His queen was Catherine de Medicis, one of the most enigmatical personages in history. Attempts have recently been made to reverse the judgment of time, and rehabilitate her character,[28] which possibly has been painted in darker colors than it deserved; but to convert her into a martyr and victim, entitled to our respect and sympathy, is to write not history but romance. In early life she had more than one narrow escape, and her later career can hardly prevent our regretting that she lived to be old. At her birth (so runs the story) astrologers foretold that she would be the ruin of the family and the place where she was married. She was accordingly put into a convent; but when her uncle, Clement VII., besieged Florence, in 1530, the council of that city proposed taking her out and hanging her in a basket over the battlements, so that she might be killed by the besieger’s cannon. A still worse fate was proposed by others, which, to the honor of humanity, she escaped. Although the niece of a pope, she was a portionless orphan, and apparently doomed to spend her days in the seclusion of a cloister. Such a life would have been happier for her and for France; but it was not to be so. Her marriage with Henry of Valois, in 1533, was strictly a political one--a bond of union between Francis I. and Clement VII. against the emperor. The child-bride[29] displayed at this time none of the darker characteristics which afterward distinguished her. She was rather below the middle height, her eyes were large and sparkling--they were peculiar to her family,[30] her complexion was beautiful, her voice clear as a bell; she dressed with care, and exercised a singular fascination over all who came near her. Foreigners who saw her twenty or thirty years later describe her as still possessing an excellent figure, with a hand and arm that were the despair of the sculptor. She possessed many shining qualities, which she often marred by devoting them to evil purposes. In an age when female purity was not held in high esteem, she preserved a reputation that scandal scarce has touched. She was prompt in action, fertile in resources, could read character well, and had perfect control over her own feelings. She never designedly made an enemy of any one; and with her sweet smile, musical voice, and courteous manner, converted many an enemy into a friend.