Once again on the historic banks of the Bidasoa, and on the island of Pheasants that had seen so many regal meetings, sumptuous pavilions of silk brocade and tapestry were erected. Marie Louise at St. Jean de Luz, a few miles away, was sick at heart, in spite of all the splendour that surrounded her; and she could not suppress her tears as she stood upon the last foot of French soil she was ever to touch, ready to enter the gilded barge that was to cross the few feet of water that separated her from the little gaily decked neutral island where the Marquis of Astorga was to receive her on bended knee as his sovereign mistress. The rule of the formidable old Duchess of Terranova began the moment Marie Louise stepped into the barge that was to land her on the Spanish bank. The Queen was dressed in the graceful garb that prevailed in the Court of Louis XIV. The soft yielding skirts and square cut bodice with abundance of fine lace at neck and wrists were coquettishly feminine. The bright brown hair of the bride was curled and frizzed at the sides and on the brow, in artful little ringlets, and all this grace and prettiness looked to the Spanish ladies of the old school indecorous, if not positively indecent. Their vast wide-hooped farthingales, of heavy brocade, their long flat bodices, their stiff unbendable sleeves, and in the case of younger ladies, their hair, lank and uncurled, falling upon their shoulders, except where it was parted at the side and gathered with a bow of ribbon over one temple, formed an entire contrast to the French feminine fashions of the time; and until Marie Louise donned the Spanish garb, and did her hair in Spanish style, the Duchess of Terranova looked with grave disapproval at her mistress.