On her return, Christina wrote the following letter to the Emperor:
"Monseigneur,
"I have been to Joinville in accordance with Your Majesty's advice, and have sent full particulars of my interview with the King to Monsieur d'Arras. I beg you, Monseigneur, to give me your commands as to my future conduct, as my only wish is to obey Your Majesty to the end of my life.
"Your very humble and very obedient niece,
"Chrestienne.
"From Nancy. April 5, 1552."[455]
A few days of anxious suspense followed. The French Queen fell ill of quinsy, and was in danger of her life. Solemn prayers and litanies were chanted for her recovery in all the churches, and Diane of Poitiers hastened to Joinville, where she found the King "playing the good husband at his wife's bedside."[456] But by Palm Sunday Catherine recovered sufficiently for Henry to leave her in the charge of Duchess Antoinette and continue his march. On Monday, the 11th of April, he joined the Constable before Toul, which opened its gates the next day. On the 13th the King left the bulk of the army to go on to Metz with the Constable, and, taking the household cavalry and a few companies of men-at-arms under the Duke of Guise, turned his steps towards Nancy.
II.
April, 1552] THE FRENCH AT NANCY
Eastertide, 1552, was a sad and memorable epoch in the annals of Lorraine. At two o'clock on Maundy Thursday, Henry II. entered Nancy at the head of his troops, with trumpets blowing and banners flying. For the first time in the last hundred years, foreign soldiers were seen within the walls of Nancy. The Cardinal and the Duke of Guise rode on before, to inform the Duchess of the King's coming and see that due arrangements were made for his reception. Christina nerved herself for a final effort, and with splendid courage prepared to welcome the enemy of her race within her palace gates. Salutes were fired from the bastions as the King entered the town, and the young Duke rode out to meet him at the head of the nobles and magistrates, and escorted him to the church of St. Georges. Here Henry alighted, and the citizens held a canopy of state over him as he entered the ancient shrine of the Lorraine Princes, and, after kissing the relics of the saints on the altar steps, prayed by the tomb of King René. Then the young Duke led him through the stately portal, under his grandfather's equestrian statue, to the hall where his mother was waiting to receive her royal guest, with the Duchess of Aerschot and the young Princesses. Henry, the Duke of Guise, the Cardinal, the Marshal St. André, and 200 gentlemen of the royal household, were sumptuously lodged in the ducal palace, while the troops were quartered in the town, and French guards were stationed at the gates, not without a protest from Baron d'Haussonville.[457]
That evening the Duchess entertained her guests at a magnificent banquet in the Galerie des Cerfs, and the brilliantly-lighted hall, with its vaulted fretwork of blue and gold, frescoed walls, and rich tapestries, excited the admiration of all the French.