So she stood, waiting for her lover, as she was pleased to consider him; and Rénèe was sorry for her mistress from her heart.
And now the doors at the foot of the stairs were opened, and the full August sun fell on the black and orange of the halberdiers, the spearmen, and harquebusiers, the gleaming weapons and fluttering banners that rose above the heads of the crowd that filled the market square.
Outside the town hall the whole splendid cavalcade had halted, and presently, through the broad shaft of sunshine and in at the doors came the Elector, accompanied by several other German princes and the bridegroom, escorted by his three brothers—the Counts John, Adolphus, and Louis.
At the foot of the stairs these gentlemen paused for a second, and among those waiting at the top there was the slightest movement and murmur—a bending forward of expectant faces, the rustle of stiff satins.
There was indeed great curiosity to behold the bridegroom, many of those present having never seen him before; Rénèe, more curious because more thoughtful than the others, stepped lightly from behind her mistress and gazed down the stairs.
She saw one cavalier come forward from the others and ascend the stairs a little in advance of them; this was he whose fame had travelled so far, who had been so criticized, so discussed in Saxony, whose marriage project had been the subject of so many intrigues and broils in Madrid, Brussels, and Dresden.
Slowly he came up the stairs, his eyes fixed on Anne, and himself the subject of all regards.
Rénèe watched him long, intently.
This was her first sight of him, and she was long to remember this brilliant scene, long to recall in other scenes of terror, misery, and exaltation that figure coming up the stairs with the blaze of sunshine and the little group of princes behind him.
This, her first impression of William of Orange, was of a gentleman of extreme good looks with the carriage of a soldier and the grace of a courtier. He was slender, twenty-eight years of age, and of a Southern type—dark, warmly coloured, with a small head and regular features, the nose straight, the lips full, the eyes chestnut brown, large, and well-opened; his red-brown hair was short, thick, and curling, his beard close shaven, his complexion dark. He wore still a simple dress of tawny velvet buttoned high under the chin and, turning over with a little collar of embroidered lawn, it was slashed over an under-vest of scarlet, and the sleeves and breeches were of black silk fretted with silver work; his one adornment was a long gold chain of massive links, passed six times round his neck; he carried his gloves and a black cap with a heron's plume in his left hand.