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the eyes of the queen herself. The talk of the court was of intrigue and
lust and evil things which often verged on crime. Catherine de' Medici
herself kept her nominal husband at arm's-length; and in order to
maintain her grasp on France she connived at the corruption of her own
children, three of whom were destined in their turn to sit upon the
throne.

Mary Stuart grew up in these surroundings until she was sixteen, eating
the fruit which gave a knowledge of both good and evil. Her intelligence
was very great. She quickly learned Italian, French, and Latin. She was
a daring horsewoman. She was a poet and an artist even in her teens. She
was also a keen judge of human motives, for those early years of hers
had forced her into a womanhood that was premature but wonderful. It had
been proposed that she should marry the eldest son of Catherine, so
that in time the kingdom of Scotland and that of France might be united,
while if Elizabeth of England were to die unmarried her realm also would
fall to this pair of children.

And so Mary, at sixteen, wedded the Dauphin Francis, who was a year her
junior. The prince was a wretched, whimpering little creature, with a
cankered body and a blighted soul. Marriage with such a husband seemed
absurd. It never was a marriage in reality. The sickly child would cry
all night, for he suffered from abscesses in his ears, and his manhood
had been prematurely taken from him. Nevertheless, within a twelvemonth
the French king died and Mary Stuart was Queen of France as well as of
Scotland, hampered only by her nominal obedience to the sick boy whom
she openly despised. At seventeen she showed herself a master spirit.
She held her own against the ambitious Catherine de' Medici, whom she
contemptuously nicknamed "the apothecary's daughter." For the brief
period of a year she was actually the ruler of France; but then her
husband died and she was left a widow, restless, ambitious, and yet no
longer having any of the power she loved.

Mary Stuart at this time had become a woman whose fascination was
exerted over all who knew her. She was very tall and very slim, with
chestnut hair, "like a flower of the heat, both lax and delicate." Her
skin was fair and pale, so clear and so transparent as to make the story
plausible that when she drank from a flask of wine, the red liquid could
be seen passing down her slender throat.

Yet with all this she was not fine in texture, but hardy as a man. S