She then put her hand in mine and murmured, "I am ready any time you wish."
Great heaven! I thought I should go out of my senses. She should have told me gradually. I had to do something to express my exultation, so I walked over to a bronze statue of Bacchus, about my size—that is, height—put my hat—which I had been carrying under my arm—on his head, cut a few capers in an entirely new and equally antic step, and then drew back and knocked that Bacchus down. Jane thought I had gone stark mad, and her eyes grew big with wonder, but I walked proudly back to her after my victory over Bacchus, and reassured her—with a few of Mary's messages that I had still left over, if the truth must be told. Then we made arrangements that resulted in our marriage next morning.
Accordingly, Queen Mary and one or two others went with us down to a little church, where, as fortune would have it, there was a little priest ready to join together in the holy bonds of wedlock little Jane and little me. Everything so appropriate, you see; I suppose in the whole world we couldn't have found another set of conditions so harmonious. Mary laughed and cried, and laughed again, and clapped her hands over and over, and said it was "like a play wedding"; and, as she kissed Jane, quietly slipped over her head a beautiful diamond necklace that was worth full ten thousand pounds—aside, that is, from the millions of actual value, because it came from Mary. "A play wedding" it was; and a play life it has been ever since.
We were barely settled at court in Paris when Mary began to put her plans in motion and unsettle things generally. I could not but recall Henry's sympathy toward Louis, for the young queen soon took it upon herself to make life a burden to the Father of his People; and, in that particular line, I suppose she had no equal in all the length and breadth of Christendom.
I heartily detested King Louis, largely, I think, because of prejudice absorbed from Mary, but he was, in fact, a fairly good old man, and at times I could but pity him. He was always soft in heart and softer in head, especially where women were concerned. Take his crazy attempt to seize the Countess of Croy while he was yet Duke of Orleans; and his infatuation for the Italian woman, for whom he built the elaborate burial vault—much it must have comforted her. Then his marriage to dictatorial little Anne of Brittany, for whom he had induced Pope Alexander to divorce him from the poor little crippled owlet, Joan. In consideration of this divorce he had put Cæsar Borgia, Pope Alexander's son, on his feet, financially and politically. I think he must have wanted the owlet back again before he was done with Anne, because Anne was a termagant—and ruled him with the heaviest rod of iron she could lift. But this last passion—the flickering, sputtering flame of his dotage—was the worst of all, both subjectively and objectively; both as to his senile fondness for the English princess and her impish tormenting of him. From the first he evinced the most violent delight in Mary, who repaid it by holding him off and evading him in a manner so cool, audacious and adroit that it stamped her queen of all the arts feminine and demoniac. Pardon me, ladies, if I couple these two arts, but you must admit they are at times somewhat akin. Soon she eluded him so completely that for days he would not have a glimpse of her, while she was perhaps riding, walking or coquetting with some of the court gallants, who aided and abetted her in every way they could. He became almost frantic in pursuit of his elusive bride, and would expostulate with her, when he could catch her, and smile uneasily, like a man who is the victim of a practical joke of which he does not see, or enjoy, the point. On such occasions she would laugh in his face, then grow angry—which was so easy for her to do—and, I grieve to say, would sometimes almost swear at him in a manner to make the pious, though ofttimes lax-virtued, court ladies shudder with horror. She would at other times make sport of his youthful ardor, and tell him in all seriousness that it was indecorous for him to behave so and frighten her, a poor, timid little child, with his impetuosities. Then she would manage to give him the slip; and he would go off and play a game of cards with himself, firmly convinced in his own feeble way that woman's nature had a tincture of the devil in it. He was the soul of conciliatory kindness to the young vixen, but at times she would break violently into tears, accuse him of cruelly mistreating her, a helpless woman and a stranger in his court, and threaten to go home to dear old England and tell her brother, King Henry, all about it, and have him put things to right and redress her wrongs generally. In fact, she acted the part of injured innocence so perfectly that the poor old man would apologize for the wrongs she invented, and try to coax her into a good humor. Thereupon she would weep more bitterly than ever, grow hysterical, and require to be carried off by her women, when recovery and composure were usually instantaneous. Of course the court gossips soon carried stories of the quick recoveries to the king, and, when he spoke to Mary of them, she put on her injured air again and turned the tables by upbraiding him for believing such calumnies about her, who was so good to him and loved him so dearly.
I tell you it is a waste of time to fight against that assumption of injured innocence—that impregnable feminine redoubt—and when the enemy once gets fairly behind it one might as well raise the siege. I think it the most amusing, exasperating and successful defense and counter attack in the whole science of war, and every woman has it at her finger-tips, ready for immediate use upon occasion.
Mary would often pout for days together and pretend illness. Upon one occasion she kept the king waiting at her door all the morning, while she, having slipped through the window, was riding with some of the young people in the forest. When she returned—through the window—she went to the door and scolded the poor old king for keeping her waiting penned up in her room all the morning. And he apologized.
She changed the dinner hour to noon in accordance with the English custom, and had a heavy supper at night, when she would make the king gorge himself with unhealthful food and coax him "to drink as much as brother Henry," which invariably resulted in Louis de Valois finding lodgment under the table. This amused the whole court, except a few old cronies and physicians, who, of course, were scandalized beyond measure. She took the king on long rides with her on cold days, and would jolt him almost to death, and freeze him until the cold tears streamed down his poor pinched nose, making him feel like a half animated icicle, and wish that he were one in fact.
At night she would have her balls, and keep him up till morning drinking and dancing, or trying to dance, with her, until his poor old heels, and his head, too, for that matter, were like to fall off; then she would slip away from him and lock herself in her room. December, say I, let May alone; she certainly will kill you. Despite which sound advice, I doubt not December will go on coveting May up to the end of the chapter; each old fellow—being such a fine man for his age, you understand—fondly believing himself an exception. Age in a fool is damnable.
Mary was killing Louis as certainly and deliberately as if she were feeding him slow poison. He was very weak and decrepit at best, being compelled frequently, upon public occasions, such, for example, as the coronation tournament of which I have spoken, to lie upon a couch.