第34章 CHAPTER XXIV.(2)

The marriage was celebrated at the chateau, without any special ceremonies or preparations; so much so that two cushions, which had been forgotten, had to be hastily fetched. I saw what was the matter, and motioning the two attendants of the royal sacristy, I whispered to them to fetch what was wanted from my own apartment.

Not knowing to what use these cushions were to be put, my 'valet de chambre' brought the flowered velvet ones, on which my dogs were wont to lie. I noticed this just as their Highnesses were about to kneel down, and I felt so irresistibly inclined to laugh that I was obliged to retire to my room to avoid bursting out laughing before everybody.

Fortunately the Guises did not get to know of this little detail until long after, or they might have imagined that it was a planned piece of malicious mockery. However, it is only fair to admit that the marriage was treated in a very off-hand way, and it is that which always happens to people whose modesty and candour hinder them from posing and talking big when they get the chance. A strange delusion, truly!

Mademoiselle d'Orleans, the eldest child of the second marriage, is considered one of the prettiest and most graceful of blondes. Her endowments were surely all that a princess could need, if one except reserve in speaking, and a general dignity of deportment.

When it was a question of giving her to Prince de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, she was all the while sincerely attached to handsome Prince Charles de Lorraine, her maternal cousin. But the King, who, in his heart of hearts, wanted to get hold of Lorraine for himself, could not sanction this union; nay, he did more: he opposed it. Accordingly the Princess, being urged to do so by her mother, consented to go to Italy, and as we say at Court, expatriate herself.

The Bishop of Nziers, named De Bonzy, the Tuscan charge d'afaires, came, on behalf of the Medici family, to make formal demand of her hand, and had undertaken to bring her to her husband with all despatch. He had undertaken an all too difficult task.

"Monsieur de Bonzy," said she to the prelate, "as it is you who here play the part of interpreter and cavalier of honour as it is you, moreover, who have to drag me away from my native country, I have to inform you that it is my intention to leave it as slowly as possible, and to contemplate it at my leisure before quitting it forever."And, indeed, the Princess desired to make a stay more or less long in every town en route. If, on the way, she noticed a convent of any importance, she at once asked to be taken thither, and, in default of other pastime or pretext, she requested them to say complines with full choral accompaniment.

If she saw some castle or other, she inquired the name of its owner, and, though she hardly knew the inmates, was wont to invite herself to dinner and supper.

The Bishop of Beziers grew disconsolate. He wrote letters to the Court, which he sent by special courier, and I said to the King, "Pray, Sire, let her do as she likes; she will surely have time enough to look at her husband later on."Near Saint Fargeau, when the Princess heard that this estate was her sister's, Mademoiselle sent a gentleman with her compliments, to ask if she would give her shelter for twenty-four hours. Instead of twenty-four hours' stay, she proceeded to take up her abode there; and, provided with a gun and dogs, she wandered all over the fields, always accompanied by the worthy Bishop, at whose utter exhaustion she was highly amused.

At length she left her native land, and joined her husband, who seemed somewhat sulky at all this delay.

"I cannot love you just yet," quoth she, weeping; "my heart is still another's, and it is impossible to break off such attachments without much time and much pain. Pray treat me with gentleness, for if you are severe, I shall not do you any harm, but I shall go back to the Luxembourg to my mother."