Her intellect was quick and cultivated, but she was deficient alike in depth of judgment and in strength of character.

Amiable, and even submissive in her intercourse with her favourites, she was vindictive and tyrannical towards those who fell under the ban of her displeasure; and with all the unscrupulous love of intrigue common to her race, she was nevertheless unguarded in her confidences, unstable in her purposes, and short-sighted in her policy.

In temper she was hot, impatient, and irascible; in temperament, jealous and exacting; while her vanity and love of power perpetually made her the tool of those who sought to profit by her defects.
It is probable that throughout the whole of Europe no princess could have been selected less constituted to make the happiness of a sovereign who, like Henri IV, had not scrupled to avow to his minister that he dreaded domestic dissension far more than foreign warfare; but who at the same time did not hesitate, by his own irregularities, to arouse all the worst passions in the bosom of an outraged wife.
On the 17th of October the royal bride reached Livorno, where she made her entry in great pomp, and was received with the most enthusiastic acclamations; and on the following day she embarked in the state-galley of the Grand-Duke, one of the most magnificent vessels which had ever floated upon the blue waters of the Mediterranean.

Seventy feet in length, it was impelled by fifty-four oars, and was richly gilded from stem to stern; the borders of the poop being inlaid with a profusion of lapis-lazuli, mother-of-pearl, ivory, and ebony.

It was, moreover, ornamented by twenty large circles of iron interlaced, and studded with topaz, emeralds, pearls, and other precious stones; while the splendour of the interior perfectly corresponded with this gorgeous framework.