It was one continuous pageant in every village and town through which the royal _cortège_ passed, between Abbeville and St. Denis. Even in villages and hamlets, children dressed as angels, with golden wings, met the fair queen, to present to her pretty gifts of fruit and flowers. It took the king and queen and their escort six days to reach St. Denis, spending the nights either in episcopal palaces or in the splendid abbeys which lined the way. Although the French greeted the queen heartily, it was noticed that they “became overcast and sour” as they looked on the magnificent but defiant figure of the Duke of Suffolk, as he rode, in his silver armour, on the right side of the queen’s litter, whilst on the left cantered that stalwart nobleman, Thomas Grey, first Marquis of Dorset, who was destined by a curious and unexpected event to become the grandfather of Her Majesty’s ill-fated grandchildren, the Ladies Jane, Katherine and Mary Grey. At last, early in the morning of Sunday, November 5, the English princess passed up the splendid nave of St. Denis, escorted by all that was highest and mightiest in French chivalry. The Duc de Longueville, the Duc d’Alençon, the Duke of Albany, Regent of Scotland, the Duke of Bourbon, and the Count de Vendôme, preceded her, bearing between them the regalia. Mary followed, escorted by the Duke of Valois, and clothed in a mantle of cloth of gold. She wore such a prodigious quantity of jewels that a number of them had to be removed in the sacristy before she was able to proceed with the innumerable ceremonies of the day. The new queen was anointed by the Cardinal de Pré, who also presented her with the sceptre and “verge of justice.” When, after more ceremony than prayer, the cardinal had placed the crown of France upon her brow, Prince Francis of Valois led Her Majesty to a throne raised high above the choir, whence in solitary state she glanced down upon the throng of prelates, priests and noblemen and noblewomen who crowded the chancel and the altar-steps, and overflowed into the nave and transepts. There she sat alone, for weak and sickly King Louis could do no more than witness the coronation, contenting himself by obtaining a view of it from a small closet window above the high altar.