So long as Henry IV. was King of France, even though he had ‘gone to mass,’ the close union with Spain was impossible: but on the fateful day in May 1610 when, in the narrow Paris lane, the dagger of Ravaillac pierced the heart of the great ‘Béarnais,’ all was changed. The Queen-Regent of France was one of the Papal Medici, imbued, as they all were, with the tradition of Spain’s orthodoxy and overwhelming might. Her marriage with Henry had been a victory for the extreme Catholic party in Europe; but so long as Henry lived he had prevented violent reaction. Now that he was gone, with his Huguenot traditions, France and Spain, it was thought, might again be joined in a Catholic league, and together impose their form of faith upon the world, either by armed force or political pressure. It was a foolish, impracticable plan, for Frenchmen were too far advanced now to be used to play the game of impotent bankrupt Spain, powerful only in its pride and its traditions. But James I. of England had been toadying and humiliating himself to gain Philip’s aid in favour of his son-in-law, the Palatine in Germany, and it doubtless seemed a good stroke of policy on the part of France and Spain to leave him and the Lutherans isolated. In any case no time was lost, and before Henry IV. had lain in his tomb at St. Denis a year it was agreed that the Spanish Infanta, Anna, should marry Louis XIII. of France, and that Isabel, or Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Henry IV. and Marie de Medici, should become the wife of Philip, Prince of Asturias, the son and heir of the Spanish King. All the betrothed were children of tender age, and it was agreed that the exchange of brides should be deferred until the Infanta was twelve years old (1613). Pompous and lavish embassies went through the solemn farce of paying honour to the girl-children respectively as Queen of France and Princess of Asturias. The Duke of Mayenne, of the house of Guise, ruffled and swaggered in Madrid with a marriage embassy so splendid in 1612, that the cost of entertaining him beggared the capital for years; and so keen was the emulation in sumptuousness of dress and adornments during the interminable festivities in Madrid to celebrate the double betrothals, that the Spanish nobles came to dagger-thrusts on the subject in the palace itself.