Jean Correro, the Venetian ambassador, describes Anjou as being stronger built, of better colour, and more agreeable appearance than his brother, Charles IX., and says he was very fond of playing with the ladies of the palace; but Michaeli, another Venetian envoy, paints him in colours more familiar to us. “He is completely dominated,” he says, “by voluptuousness; covered with perfumes and essences. He wears a double row of rings, and pendants at his ears, and spends vast sums on shirts and clothes. He charms and beguiles women by lavishing upon them the most costly jewels and toys.”[55] Walsingham says that a portrait could not be sent to England, as it was forbidden to paint pictures of the King or his brothers, but a great French Catholic courtier[56] wrote to Walsingham, in the hope that he would transmit it to Elizabeth, the following glowing but insidious account of the young prince: “It is his misfortune that his portraits do not do him justice. Janet himself has not succeeded in depicting that certain something which nature has given him. His eyes, that gracious turn of the mouth when he speaks, that sweetness which wins over all who approach him, cannot be reproduced by pen or pencil. His hand is so beautiful that if it were turned it could not be more perfectly modelled. Do not ask me whether he has inspired the passion of love! He has conquered wherever he has cast his eyes, and yet is ignorant of one-hundredth part of his conquests. You have been persuaded that he has a leaning to the new religion, and might be brought to adopt it. Undeceive yourself. He was born a Catholic, he has lived the declared champion of Catholicism, and, believe me, he will live and die in the faith. I have, it is true, seen in his hands the psalms of Marot and other books of that sort, but he only had them to please a great Huguenot lady with whom he was in love. If the Queen, your mistress, be not satisfied with so worthy a person she will never marry. Henceforward the only thing for her to do is to vow perpetual celibacy.”