All along Mary had been playing a delaying action. She could not leave Boulogne; she was too weary after her sea crossing; she must wait for the rest of her fleet to arrive, for they contained her wardrobe, and her bodyguard.

She was sorry when, sooner than she had believed possible, the missing vessels arrived in Boulogne; for then there was no longer any excuse to delay.

The journey southward must begin, and Mary rode out of the town attended by her archers and horsemen, her baggage and her chariots.

It seemed to her that she heard the notes of doom in the sound of the horses’ hooves for every hour now brought her nearer to the husband who could only bring her happiness by his death.

Within a few days the cavalcade would be in Abbeville; they had rested at the mansion of a nobleman who was eager to do the Queen honor as he had been commanded by the King.

Nothing must be spared in making her welcome, Louis had said; and he expected obedience.

A rich apartment had been allotted to her, the walls of which were hung with tapestries and cloth of gold; and as she was being prepared for the day’s journey she heard the sounds of arrival below, and a great fear came to her. Could it be Louis, impatient to see his bride, who had ridden here? They were within a few days of Abbeville, so it was possible.

“Holy Mother,” she prayed, “help me. Do not let me betray the loathing I know I shall feel. Let me forget for a while the beauty of my Charles, that I do not compare him with my husband.”

“Go to the window and see who comes,” she said to her women; and it was Lady Guildford who, knowing her mistress’s feelings better than most, apprehensively obeyed.

She stood for some seconds at the window, and Mary, suddenly impatient, joined her there.

It was an elegant company and the center of attraction was an extremely tall man who sat his horse as though he had lived all his life in the saddle. He was laughing and, suddenly, seeming to know that he was watched, raised his eyes and saw the two at the window.

He snatched off his hat and bowed. Mary could not take her eyes from his face because it was such an unusual one. He radiated vitality in a manner she had only seen equaled by her lover and brother; his eyes were dark as sloes, but his most arresting feature was a nose so long that it gave a humorous touch to his face.

Mary turned away from the window because she feared she had stared too long.

“It is not the King,” she said to Lady Guildford.

“Some noble Duke, I’ll swear,” was the answer, “sent to welcome Your Grace.”

The chatelâine of the mansion asked permission to enter.

She curtsied and lifting her flushed face to Mary said: “Your Highness, the Duc de Valois is below and asking permission to be brought to you.”

“Pray bring him to me,” said Mary.

When they were alone, Lady Guildford said: “Do you know who this is? The Duc de Valois is also the Duc de Bretagne and Comte d’Angoulême. Moreover he is the Dauphin.”

“I have heard much of him.”

Lady Guildford caught her mistress’s hand. “Have a care, my dearest lady. This man could be dangerous. He will be watching you. He may well be your enemy. Do not forget the crown of France is at stake. If you give the King of France an heir, this man will no longer be the Dauphin. He stands to lose a throne.”

There was no time for more, because the door was opened and in came François, the heir presumptive to the crown of France, his brilliant eyes amused, his long nose giving him a look of slyness, his sensuous lips curved in a smile.

He came to Mary and knelt; then he lifted his eyes to her face and there was nothing but intense admiration in his gaze; the slightly impudent eyes, traveling over her body from head to foot, implied a knowledge of the feminine anatomy and its potentialities.

He rose to his feet, towering above her—for he was as tall as Charles, as tall as Henry—and he said: “Madame, but you are enchanting. Rumor has not lied. The King of France is the luckiest man alive.”

Mary had caught something of her lady-governess’s fear, but she felt suddenly alive. She did not know whether this man was going to be her bitterest enemy or not; but she did know that he had driven away her listlessness.

François the Dauphin had entered her life, and she, like any other woman, could not be indifferent to his presence there.


SOME SIXTEEN YEARS before François, the heir presumptive to the throne of France, had his first meeting with Mary Tudor, he was in the gardens surrounding the château, which was his home in Cognac, with his sister, Marguerite, who was two years older than himself.

François, even at four, had an air of distinction. He was tall for his age, sturdy, healthy, handsome, and in addition to his physical perfections he had already shown himself to be quick-witted. He knew he was the most important person at the château; yet he did not make those about him suffer the tantrums of a spoiled child. He accepted the fact of his importance as naturally as he accepted the sun and the rain.

This was partly due to his sister, herself as handsome and even more clever—but that might have been because she had two years’ advantage. They did not quarrel as most children do. If she thought François needed correction, Marguerite explained gravely where he was wrong, and because he knew that everything his sister or his mother did was to his advantage, he would listen with serious attention.

Life at Cognac was quiet and well ordered, presided over by the children’s mother—good-looking, energetic and twenty-two years old. She was Louise, Duchess of Savoy, some two years a widow; her hair was of a light auburn shade, her eyes blue, her skin fair; she was not tall, as her children promised to be, but petite and dainty; she was marriageable, but so far had eluded the propositions which had been made for her. All her passion and devotion was for her children and, because one of these was a boy, because it was not inconceivable that a great future might be his, she had imbued her daughter, Marguerite, with her own enthusiasms; and the little girl was learning, as her mother did, to make the boy the center of her life.

