Shortly afterward "la reine blanche" returned to her native Scotland, bidding France that long, last, sad adieu so often quoted:
"Farewell, beloved France, to thee!
Best native land,
The cherished strand
That nursed my tender infancy!
Farewell my childhood's happy day!
The bark, which bears me thus away,
Bears but the poorer moiety hence,
The nobler half remains with thee,
I leave it to thy confidence,
But to remind thee still of me!"
The young sovereigns had had a most stately suite of apartments prepared for them at Amboise, the lofty windows reaching from floor to ceiling and overlooking the river and the vast terrace where was so soon to be enacted that bloody drama to which they were to be made unwilling witnesses.
This gallery was wainscoted with old oak and hung with rich leathers, and the lofty ceiling was emblazoned with heraldic emblems and monograms, as was the fashion of the day. Brocades and tapestries, set in great gold frames, lined the walls, and, in a boudoir or retiring-room beyond, still definitely to be recognized, was a remarkable series of embroidered wall decorations, a tapestry of flowers and fruits with an arabesque border of white and gold, truly a queenly apartment, and one that well became the luxurious and dainty Mary, who came from Scotland to marry the youthful François.
Mary Stuart knew little at the time as to why they had so suddenly removed from Blois, but François soon told her, something after this wise: "Our mother," said he, "is deeply concerned with affairs of state. There is some conspiracy against her and your uncles, the Guises."
"Tell me," she demanded, "concerning this dreadful conspiracy."
"Were you not suspicious," he asked, querulously, "when we left for Amboise so suddenly?"
"Ah, non, mon François, methought that we came here to hold a jousting tourney and to hunt in the forest...."
"Well, at any rate, we are secure here from Turk, or Jew, or Huguenot, my queen," replied the king.
Within a short space a council was called in the great hall of Amboise, which the Huguenot chiefs, Condé, Coligny, the Cardinal de Chatillon,—who appears to have been a sort of a religious renegade,—were requested to attend. A conciliatory edict was to be prepared, and signed by the king, as a measure for gaining time and learning further the plans of the conspirators.