to a "good boy" of
twenty-two! Dangerous relationship! And dangerous, indeed, it would
have been for Mary, had she not been as pure and true as she was
wilful and impetuous. "Mon beau fils" allowed neither his wife nor the
respect he owed the king to stand in the way of his very marked
attention to the queen. His position as heir, and his long residence
at court, almost as son to Louis, gave him ample opportunities for
pressing his unseemly suit. He was the first to see Mary at the
meeting place this side of Abbeville, and was the king's
representative on all occasions.

"Beau fils" was rather a handsome fellow, but thought himself vastly
handsomer than he was; and had some talents, which he was likewise
careful to estimate at their full value, to say the least. He was very
well liked by women, and in turn considered himself irresistible. He
was very impressionable to feminine charms, was at heart a libertine,
and, as he grew older, became a debauchee whose memory will taint
France for centuries to come.

Mary saw his weakness more clearly than his wickedness, being blinded
to the latter by the veil of her own innocence. She laughed at, and
with him, and permitted herself a great deal of his company; so much,
in fact, that I grew a little jealous for Brandon's sake, and, if the
truth must be told, for the first time began to have doubts of her. I
seriously feared that when Louis should die, Brandon might find a much
more dangerous rival in the new king, who, although married, would
probably try to keep Mary at his court, even should he be driven to
the extreme of divorcing Claude, as Claude's father had divorced Joan.

I believed, in case Mary should voluntarily prove false and remain in
France, either as the wife or the mistress of Francis, that Brandon
would quietly but surely contrive some means to take her life, and I
hoped he would. I spoke to my wife, Jane, about the queen's conduct,
and she finally admitted that she did not like it; so I, unable to
remain silent any longer, determined to put Mary on her guard, and for
that purpose spoke very freely to her on the subject.

"Oh! you goose!" she said, laughingly. "He is almost as great a fool
as Henry." Then the tears came to her eyes, and half angrily, half
hysterically, shaking me by the arm, she continued: "Do you not know?
Can you not see that I would give this hand, or my eyes, almost my
life, just to fall upon my face in front of Charles Brandon at this