. The last of the Valois and accession of Henry of Navarre, 1559-1589. ywelcomed at the court festivities as a new andinspiriting pleasure. Though Queen of France,Catherine de Medici was then a mere cipher inher own court. Her personal attractions werefew, as generally supposed. But whether shereally surpassed all the ladies of the court,Diane of course included, in the fairness of hercomplexion, or that her complexion was of adark olive tint; whether her features were ofthe finely chiselled Italian type, or of thatgrosser one distinctive of the Medici, whose shortlist of virtues and long one
. The last of the Valois and accession of Henry of Navarre, 1559-1589. ywelcomed at the court festivities as a new andinspiriting pleasure. Though Queen of France,Catherine de Medici was then a mere cipher inher own court. Her personal attractions werefew, as generally supposed. But whether shereally surpassed all the ladies of the court,Diane of course included, in the fairness of hercomplexion, or that her complexion was of adark olive tint; whether her features were ofthe finely chiselled Italian type, or of thatgrosser one distinctive of the Medici, whose shortlist of virtues and long one of vices she, as thelast of the elder branch of that famous family,fully inherited; whether she was tall and digni-fied and her figure elegant, or short, stout, andwhile still in her prime unwieldy and with no dig-nity at all, — a dumpy woman, in fact, such asByron hated,—who shall now declare? Forin this varied fashion she has been described byboth the pen of the historian and the pencil of thepainter. Catherine de Medici. Photo-etching from painting by LAST VISITS TO CHAMBORD 89 From the record of her deeds a better judg-ment may be formed of her character. The habitof reticence and dissimulation acquired in hergirlhood concealed abilities and ambitious aspira-tions, which, from the time of Henri death,began to be developed in connection with duplicity,depravity, and crime of deepest dye, rendering herat once the evil genius of France and of her ownsons and daughters. The pastimes of royalty had changed but little,if at all, since Francois I. in 1545 held his court atChambord. It was the chevalier kings last visit;he was then but a wreck of his former self; oldbefore his time; the result of a career of freneticdissipation. Like his grandson, Francois II.—afeeble youth but yet on the threshold of life — hewent with the hope of obtaining perhaps tempor-ary relief from the agonising pains of a fearfuldisease, and to shake off for awhile the melancholythat o
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