Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/130

Rh it. "A saturnine," says Simon Renard; and another calls him, "a King of Lead." He is, indeed, save when in battle or following the hunt, an inert and sombre youth, with his crooked, sinister mouth, his black, straight hair, his lustreless, black eyes.

In 1533 the King, anxious to conciliate the Papacy, had married Henry to the heiress of Florence and Urbino, the Pope's niece, Catherine dei Medici, a plump child of fourteen, with full lips, large eyes, a retreating chin—a certain vulgar prettiness. She had caressing, charming manners, that made everyone at Court in love with her—except her sombre young husband, with his solemn air of a Spanish grandee, unapproachable and noble. For him his little bride, during her whole life, cherished a devoted passion, that was, perhaps, the only loveable thing in her career. But Henry was at first supremely disgusted with his marriage. Her quickness in pastimes, her lively manners, her neat-ankled prettiness, could not make him overlook the trading ancestry of his bride. Twenty years later the Venetian Ambassadors inform us that all the Court of France looked down on Catherine because she was not of royal blood:—

"She can never do them favours enough. If she gave away the whole of France, they would scarcely thank her, because she is a foreigner; and she has neither credit nor authority, since she is not of royal birth."

"Bah! it is only the shopkeeper's daughter!" said Madame Diane to the little Queen of Scots, more than twenty years after this. And, indeed; though a good enough match for the Duke of Orleans, little Catherine dei Medici, not beautiful even at