As if to make amends for these delays, the great lords in attendance overwhelmed the Ambassadors with civilities. Aerschot invited them to dinner; Count Büren embraced them warmly and asked affectionately after the King; De Praet, Molembais, and Iselstein, escorted them to the door, and Don Diego made them a present of wine. When Wriothesley fell ill of fever at Cambray, the Queen sent her own physician to attend him, and begged him either to remain there or return to Brussels. This he refused to do, and travelled on by slow stages to Compiègne, hoping to obtain another audience there. But the roads were bad, and two leagues from Cambray one of the carts broke down, leaving the English without household stuff or plate when Don Diego came to supper.[209] On Tuesday news reached Cambray that King Francis was on his way to salute the Queen, and Mary rode out to meet him, leaving the Duchess of Milan at home with others, who like herself, remarks Wriothesley, had no great liking for Frenchmen.[210] But the King's greeting was most cordial, and when, on the following day, Queen Eleanor arrived with a great train of lords and ladies, there was much feasting and merriment, until on the 10th the whole party started for Compiègne. It was a brilliant company that met in the ancient castle of the French Kings, in the forest on the banks of the Oise, near the bridge where, a hundred years before, Jeanne d'Arc had made her last heroic stand. King Francis had summoned all the Princes and Princesses of the blood to do honour to the Queen of Hungary, and the neighbouring villages were filled to overflowing with Court officials and servants. There was the King himself, a fine figure in cloth of gold and nodding plumes, gallant as ever in spite of ill-health and advancing years, with a glance and smile to spare for every fair lady; and there was his consort, Queen Eleanor, too often neglected by her fickle lord, but now radiant with happiness, and in her beautiful robes and priceless pearls, as winning and almost as fair as when she fascinated the young Palatine twenty years ago. The sense of family affection was as strong in Eleanor as in all the Habsburgs, and she was overjoyed to meet her sister and embrace the daughter of the beloved and lamented Isabella. With her came the King's daughter Margaret, the homely-featured but pleasing and accomplished Princess for whom a royal husband was still to be found, and who, the courtiers whispered, might now wed the Prince of Spain. [Sidenote: OCT., 1538] A BRILLIANT COMPANY]