Note 16 — ENDNOTES

the Hôtel de Cluny was… the abode of Mary] The circumstances connected with the residence of Mary of England at the Hôtel de Cluny are somewhat too curious to be passed over at this place, although the freedom of Brantôme and Dulaure, in describing them, may be softened down with advantage. Louis was upwards of fifty when he married; his bride, as we have stated, about sixteen. On his death the crown fell, for want of a direct heir, to the Duke of Valois, afterwards Francis I.; but the young widow, in the hopes of being proclaimed regénte, feigned to be in that condition popularly asserted to be coveted by ladies who are attached to their lawful partners. And indeed the attentions of the gallant Duke of Valois were sufficiently pointed to lead the retailers of court scandal to hint that the fiction might possibly become a fact—so much so, that the ministers remonstrated with him. They told him that he must have the greatest interest in seeing that the Queen lived in honour, instead of attempting to pay his court to her; that if she had a son, nothing could keep that son from ultimately coming to the throne, and that he, Francis, must retire contentedly to Brittany; in fact, that everything, altogether, would be as unpleasant for him as could possibly be. These admonishings appear to have had an effect upon the royal gallant, and somewhat quenched the fire of his passion, which was altogether put out by learning that an intrigue was all this while being carried on between the young Mary and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the most accomplished cavalier of his time, and to whom the Princess had shown some partiality before her marriage with Louis. Francis made this discovery under rather awkward circumstances—no matter how—at the Hôtel de Cluny; and by his commands Mary and Suffolk were married immediately in the chapel of the edifice. The happy pair left Paris for London the same afternoon. Thus ended the adventure, by which Francis lost a mistress, but insured to himself the crown of France.