She assumed this manner very often and kept in line the princes and haughty lords when they had committed some large indiscretion and made her angry.  Then she put on her grandest air, and no other living person could be so proud and disdainful as she, when it was necessary, sparing the truth to no one.  I have seen the late M. de Savoie, who was a friend of the Emperor, the King of Spain, and many notables, fear and respect her more than if she had been his mother; and M. de Lorraine the same—­in short, all the great people of Christendom.  I could cite many instances, which at another time and in their own place I may do, but at present what I have said will suffice.

Among all her other fine qualities, she was a good Christian and very devout, always observing her fast days and never failing to attend daily service, either mass or vespers, which she made very agreeable to worshippers by the good singers in her chapel, being careful to select the finest artists.  She had a natural taste for music and often entertained the Court in her own apartment, which was never closed to right-minded ladies and gentlemen.  She saw each and every one, not denying admittance as was the custom in Spain and also in her own country, Italy; nor yet as our other Queens, Elizabeth of Austria and Louise of Lorraine, have done; but saying, like King Francis, her father-in-law, whom she greatly honoured as he had raised her to her high position, that she wished to maintain the true French spirit as the King her husband had also desired.  So her rooms were always accessible to the Court.

Generally, she had very beautiful and virtuous maids of honour, who could be seen every day in her antechamber chatting with us and entertaining us so sensibly and modestly that none of us would have dared do otherwise; for the gentlemen who fell short of this were denied admittance, or warned of even worse punishment, until she pardoned them and extended her favour again, which out of her good heart she was ready to do.

In a word, her company and her Court were a real Paradise in this world, and a school of honesty and virtue, the ornament of France, as was well known and spoken of by its visitors; for they were all well received, and in their honour her ladies were commanded to adorn themselves like goddesses and devote themselves to these guests instead of elsewhere; otherwise she would scold and reprimand them severely.

Indeed, such was her Court, that when she died all said that we would never have such another, and that never again would France have a real Queen Mother.  What a Court it was!  Its equal, I believe, was never held by an Emperor of Rome, in respect to its ladies, nor by any of our Kings of France.  It is true that the great Emperor Charlemagne took great delight in maintaining a splendid and overflowing Court, with many peers, dukes, counts, paladins, barons, and chevaliers of France, with their wives and daughters,