lation du voyage de la reine Isabelle
d'Espagne a Bayonne, MSS. Belgian Archives, Compte Rendu de la commission
royale d'histoire, seconde serie, ix. (1857) 159. This paper was drawn up
by the Secretary of State Courtewille, and sent to President Viglius.

[383] Over the first triumphal arch was a representation of Isabella (or
Elizabeth) trampling Mars under foot, with the mottoes _Sacer hymen pacem
nobis contulit_ and _Deus nobis haec otia fecit_, and below the lines:

Elizabeth, de roy fille excellente,
Vous avez joint ung jour deux rois puissans;
France et l'Espaigne, en gloire permanente,
Extolleront voz ages triumphans, etc.

Over a second arch at the palace gate, which was reached by a street hung
with tapestry and decorated with the united arms of France and Spain, was
suspended a painting of Catharine with her three sons and three daughters,
and the inscription:

C'est a l'entour de royalle couronne
Que le jardin hesperien floronne:
Ce sont jardins de si belle feconde,
Qui aujourd'huy ne trouve sa seconde;
Ce sont rameaux vigoureux et puissans;
Ce sont florons de vertu verdissans.
Royne sans per (paire), de grace decoree,
Vous surmontez Pallas et Cytheree.

Catharine's portraits scarcely confirm the boast of her panegyrist that
she surpassed Venus, however well she might match Minerva in sagacity.

[384] Agrippa d'Aubigne, Histoire universelle, i. 1.

[385] "Le feu bon homme Monsieur de La Gaucherie y marchoit en rondeur de
conscience, et mesme mon filz lui doibt et aux siens cette rasine (racine)
de piete qui lui est, par la grasse de Dieu, si bien plantee au cueur par
bonnes admonitions, que maintenant, dont je loue ce bon Dieu, elle produit
et branches et fruitz. Je lui suplie qu'il luy fasse ceste grasse qu'il
continue de bien en mieulx." Letter of Dec. 6, 1566, MSS. Geneva Library,
Bulletin de la Soc. de l'hist. du prot. francais, xvi. (1867) 65.

[386] "Ung tournoy a pied."

[387] It will be remembered that the Spaniards never acknowledged the
claim of Antoine or his wife to the title of sovereigns of Navarre. In all
Spanish documents, therefore, such as that which we are here following,
their son Henry is designated only by the dukedom of Bourbon-Vendome which
he inherited from his father.

[388] Relation du voyage de la reine Isabelle a Bayonne, MSS. Belgian
Archives, _ubi supra_, ix. 161, 162.

[389] See Jean de Serres, iii., 53, for the fr