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quickly escorted them to King Louis’s chamber where the signing would take place. First, however, the proper protocol had to be followed. The two ambassadors handed the contract to the king and his lord chancellor to read. This done, the king signified his acceptance of the terms previously agreed upon, and only then was the princess summoned to her brother’s presence.
    Henrietta-Marie arrived, escorted by the queen mother, Marie di Medici, and the ladies of the court. The princess was garbed in a gown of cloth-of-gold and silver, embroidered all over with golden fleurs-de-lys, and encrusted with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. Once the bride had taken her place, the bridegroom’s proxy was called. The duc de Chevreuse came into the king’s chamber wearing a black-striped suit covered with diamonds. He bowed first to the king and then the princess. Then the duc presented his letter of authority to the king, bowing once again. Accepting it, Louis XIII handed it to the chancellor, and then signed the marriage contract. Other signatories were Henrietta-Marie, Marie di Medici, the French queen, Anne of Austria, the duc de Chevreuse, and the two English ambassadors.
    The contract duly signed and witnessed, the formal religious betrothal was performed in the king’s chambers by the princess’s godfather, Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld, the duc de Chevreuse answering for the king of England. The ceremony over, the princess retired to the Carmelite convent in Faubourg St. Jacques to rest and pray until her wedding on the first of May, and the guests departed, the duke of Glenkirk and his family returning to Chateau St. Laurent.
    On Henry Lindley’s sixteenth birthday, which happened to be the thirtieth of April, the Glenkirk party, the St. Laurents, and Lady Stewart-Hepburn traveled to Paris for the royal wedding. It was better, the duc said, to go the day before rather than waiting until the first, but the roads were clogged anyway with all the traffic making its way into the city for the celebration. By chance, James’s brother-in-law had a small house on the same tiny street as did Jasmine’s French relations, who would not be coming for the wedding. The de Savilles lived in the Loire region, many miles from Paris, and while of noble stock, they were not important. Besides, it was springtime, and their famous vineyards at Archambault needed tending more than they needed to be in the capital for the princess’s wedding to the English king, so they gladly loaned their little house to their relations.
    The wedding day dawned gray and cloudy. By ten o‘clock in the morning it was raining. Nonetheless, crowds had begun gathering outside of the great square before Notre-Dame the previous evening. Now the square was overflowing with people eager to see the wedding. The archbishop of Paris had gotten into a terrible row with the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld. It was the cardinal who had been chosen to perform the wedding ceremony, despite the fact that the cathedral was the archbishop’s province. The royal family had brushed aside the archbishop’s protests as if he had been no more than a bothersome insect. Furious, the archbishop had retired to his country estates, not to return until after the wedding. He could not, however aggravated he might be, deny the princess the use of his palace, which was close by the cathedral, and so at two o’clock that afternoon in the pouring rain, Henrietta-Marie departed her apartments in the Louvre for the archbishop’s residence in order to dress.
    Fortunately a special gallery had been constructed from the door of the archbishop’s palace to the door of the cathedral. It was raised eight feet above the square and set upon pillars, the lower half of which were wrapped in waxed cloth, and the upper half in purple satin embroidered with gold fleurs-de-lys. At the west door of the cathedral was a raised platform which was sheltered by a canopy of cloth-of-gold that had been