At Pont-à-Mousson Francis took his bride to the convent of Poor Clares, to see his grandmother, Philippa of Guelders, who had taken the veil twenty years before, but still retained all her faculties, and was the object of her sons' devoted affection. The Duke of Guise and his wife constantly visited the good old lady, whose name appears so often in Antoinette's letters, and who now embraced her new granddaughter tenderly and gave the bridal pair her blessing. The next day Christina entered Nancy, where immense crowds assembled to receive her, and choirs of white-robed maidens welcomed her coming at the ancient gateway of La Craffe. One quaint medieval practice which had lasted until this century was dispensed with. It was the custom for a band of peasants from the neighbouring village of Laxou, to beat the pools in the marshes under the palace walls all through the night when the Princes of Lorraine brought their brides home, to drive away the frogs, whose croaking might disturb the ducal slumbers. But instead of this, the peasant women of Laxou stood at the palace gates as the Duchess alighted, and presented her with baskets of flowers and ripe strawberries and cherries.[315] [Sidenote: AUG., 1541] REJOICINGS AT NANCY] A grand tournament was held the following morning, on the Place des Dames in front of the ducal palace, in which many of the Flemish nobles took part, and was followed by a state banquet and ball--"all very sumptuously done," wrote Lord William Howard, the English Ambassador.[316] Then the wedding festivities came to an end, the gay party broke up, and the old city which was henceforth to be Christina's home resumed its wonted air of sleepy tranquillity. FOOTNOTES: [243] Papiers d'État. 82. 20, Archives du Royaume, Bruxelles. [244] Lanz, ii. 297; Calendar of State Papers, xiii. 2, 16. [245] Lanz, ii. 289, 683. [246] State Papers, Record Office, Henry VIII., i. 605; Calendar of State Papers, xiv. 1, 192. [247] Calendar of State Papers, xiv. 1, 348, 374. [248] See Appendix; Papiers d'État, 82, 26, Archives du Royaume, Bruxelles. [249] Hubert Thomas, 376-390; Cust, "Gentlemen Errant," 377-379. [250] "Zimmerische Chronik," ii. 547. [251] H. Thomas, 396. [252] Kaulek, 104. [253] _Ibid._, 105. [254] Calendar of State Papers, xiv. 2, 61; H. Thomas, 393-398. [255] State Papers, Record Office, Henry VIII., i. 616; Calendar of State Papers, xiv. 2, 54. [256] Calendar of State Papers, xiv. 2, 66, 69, 94, 368. [257] H. Thomas, 399-401; Kaulek, 136. [258] Kaulek, 135. [259] Calendar of State Papers, xiv. 2, 215; H. Thomas, 401. [260] Calendar of State Papers, xiv. 2, 127, 232; Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vi. 1, 200; Kaulek, 138, 139. [261] Calendar of State Papers, xiv. 2, 127; Nott, ii. 399. [262] Calendar of State Papers, xvi. 61; Henne, vi. 301-396. [263] State Papers, Record Office, viii. 205. [264] Bulletin de la Commission d'Histoire, série ii., 3, 490.