On 13 March, 1564, their Majesties quitted Fontainebleau, and set out on their progress through the realm. This journey had been long meditated by Catherine, who expected from it important results. In the first place, respect for the central authority had almost disappeared amid the anarchy of the civil war, and the Queen desired, by making the young King known to the nation, to re-establish the monarchical power in the interior. In the second, the crisis through which France had just passed had lowered the country immeasurably in the eyes of other States, and she flattered herself that, by means of interviews with foreign sovereigns on the frontiers, she might do much to restore the prestige of the French name. Moreover, by establishing a good understanding with them, and particularly with Philip II. of Spain, she hoped to free herself from the tutelage of the grandees of the kingdom. The _cortège_ was a most imposing one, for Catherine wished to impress the people and the sovereigns whom she was to meet by the magnificence of the royal retinue. The whole of the Court followed the King--princes, ministers, gentlemen, and ladies--and there was a veritable cohort of pages and lackeys, wearing his Majesty’s livery of blue, red, and white, all the pages being dressed in velvet. The military escort was a very large one, and comprised not only all the Household troops, but several companies of men-at-arms. The Constable marshalled the procession, and directed its movements as he would have done that of an army on the march.[50] Champagne was first visited. The Court stopped for a few days at Sens, where the young King was given a magnificent reception, and then moved on to Troyes, which was reached on 27 March. In this town, where the negotiations for peace with England were finally concluded, Condé “fell sick of the palsy or apoplexy, which took him at tennis, and a fever upon it,”[51] and his condition appeared sufficiently grave for his wife, who was then at the Château of Condé-en-Brie, to be summoned to nurse him. The devoted woman, although suffering herself, lost not a moment in hastening to her faithless husband’s side, and in lavishing upon him the tenderest care. Thanks in a great measure to her solicitude, the prince’s health was soon re-established--for his illness would appear to have been much less grave than was at first supposed--and she was able to return to her children. But the hurried journey to Troyes, and the anxiety she had suffered on her husband’s account, had exhausted her slender reserve of strength, and scarcely had she reached Condé-en-Brie, than she was taken dangerously ill.