The letters that passed between them show how absolute was the command that at first Catharine exercised over her daughter, a command that later was to a great extent replaced by that of Philip. Isabel in the quarrels of her French ladies had sided with Madame Vimeux against her principal attendant, Madame de Clermont, and, girl like, had made friends with some of her younger French maids. Upon this her mother wrote to her as follows: ‘It really looks very bad for you in the position you occupy to show that you are such a child still as to make much of your girls before people. When you are alone in your chamber in private, you may pass your time and play with them as much as you like, but before people be attentive to your cousin,[177] and Madame de Clermont. Talk with them often and believe what they say; for they are both wise, and aim at nothing but your honour and well being; whereas those other wenches can only teach you folly and silliness. Therefore do what I tell you, if you wish me to be satisfied with you and love you, and to show me that you love me as you ought.’[178]
From Guadalajara Philip and his Consort passed on to Toledo for the completion of the festivities, and to present his son Don Carlos to the Cortes, to receive their oath of allegiance as heir to the crowns of Castile. The capital received the Queen with unusual pomp, and after the public reception was over Isabel retired to her chamber with her favourite French maids, who for pastime danced before her. Soon the Queen, flushed and excited, rose and danced several times herself. Her high colour was noticed by some of the elder ladies, who had been instructed by Catharine to watch the precious health of her daughter closely; and in the morning Philip found that his girl wife was in a burning fever, which was soon pronounced to be smallpox.
Up to this time Philip had not been particularly demonstrative towards his French bride; and she had not quite got over her fear of him. But her dangerous illness struck both him and her mother with dismay. Each of them was determined to use her as a means to keep a hold upon the other, and her death threatened to be disastrous for both; but, apart from this, her mother was devotedly attached to her, and Philip was beginning to love her as he loved no other person in the world, except, years afterwards, his elder daughter by her. Couriers galloped backwards and forwards between Paris and Toledo with daily news of the progress of the malady. No fear for his health, no remonstrance from his courtiers, could persuade Philip to keep away from his sick wife; and for long periods during the most dangerous stages of her illness he would not leave her side. Catharine was almost beside herself with anxiety. For her everything depended upon her daughter’s success in gaining influence over her husband, and for this Isabel’s beauty was as necessary as her life. The attack proved to be light, and the patient was soon out of danger; but Catharine showered upon the ladies in attendance questions and counsels innumerable, as to the marks left by the fell disease. The many remedies she sent appear, according to Brantome, to have given way to the one which he mentions as having saved the Queen from disfigurement; namely, the covering of the exposed skin with fresh white of egg. Though Isabel was soon out of danger her convalescence was long and tedious, and the intimate details of her bodily habit and condition that passed between Catharine and Madame de Clermont, frank to the extreme of coarseness, show how increasingly the Queen-Mother was depending upon her Spanish son-in-law to sustain her amidst the warring interests that were rapidly dividing France.