But coming to later times, Henry III. of France could not remain in the same room with a cat, a fact which reminds us of the Duke d’Epernay, who swooned on seeing a leveret, although, curious to say, the sight of a hare did not produce a similar result. And it was the sight of an apple that always put Vladislaus, King of Poland, into fits. Queen Elizabeth detested as ominous all dwarfs and monsters, and seldom could be prevailed upon to bestow an appointment--either civil or ecclesiastical--on an ugly man. She liked to be surrounded by the young and handsome, and she studiously shunned all crippled or deformed persons. She carried this fad to such an extreme that she refused the post of a gentleman usher to an unexceptional person, for no other reason than the lack of one tooth; and “whenever she went abroad, all ugly, deformed, and diseased persons were thrust out of her way by certain officers, whose duty it was to preserve her Majesty from the displeasure of looking on objects offensive to her taste.” Aubrey relates the following story as an illustration of Elizabeth’s peculiarity on this point: “There came a country gentleman up to town who had several sons, but one an extraordinary handsome fellow, whom he did hope to have preferred to be a yeoman of the Guard. ‘Had you spoken for yourself,’ quoth Sir Walter Raleigh, ‘I should have readily granted your desire, but I put in no boys.’ Then said the father, ‘Boy, come in,’ and the son enters--about eighteen or nineteen years of age--but such a goodly proper youth as Sir Walter had not seen the like, for he was the tallest of all the Guard. Sir Walter not only swore him in, but ordered him to carry up the first dish at dinner, when the Queen beheld him with admiration, as if a beautiful quaint young giant had stalked in with the service.” And Lord Bacon, speaking of this whim of Elizabeth, writes: “She always made sedulous inquiries regarding the moral qualifications of any candidate for preferment, and then considered his mien and appearance. Upon one such occasion she observed to me, ‘How can the magistrate maintain his authority, if the man be despised.’” Elizabeth’s strong aversion to unpleasant smells was well known at Court. One day the stout Sir Roger Williams, kneeling to her to beg a suit, which she was unwilling to grant, and yet ashamed to deny, she exclaimed, “Sir Roger, your boots stink”--hoping to divert the conversation. “No, no, your Majesty,” replied the brave Welshman, “it’s not my boots, it’s my suit.” We are reminded of Louis XI., who had a conceit, says Burton, “that everything did stink about him; all the odoriferous perfumes they could get would not ease him, but still he smelt a filthy stink.”