That is how this princess appeared under all fashions of clothes, whether barbarous, worldly, or austere. She had also one other perfection with which to charm the world,--a voice most sweet and excellent; for she sang well, attuning her voice to the lute, which she touched very prettily with that white hand and those beautiful fingers, perfectly made, yielding in nothing to those of Aurora. What more remains to tell of her beauty?--if not this saying about her: that the sun of her Scotland was very unlike her, for on certain days of the year it shines but five hours, while she shone ever, so that her clear rays illumined her land and her people, who of all others needed light, being far estranged from the sun of heaven. Ah! kingdom of Scotland, I think your days are shorter now than they ever were, and your nights the longer, since you have lost the princess who illumined you! But you have been ungrateful; you never recognized your duty of fidelity, as you should have done; which I shall speak of presently. This lady and princess pleased France so much that King Henri was urged to give her in alliance to the dauphin, his beloved son, who, for his part, was madly in love with her. The marriage was therefore solemnly celebrated in the great church and the palace of Paris; where we saw this queen appear more beauteous than a goddess from the skies, whether in the morning, going to her espousals in noble majesty, or leading, after dinner, at the ball, or advancing in the evening with modest steps to offer and perform her vows to Hymen; so that the voice of all as one man resounded and proclaimed throughout the Court and the great city that happy a hundredfold was he, the prince, thus joined to such a princess; and even if Scotland were a thing of price its queen out-valued it; for had she neither crown nor sceptre, her person and her glorious beauty were worth a kingdom; therefore, being a queen, she brought to France and to her husband a double fortune. This was what the world went saying of her; and for this reason she was called queen-dauphine and her husband the king-dauphin, they living together in great love and pleasant concord. Next, King Henri dying, they came to be King and Queen of France, the king and queen of two great kingdoms, happy, and most happy in themselves, had death not seized the king and left her widowed in the sweet April of her finest youth, having enjoyed together of love and pleasure and felicity but four short years,--a felicity indeed of short duration, which evil fortune might well have spared; but no, malignant as she is, she wished to miserably treat this princess, who made a song herself upon her sorrows in this wise:-- En mon triste et doux chant, D’un ton fort lamentable, Je jette un deuil tranchant, De perte incomparable, Et en soupirs cuisans, Passe mes meilleurs ans.