Through Fuenterrabia, San Sebastian and Vitoria, Isabel travelled towards Burgos, where she was to meet her boy bridegroom. Dressed in Spanish garb from Vitoria onward, she won all hearts by her gaiety and brightness; and, as an eyewitness says of her, ‘even if she had French blood in her veins she had a Spanish spirit.’ Philip III. and his son met the bride a league from Burgos, and we are told that the prince of eleven years old was so dazzled with her beauty that he could only gaze speechless upon her. The next day Burgos was all alive with the splendour of the welcome of the future Queen, who entered the city on a white palfrey with a silver saddle and housings of velvet and pearls; and so, from city to city, smiling and happy, the girl, in the midst of the inflated Court, slowly made her way to Madrid. On the afternoon of 19th December 1615 Isabel rode from the monastery of St. Jerome[202] through Madrid to the palace upon the cliff overlooking the valley of the Manzanares. An eyewitness describes her appearance as she rode through the mile of crowded narrow streets of old Madrid, under triumphal arches, past thousands of peopled balconies, hung with tapestries, with songs and music of welcome all the way. ‘Her Highness was dressed in the French fashion, with an entire robe of crimson satin embroidered with bugles, a little cap trimmed with diamonds, and a ruff beautifully trimmed in French style, and with a rosette and girdle of diamonds of great size. She went her way, bright and buxom, full of rejoicing. Her aquiline face was wreathed in smiles, and her fine eyes flashed from side to side, looking at everything, to the great delight of the populace.’[203]