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FRANCIS THE SECOND,

KING OF FRANCE.

On the 24th of January, 1544, Katherine de Medici, wife of Henry the Second, King of France, gave birth to a son, who was named Francis, after his grandsire, celebrated at once as "victor of Marignano" and "the restorer of letters."

The existence of this boy-King was brief, and from circumstances he was a mere cipher in the hands of ambitious men. Ere putting away childish things he began to reign; and ere learning to think and speak like a man he ceased to live. Yet the memory

of Francis is not without interest. This French monarch, whom portraits represent, when in his seventeenth year, as a tall attenuated boy, with a pale face, dark eyes, and arched eyebrows, wearing a black velvet doublet, a velvet cape, and earrings of pearl, was the first of the three husbands of Mary Stuart; and, as such, his name has floated down the tide of years with that of the fair Queen of Scots. We therefore devote pages to a rapid sketch of the career of few

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Francis, from his inauspicious birth to his untimely death.

At the time when Christendom was agitated with the religious strife that heralded the Reformation, Francis the First felt undecided what part he should take in the controversy. Finding, however, that the friendship of Rome was necessary to the success of his projects on Italy, and unwilling, therefore, to offend the Holy See, the King of France sought an interview with the Pope. At Marseilles the gay and chivalrous but faulty monarch met Clement the Seventh, and, by way of pledging fidelity to the Church of Rome, contracted his second son, Henry, to the Pontiff's niece, Katherine de Medici. Ere the marriage had been long celebrated, the sudden death of Henry's elder brother elevated the wedded pair to the rank of Dauphin and Dauphiness of France.

For several years Henry and Katherine were not granted an heir, and when at length the Dauphiness became a mother, the old King, then approaching the age of threescore, was so rejoiced at the birth of a grandson, that he offered on the occasion to grant Katherine any boon she asked. But the birth of a son did not delight the Italian Princess quite so much as the birth of a grandson did her father-in-law. She was mortified, it seems, to find the child small and delicate; and astrologers whom she consulted as to his future dismayed her by auguring that the little Prince's career would not be brilliant. As the royal infant grew

to boyhood, this unfavourable response of the soothsaying oracles becoming known to him, had the effect of preying on his spirits and saddening his heart.

When, in 1547, Francis the First died, and the husband of Katherine de Medici ascended the French throne with the title of Henry the Second, young Francis became Dauphin. About the same time the Scottish nobles, writhing under the defeat at Pinkey Cleuch, eager to have revenge on the English, and not less eager to take gold from the French, met at Stirling, and resolved not only to crave aid from their "ancient allies," but to offer the hand of their little Queen to the Dauphin. These circumstances led to the betrothal of Francis de Valois to Mary Stuart, who was about a year the senior of her destined husband, and worthy of an alliance more likely to conduce to happiness.

The French King, not less anxious to possess the crown of Bruce than the Scots were to place it within his grasp, forthwith sent ships to land troops for their aid. The Queen was therefore brought from the Isle of Inchmahone to Dumbarton, and the fleet touching there before returning to France, she embarked with her "four Marys," young Scottish damsels of the highest rank, who had been educated with her in a convent.

After reaching the coast of France and landing at Brest, Mary was conducted with much ceremony to St. Germain, where the Dauphin and the King's other children then were; and no doubt the poor, puny,

stammering boy thought his prospective bride all that could be wished. Educated in her company, the Dauphin soon learned to regard his fair fiancée with sincere affection; and Mary, still artless and pure in heart, returned the affection of the sickly youth as if he had been as handsome and brilliant a prince as young Edward Tudor, whose alliance her guardians had rejected.

As time passed on Henry resolved on celebrating his son's marriage, and selected a period when France was triumphant over her ancient foe; when the sixth Edward slept at Westminster, in that fair chapel which his grandfather had erected; when Mary Tudor, seated on the English throne, was outraging humanity; and when Calais, the last remnant of the Plantagenet conquests, was recovered by the Duke of Guise. In the spring of 1558 the Dauphin of France and the heiress of the Stuarts were solemnly betrothed at the Louvre, and a day was appointed for solemnising the royal marriage with all due form and ceremony.

The 24th of April was the date, and the cathedral of Notre Dame was the scene, of this wedding. The Parisians, ready to be amused with any spectacle, rushed excitedly to catch a glimpse of the procession; and the princes, prelates, and barons of France and Scotland were present to witness the ceremony. The boy-bridegroom, attended by his youthful brothers, proceeded to the cathedral; and the bride, now a fair girl of sixteen, with bright chestnut hair, a graceful

figure inclining to be tall, dressed in white, and wearing a crown, with a regal mantle, and a train richly embroidered supported by damsels of high rank, excited no slight degree of admiration.

When the princes and prelates, and high dames and damsels assembled at Notre Dame, the Cardinal Lorraine performed the ceremony, and commissioners from her native land presented Mary with her symbols of royalty. The young Queen saluted her husband— a poor, miserable, stammering boy-as Francis, King of Scotland. That country was at length nominally, as well as virtually, a province of France. The Scots present must have blushed at such a scene. Was this the consummation of the policy of Bruce, for which the Plantagenets had been defied, the Umfravilles banished, the house of Dunbar overthrown, and three centuries of want and poverty unshrinkingly borne ?

When the splendid festivities in honour of the marriage of the Dauphin and his Scottish bride were at an end, Francis and Mary retired to a rustic residence near Soissons. But France and Spain were then at war; and the Prince, after devoting three months to the honeymoon, was fain to leave the company of his young spouse and serve under the Duke of Guise. The Dauphin remained for several months in the French camp; but not being fitted by nature for fatigue and hardships, he soon began to suffer from an ague, for which physicians devised remedies in vain.

While the heir of France found himself gradually