Eastertide, 1552, was a sad and memorable epoch in the annals of Lorraine. At two o'clock on Maundy Thursday, Henry II. entered Nancy at the head of his troops, with trumpets blowing and banners flying. For the first time in the last hundred years, foreign soldiers were seen within the walls of Nancy. The Cardinal and the Duke of Guise rode on before, to inform the Duchess of the King's coming and see that due arrangements were made for his reception. Christina nerved herself for a final effort, and with splendid courage prepared to welcome the enemy of her race within her palace gates. Salutes were fired from the bastions as the King entered the town, and the young Duke rode out to meet him at the head of the nobles and magistrates, and escorted him to the church of St. Georges. Here Henry alighted, and the citizens held a canopy of state over him as he entered the ancient shrine of the Lorraine Princes, and, after kissing the relics of the saints on the altar steps, prayed by the tomb of King René. Then the young Duke led him through the stately portal, under his grandfather's equestrian statue, to the hall where his mother was waiting to receive her royal guest, with the Duchess of Aerschot and the young Princesses. Henry, the Duke of Guise, the Cardinal, the Marshal St. André, and 200 gentlemen of the royal household, were sumptuously lodged in the ducal palace, while the troops were quartered in the town, and French guards were stationed at the gates, not without a protest from Baron d'Haussonville.[457] That evening the Duchess entertained her guests at a magnificent banquet in the Galerie des Cerfs, and the brilliantly-lighted hall, with its vaulted fretwork of blue and gold, frescoed walls, and rich tapestries, excited the admiration of all the French.