Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/153

Rh mercy, she declared the villages, whose inhabitants had been so ill treated, affranchised from those odious rights of the chapter, on condition that they paid a reasonable sum for their liberty.

Her health becoming every day more enfeebled, the physicians counselled her to leave Paris for the country. She went to Melun, and passed there the autumn of the year 1253. A slow and continued fever was upon her; and, feeling that she had but little time to live, she returned to Paris, received the sacraments of the church, and, according to the custom of the age, entered into a conventual order, just before her death, which, undoubtedly, was hastened by the regret she felt, that her toils, for the welfare of France and the prosperity of her dear and excellent son, were in vain.

Her extreme fondness for this son was a source of a sort of enmity between her and his wife. Both loved him too well to love each other. One wanted to govern him without a competitor, and the other to be governed only by him. Lewis managed this point between them in a manner that shewed great simplicity of manners and refined tenderness. Blanche was jealous of his confidence in Margaret; and whenever she found him in her apartments, a marked coldness, an involuntary sharpness, shewed the indignant feeling of her soul. They therefore taught a little dog to announce her arrival; and the moment the animal gave warning, the king went out at a back door. Once, when Margaret was supposed to be dying, the queen dowager found Lewis attempting to succour her; she feared for him the melancholy sight of his wife's death, which seemed fast approaching, and, taking him by the hand, to lead him