“But, Papa, I cannot bear it. I cannot.”
“Dearest, you will. We all do. In a little while you will be happy there, and Spain will be your home instead of France.”
“But Spain is not France, and it is France I love.”
“It is your home you love, Elisabeth; and Spain will be your home, for your home will be where your husband is. You must not cry. You must not have red eyes for the ceremony or the King your husband will hear of it and feel slighted. He might even cancel the arrangements!”
“Papa, do you think he would?”
“Elisabeth, if it were not this marriage it would be another.”
“I have prayed, Papa, that something will happen so that I need not go.”
“I said earnest prayers at the time of my own marriage.”
“But you found happiness later.”
“Great happiness, dearest child.”
Then Diane came in and, smiling at the father and daughter, she lifted the hair from Elisabeth’s hot face and kissed her; for Diane behaved as a mother to the royal children, and that was how they thought of their father’s mistress.
She said: “The child is exhausted, and there are all the ceremonies before her! Come, Elisabeth, my dear one, you must go to bed and I will have a soothing draught made for you. I will bring it to you myself and sit with you until you are sleepy. When you are rested you will feel better. Will she not?”
“She will indeed,” said Henri; and as he looked from his daughter to his mistress, it was as though he were telling Elisabeth that even when life seemed very cruel to princes and princesses, it sometimes was very kind to them in unexpected ways.
Little Elisabeth de Valois was formally betrothed to Philip by proxy in the great hall of the Louvre, and as she stood beside the Duke of Alba, with whom was the young Prince of Orange, who had accompanied Alba from the Netherlands, she felt that even Philip could not be more forbidding than his proxy. There was some small comfort in that.
The next day the actual ceremony was solemnized in Notre Dame to the delight of all except the bride, for the pomp and magnificence was equal to that which had enchanted Paris at the marriage of Mary Stuart and the Dauphin of France the year before.
Elisabeth clung to her father’s hand as he led her from the Bishop’s Palace to Notre Dame. Her dress was covered with beautiful pearls, her mantle was of blue velvet, and about her neck was hung a locket containing Philip’s portrait; there was also the huge pear-shaped pearl—the most valuable of all Spain’s crown jewels—a present from the bridegroom to the bride. She looked very small beside her glittering father, who whispered words of comfort to her as he acknowledged the applause of the onlookers. Behind her came her sister Claude to carry her train, with Mary Stuart, the Dauphine. This, thought Elisabeth, was one of the last occasions when she would be surrounded by the members of her beloved family. The Imperial crown which she must carry on her head weighed her down more by its significance than by the weight of gold and jewels.
Now she must stand beside the Duke of Alba, who was dressed in glittering cloth of gold, while the Cardinal of Bourbon proclaimed her the wife of the King of Spain.
The French, unlike the English, could outdo the Spaniards in courtesy and brilliance; and this they proceeded to do to the best of their ability. There was an inevitable undercurrent of uneasiness at such a time; the wedding had not increased the amity between the rival factions of France. The Catholic party, at the head of which were the Guises, was delighted, for the match was very much to their liking; the Protestant party, at the head of which were the Bourbons, was made uneasy by the new and close tie with Catholic Spain.
But, at the brilliant ceremonies that followed, the Guisards and the Bourbons veiled their antagonisms; and when, shortly afterward, the King’s sister was married to the Duke of Savoy, the wedding celebrations in recognition of the double wedding must, all had declared, be doubly magnificent.
As each day passed, the little bride’s uneasiness grew. Nightly she prayed for a miracle. She begged for a few more months, a few more days in France.
There were many interviews with her mother, when she was given instructions as to how she might bind Philip to her; she was continually told that she must remember that first she was a princess of France, and it was the interests of France and her family that she must further.
Ceremonies seemed endless. There were many jousts and tourneys, and always she, with the elder members of her family, must be present in a pavilion of honor to see Frenchmen tilt against Spaniards.
At length there came that day which she would never forget as long as she lived. How could such a day begin so ordinarily! There was nothing in the brilliant June sky to warn them all that this day would be different from any others spent in rejoicing. The crowds were as numerous as ever; the pavilion and dresses of men and women as glittering as was to be expected of the most brilliant court in the world.
The jousting was held close to the Bastille near the gate of St. Antoine. Elisabeth sat with her mother, her sister Claude, and that other bride, her aunt Marguerite. Above their heads the silken canopies kept off the rays of the sun. The crowd was expectant, for the King was to joust today.
Elisabeth was aware that her mother was uneasy. There was an affinity between them, and Elisabeth sometimes thought that she knew more about her mother than the others.
Catherine de Medici was known to be different from other women; no one could have borne as she did the constant humiliation of watching Diane take all the homage which was Catherine’s by right; she had special powers which were given to her by her magicians; she was quiet, and only her children feared her. For, thought Elisabeth, we are the only ones who know the Queen of France.
When the King rode into the arena he was wearing, as he always did, the black-and-white colors of his mistress Diane. It was not this habitual slight which made Catherine uneasy; but there she sat, tense, not missing a single
