llustration: Francis II. and Mary Stuart love making----251]

From that time Mary Stuart was styled in France queen-dauphiness, and her
husband, with the authorization of the Scottish commissioners, took the
title of king-dauphin. "Etiquette required at that time that the heir to
the throne should hold his court separately, and not appear at the king's
court save on grand occasions. The young couple resigned themselves
without any difficulty to this exile, and retired to Villers-Cotterets."
[_Histoire de Marie Stuart,_ by Jules Gauthier, t. i. p. 36.]

Whilst preparations were being made at Paris for the rejoicings in honor
of the union of the two royal children, war broke out in Picardy and
Flanders. Philip II. had landed there with an army of forty-seven
thousand men, of whom seven thousand were English. Never did any great
sovereign and great politician provoke and maintain for long such
important wars without conducting them in some other fashion than from
the recesses of his cabinet, and without ever having exposed his own life
on the field of battle. The Spanish army was under the orders of
Emmanuel-Philibert, Duke of Savoy, a young warrior of thirty, who had won
the confidence of Charles V. He led it to the siege of Saint-Quentin,
a place considered as one of the bulwarks of the kingdom. Philip II.
remained at some leagues' distance in the environs. Henry II. was ill
prepared for so serious an attack; his army, which was scarcely twenty
thousand strong, mustered near Laon under the orders of the Duke of
Nevers, governor of Champagne; at the end of July, 1557, it hurried into
Picardy, under the command of the Constable de Montmorency, who was
supported by Admiral de Coligny, his nephew, by the Duke of Enghien, by
the Prince of Condo, and by the Duke of Montpensier, by nearly all the
great lords and valiant warriors of France; they soon saw that Saint-
Quentin was in a deplorable state of defence; the fortifications were old
and badly kept up; soldiers, munitions of war, and victuals were all
equally deficient. Coligny did not hesitate, however he threw himself
into the place on the 2d of August, during the night, with a small corps
of seven hundred men and Saint-Remy, a skilful engineer, who had already
distinguished himself in the defence of Metz; the admiral packed off the
useless mouths, repaired the walls at the points principally threatened,
and reanimated the failing courage of the inhabitants. The