May 12, 1554

Francis is ill again. I play endless games of chess with him. It rains. Mary Fleming grows more quiet each day. Mary Livingston cannot even come up with a funny ditty, and I struggle with my poem for Ronsard. We are all very tired of Fontainebleau. It is such a sad place in the rain. The blue slate from which it is built turns dark and forbidding. It is as if the entire château weeps in the rain. Our apartments have a stuffiness. Madame de Parois and the Italians chatter endlessly. They do indeed gossip. I hear snatches of it all the time.

Oh, I hear a commotion and a bark from their game room. I must run.