Before His Majesty rode the "Grand Ecuyer," Galeas de Severin, bearing the sword of state on a great white horse. On his right was Cardinal de Boisy, brother of Admiral Bonivet, and on his left Cardinal Antoine Bohier, the nephew of Chancellor Duprat. Next to the King was Monsieur d'Alencon, whose powers as Lieutenant-Governor of Normandy were wielded by d'Amboise during his absence at the Italian wars. Behind him came Charles de Bourbon the Constable, who was to die as a rebel in Rome two years later. With them were John Stuart, Duke of Albany, nephew of James III. of Scotland; the Comte de St. Pol; Louis de la Tremouille, the most brilliant knight of his time; Maximilian Sforza, the eldest son of that Il Moro who had been imprisoned in the dungeons of Loches; Jacques de Chabannes; Anne de Montmorency, who had been one of the King's playfellows and grew up into the sternest Constable France ever had; Guillaume, Sieur de St. Vallier, the father of Diane de Poitiers, who also learnt the horrors of Loches for his share in Bourbon's wild conspiracy; the second Georges d'Amboise, himself Archbishop of Rouen, with their Lordships of Lisieux, Avranches, Evreux, and Paris; Antoine Duprat, the Chancellor; and Florimond Robertet, the King's Treasurer, whose house is still at Blois. Men were thinking little of the future of this brilliant company as they passed through Rouen in the summer sunshine, and even on the south side of the river the welcoming pageantry began. For at the first "theatre" the King beheld a great Fleur de Lys, which opened and slowly displayed three damsels representing the virtues of His Majesty, of the Queen, and of Madame la Regente. The stream itself, on each side of the bridge, was gay with the flags and sails of every craft along the quays. Beyond it was a group of Titans, thunderstruck by Jupiter amid the stupor of the other gods in a dismayed Olympus. The next stage showed Theseus welcomed by Thalia, Euphrosyne and Aglaia, who led the hero to Pallas to receive from her the shield of Prudence, and take his place among the starry divinities. Need it be added that both Jupiter and Theseus were the King? Within the cemetery of St. Ouen three martial monks were storming the semblance of a guarded tower. At the Ponts de Robec appeared a wondrous similitude of the sky upheld by Hercules and Atlas, in the midst whereof disported a bellicose and most lively salamander, slaying a bull and a bear, in graceful reference to the victory of the Marignano, with this astonishing quatrain:-- "La Salamandre en vertu singuliere Lors estaignit l'horrible feu de Mars Quant au grant ours emporta la baniere Et du thoreau rompit cornes et dardz."