he ordered him to be gone forthwith from the kingdom.  A negotiation was commenced for accomplishing the marriage, long since agreed upon, between the young Queen of Scotland, Mary Stuart, and Henry II.’s son, Francis, dauphin of France.  Mary, who was born on the 8th of December, 1542, at Falkland Castle in Scotland, had, since 1548, lived and received her education at the court of France, whither her mother, Mary of Lorraine, eldest sister of Francis of Guise and queen-dowager of Scotland, had lost no time in sending her as soon as the future union between the two children had been agreed upon between the two courts.  The dauphin of France was a year younger than the Scottish princess; but “from his childhood,” says the Venetian Capello, “he has been very much in love with her Most Serene little Highness the Queen of Scotland, who is destined for his wife.  It sometimes happens that, when they are exchanging endearments, they like to retire quite apart into a corner of the rooms, that their little secrets may not be overheard.”  On the 19th of April, 1558, the espousals took place in the great hall of the Louvre, and the marriage was celebrated in the church of Notre-Dame.

[Illustration:  Francis II. and Mary Stuart love making——­251]

From that time Mary Stuart was styled in France queen-dauphiness, and her husband, with the authorization of the Scottish commissioners, took the title of king-dauphin.  “Etiquette required at that time that the heir to the throne should hold his court separately, and not appear at the king’s court save on grand occasions.  The young couple resigned themselves without any difficulty to this exile, and retired to Villers-Cotterets.” [Histoire de Marie Stuart, by Jules Gauthier, t. i. p. 36.]

Whilst preparations were being made at Paris for the rejoicings in honor of the union of the two royal children, war broke out in Picardy and Flanders.  Philip II. had landed there with an army of forty-seven thousand men, of whom seven thousand were English.  Never did any great sovereign and great politician provoke and maintain for long such important wars without conducting them in some other fashion than from the recesses of his cabinet, and without ever having exposed his own life on the field of battle.  The Spanish army was under the orders of Emmanuel-Philibert, Duke of Savoy, a young warrior of thirty, who had won the confidence of Charles V. He led it to the siege of Saint-Quentin, a place considered as one of the bulwarks of the kingdom.  Philip II. remained at some leagues’ distance in the environs.  Henry II. was ill prepared for so serious an attack; his army, which was scarcely twenty thousand strong, mustered near Laon under the orders of the Duke of Nevers, governor of Champagne; at the end of July, 1557, it hurried into Picardy, under the command of the Constable de Montmorency, who was supported by Admiral de Coligny, his nephew, by the Duke of Enghien,