In October he came to Joinville, and Christina, glad to be relieved of the necessity of going to Court herself, invited him to pay her a visit at Bar. In this once stately Romanesque castle, of which little now remains, the Duchess and the Princess of Orange, "dowagers both," as Wotton remarks, entertained Francis magnificently, and provided a series of hunting-parties and banquets for his amusement. The true object of the King's visit was to arrange a marriage between the Duchess and the Count of Aumale. The young soldier made no secret of his love for his cousin's beautiful widow, Antoinette was anxious to see her son settled, and both the King and the Guises were fully alive to the political advantages of the alliance. On the 26th of October Wotton wrote from Bar, "The fame continues of a marriage between the Dowager of Lorraine and the Count of Aumale," although, as he had already remarked in a previous letter, it was hard to believe the Duchess's uncles would consent to the union. Aumale's own hopes were high, and he sent a messenger to Scotland to tell his sister of the good cheer which they were enjoying in Madame de Lorraine's house at Bar.[389] [Sidenote: OCT., 1546] MARRIAGE PROPOSALS] But these hopes were doomed to disappointment. Christina was determined never to marry again. Like her aunt, Mary of Hungary, having once tasted perfect happiness, she was unwilling to repeat the experiment. Her beauty was in its prime, her charms attracted lovers of every age and rank. During the next ten or twelve years she was courted by several of the most illustrious personages and bravest captains of the age. She smiled on all her suitors in turn, and gave them freely of her friendship, but remained true to her resolve to live for her children alone, and took for her device a solitary tower with doves fluttering round its barred windows, and the motto _Accipio nullas sordida turris aves_ (A ruined tower, I give shelter to no birds), as a symbol of perpetual widowhood.[390]