"(1) Mend the roads and clean the streets through which the Lady Duchess will pass, and hang the walls with tapestries and carpets, the largest and widest that you can find. (2) Paint her arms on all the gates through which she passes. (3) Provide a baldacchino to be carried over her head. (4) See that lodgings are prepared for her at Novara, either in the Bishop's palace or in the ducal hunting-lodge, and let these be cleansed and decorated. (5) Prepare rooms in the town for the Duchess's household. (6) Let this also be done in the Castello Vecchio at Vigevano. (7) Desire that no gifts of any kind should be made to the Duchess at Novara, Vigevano, or any other place."[94] When these instructions had been duly carried out, Bottigella, who had accompanied Stampa on his mission to the Low Countries, and was already acquainted with the chief members of the Duchess's suite, set out for Chambéry by the Duke's orders, to meet the bride on the frontiers of Savoy and escort her across the Alps. III. [Sidenote: APRIL, 1534] A WEDDING JOURNEY] Christina had now completed her twelfth year, and Mary of Hungary could no longer invent any excuse to delay her journey to Milan. The bridal party finally set out on the 11th of March, conducted by Monseigneur de Praet, the Emperor's representative, and Camillo Ghilino, the Duke's Ambassador, with an escort of 130 horse. Madame de Souvastre, one of Maximilian's illegitimate daughters, whose husband had been one of the late Regent's confidential servants, was appointed mistress of the Duchess's household, which consisted of six maids of honour, six waiting-women, four pages, and ten gentlemen. Christina herself rode in a black velvet litter, drawn by four horses and attended by six footmen, and her ladies travelled in similar fashion, followed by twenty mules and three waggons with the baggage. Mary had taken care that the bride's trousseau was worthy of a daughter of the imperial house, and the chests were filled with sumptuous robes of cloth of gold and silver, of silk, satin, and velvet, costly furs, jewels and pearls, together with furniture and plate for her table and chapel, and liveries and trappings for her servants and horses. The Duchess's own lackeys and all the gentlemen in attendance wore coats and doublets of black velvet, and the other servants, we learn from John Hackett, the English Ambassador at Brussels, were clad in suits of "medley grey," trimmed with velvet, all "very well accounted."[95] The imposing cortège travelled by slow stages through the friendly duchy of Lorraine and across the plains of the imperial county of Burgundy, taking journeys of twelve or fifteen miles a day, until, on the 12th of April, it halted at Chambéry, the frontier town of Savoy. The reigning Duke, Charles III., was the Emperor's brother-in-law and stanch ally, and the travellers were hospitably entertained in his ancestral castle on the heights.