passed into the Sanctuary for the celebration of the Mass and the completion of the ceremony. The rest of the day and night was taken up with feasting and elaborate masquerades.

Elizabeth, her whole generous nature eager to accept unconditionally this fascinating young sister-in-law whom she did not like, danced the stately pavane with her, smiling gravely into the sparkling, provocative face. She had her reward when she caught a glimpse of Francis watching them and saw his look of beaming delight at their apparent mutual affection. The fourteen-year-old bridegroom wanted the whole world to love his bride.

Elizabeth, her mother's favorite daughter, had been trained

from babyhood in the art of politics. From the time she was ten years old she was permitted to sit beside her august mother—on a cushion at her feet—when the Queen granted audiences to visiting dignitaries, and so she learned not only some invaluable lessons in royal deportment but a great deal about what was transpiring in the world outside the fastness of her own sheltered life.

Among other things she learned of the religious hatreds dividing the world into warring camps, and because, unlike many children of royalty, she was deeply, sincerely religious, gentle and compassionate rather than ambitious, she heard with growing horror the stories of religious persecution com-

ing from many quarters. That her mother should sit quietly with folded hands, a half-smile on her lips, as the horrid tales were told filled the Princess with strange misgivings. Nor were the revelations all horrifying; some were only dull and rather puzzling. There was, for instance, the name of King Philip II of Spain, son of the greatest of all Hapsburg Emperors, Charles V. Between 1554 and 1558 the Emperor abdicated as head of the Holy Roman Empire, dividing his realm between his brother and his son, Philip II. As his portion Philip received Spain, Sicily, Naples, the Netherlands and Spanish America, a mighty empire, indeed. Elizabeth listened, uneasy yet curious, to the disquieting tales told of Philip's young son, Don Carlos, a boy about her own age whose name was being linked ever so discreetly with hers.

"Mother, Your Grace," she said one day when for a few moments they were alone, "Don Carlos methinks is not of a merry heart, is he?" It was only a few weeks before the wedding of Francis and Mary Stuart and somehow an atmosphere of romantic excitement pervaded the whole