An impromptu dinner was served immediately afterwards to the King and Queen; and at two o’clock in the afternoon they entered the big coach that awaited them, and the whole caravan floundered through the mud to the city of Burgos. The next morning early the bride left the city privately to dine at the neighbouring convent of Las Huelgas, and thence to make her state entry on horseback, and dressed in Spanish fashion. Then, for three days, the usual round of masquerades, bullfights, and comedies, kept the Court amused, and the dreaded hour of parting from her French train came to Marie Louise. Loaded with fine presents and rewards from the King, the great ladies and gallant gentlemen who had kept up the spirits of the Queen, now perforce turned their faces towards the north again, and, as Marie Louise saw the French carriages depart, her composure gave way, and she broke into a paroxysm of tears. Spaniards generally, and especially the King, saw the French courtiers depart with delight. For years the two countries had been constantly at war. The splendour of France had grown proportionately as poverty and impotence had fallen upon Spain. Old ambitions and vengeful hate were not dead, and many Spaniards still dreamed of dictating to the world if only France could be checked. At every step Marie Louise, who loved France with all her heart, and had been forced to leave it, as she was told, to serve its interests, was reminded that she must forget the dear land of her youth and think only of her husband’s realm. It was too much to expect that she would do it, and it is fair to say that she did not try. She was a blithe, gay-hearted girl, in the full flower of youth and strength, not yet eighteen: the pleasures of Versailles and St Cloud had hitherto filled her life, and here in stern Spain, surrounded by sinister intrigues she did not understand, and married to this degenerate anæmic creature by her side, she did her best to play her part properly; but she was French to her inmost soul, and she would not forget her own folk and her old home. The harsh Duchess of Terranova might insist upon the bright brown curls being brushed wet till they hung flat and lank, and might cram the beautiful round bosom into the hideous flat corset demanded by Spanish fashion; but even she could not quite silence the frank, careless laugh, or suppress the triumphant coquetry of a Parisian beauty overflowing with the sensuousness of maturing passion.