The irregularities so frequently reported by Madame de Clermont in Isabel’s health, at one time seem to have suggested to her distracted mother that her disorder was the outcome of the dreadful disease which it was stated she had inherited from her grandfather Francis I.; and Catharine alternated scolding with prayers to her daughter to be circumspect, until Isabel trembled with very fear when she opened one of her mother’s letters.[179] ‘Recollect’ (wrote Catherine), ‘what I told you before you left. You know very well how important it is that no one should know what malady you have got; for if your husband were to know of it he would never come near you.’[180] France had abandoned almost every thing at the Peace of Cateau Cambresis in order to gain the support of Spain against religious reform, and Catharine now looked to her daughter to bring the same influence upon her side in any case. Everything depended upon this girl’s being able to captivate her experienced husband and to lead him as she liked. Philip, it is true, was now in love with her; but his policy was founded upon a fixed principle: it was never swayed by personal affection; and Isabel was really as powerless to move him as all others who tried to do so. Catharine had impressed particularly upon her daughter that she was to use every effort to draw the ties between France and Spain closer, by bringing about a marriage of her young sister Margaret[181] with Don Carlos: or, in any case, to oppose to the utmost his marriage with an Austrian cousin; even if it were necessary to marry him to his aunt Joan. When Isabel entered Toledo she saw for the first time Philip’s heir. He was within a few months of her own age, a lame, epileptic semi-imbecile; already vicious and uncontrollable. When he approached his stepmother for the first time he was yellow and wasted with intermittent fever, and it was noticed that she caressed and petted him more than he had been accustomed to; for he had never known a mother. The passionate ill-conditioned boy had been told only a year ago to call this young beauty his wife, and now to see her the wife of the father, whom he feared and hated, turned his heart to gall. During her illness and convalescence he was ceaseless in his inquiries about her; and when her health again allowed her to resume her family life, she went out of her way to entertain and please him. It was probably the only gentle feminine influence he had ever experienced, for his widowed aunt Joan, whom he alternately loathed and adored, was a gloomy religious mystic, almost old enough to be his mother; and Isabel was not only just his own age, beautiful and French, but for the purposes of her mother exerted all her charms to gain his goodwill. [Illustration: ISABEL OF VALOIS. _After a painting by Pantoja._ ]