So now in the gardens of Cognac Marguerite sat with François under a tree and read aloud to him while he leaned against her and watched her finger as it pointed out the words she read. He was contented because he knew that when he tired of the book Marguerite would tell him stories of her own invention; and the hero of these stories, who always faced great odds and overcame them, was a man of kingly bearing, of great nobility, for whom some sort of crown was waiting—but Marguerite never explained what crown—and he was dark, and saved from being effeminately beautiful by a long nose which somehow was very attractive simply because it was his. This hero had a variety of names; he might be Jean, Louis, Charles … but the boy knew that these names were disguises, and he was in truth François.

A pleasant occupation; lying in the hot sun, watching the peasants at work in the vineyards, thinking of his pony which he could ride when he wished, although he must take a groom with him, because his mother was afraid for him to ride alone. But that was only because as yet he was four years old and one did not remain at four forever.

Any problem, any fear he had only to take to Marguerite or his mother and they would lay aside what they were doing to put his mind at peace.

Life was good when at four years old one was the center of it. The peasants showed their respect for him. When he went by on his little pony they shouted for Angoulême. “Now that your father is dead,” his mother told him, “you are the Comte d’Angoulême and these people look to you as their master.” But because he was clever he knew how much he depended on those two who were always at his side; so he listened to them and gave them love for love.

There was not a happier family in France than that one at Cognac.

From a window of the château, Louise watched her children. There could be no more lovely sight for her. Her charming daughter, with the book in her lap and her adored one leaning against his sister. She often told herself that life had begun for her with his birth, and that while she could plan and scheme for him she would find it well worth living. His childhood should be happy in every respect; it should be quite different from that which she had suffered. Although had she suffered? Not really, because she had never been one to accept defeat. She had always believed that she had had a proud destiny; and she had learned what it was: To be the mother of François.

Now here at Cognac on a lovely spring day she thought of Amboise. There she was, a little girl walking discreetly with her governess in the grounds of the château. She could almost feel the heat of those stone walls against her back; she could clearly see the cylindrical towers and the great buttresses, the tall windows rising behind her; and, below the rocky plateau on which the château stood, the valleys of the Loire and the Amasse. She had been brought up with the Court by the eldest daughter of Louis XI, the Regent Anne of France, who ruled France until such time as her little brother Charles should be old enough to take the crown.

They had not been entirely happy days for one as proud as Louise of Savoy, because Anne had been a stern guardian. There were no fine clothes, no jewels, few pleasures. Louise must learn to be a serious young woman who would gratefully accept the husband who had been assigned to her. It was true that Louise’s aunt, Charlotte, had been the wife of Louis XI, but although she was Queen of France she had been of small account, and all knew that Louis had taken a malicious pleasure in bullying the poor woman until she almost lost her senses.

Therefore it was scarcely likely that Louis’s stern daughter should consider Charlotte’s niece of much account; yet, as a member of the family of Savoy, which through the marriage had been linked with the royal family, the child must be cared for.

What long days they had been, sitting quietly in one of the great chambers of the Château d’Amboise, working unobtrusively at one’s tapestry, keeping one’s ears open, taking in all and saying nothing. Yet Anne of France had not neglected her word; Louise must learn to play the lute, to dance in a sober fashion; she must study affairs so that she would not be a complete fool in conversation.

The husband Anne chose for Louise was Charles d’Angoulême, son of Jean d’Angoulême, who was a grandson of Charles V, and thus not without some claim to the throne.

Louise remembered, as a little girl of eleven, being betrothed to Charles, who was sixteen years older than she was and not very pleased to be given a child for his bride. His domestic affairs were a little complicated. He had a mistress, Jeanne de Polignac, who had given him a child; and he had installed her in his château at Cognac. Jeanne was a clever woman and had taken under her care two other illegitimate children of her lover’s; it was a pleasant easygoing household he had set up in Cognac, and Charles felt that an eleven-year-old wife would be a complication.

However the Regent Anne was insistent and the ceremony had taken place.

How well Louise remembered arriving at Cognac; a little apprehensive, eager to please her husband, determined to have a son; she could never forget her husband’s connection with the royal family, and she could not help being secretly delighted that the young King, Charles VIII, was malformed and possibly would not have healthy children.

At Cognac Jeanne de Polignac was in control as the chatelaine of the establishment; and with her was her daughter Jeanne (who was also Louise’s husband’s daughter) and the little Souveraine and Madeleine whom he accepted as his, although Jeanne was not their mother.

It was a cozy household, efficiently managed by Jeanne, herself completely contented because she knew that a Polignac could not marry a Comte d’Angoulême. She gathered the young bride in her maternal arms and treated her as another daughter; and Louise, shrewd, wise, understanding her husband’s devotion to this woman, and that as yet he had no need of herself, accepted the situation.

Later she was glad of that move, for the good-hearted Jeanne became her greatest friend and confidante and helped her to live more comfortably through those first years of marriage than she otherwise would have done.

Now, looking at her own children, she was thinking of all this. Jeanne was still in the château, as devoted to little Marguerite and François as she was to her own Jeanne and Souveraine and Madeleine. Jeanne was a wonderful manager, now as she had always been; and what they would have done without her, Louise could not imagine, for Charles was comparatively poor and had always found it a struggle to live as a man of his rank should. Therefore little entertaining had taken place at Cognac, and often a strict economy had been necessary; but all were ready and willing to serve the Comte for, as his men and maid servants reminded themselves often, in serving their master they were serving the great-grandson of a King of France.