Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/100

Rh Cleopatra did owe her some gratitude and obligation for having so well trained and disciplined Mark Antony to obey and bend him under the laws of submission.

We read moreover of that great French Prince Charles Martel, which in his day would never take nor bear the title of King, as 'twas within his power to do, but liked better to govern Kings and give orders to the same.

However let us speak of some of our own countrywomen. We had, in our War of the League, Madame de Montpensier, sister of the late Duc de Guise, who was a great Stateswoman, and did contribute much, as well by the subtile inventions of her fine spirit as by the labour of her hands, to build up the said league. And after the same had been now well established, playing one day at cards (for she doth well love this pastime) and taking the first deal, on their telling her she should well shuffle the cards, she did answer before all the company: "I have shuffled the cards so well, as that they could not be better shuffled or combined together." This would all have turned out well, if only her friends had lived; on whose unhappy end however, without losing heart at all at such a loss, she did set herself to avenge them. And having heard the news when in Paris, she doth not shut herself in her chamber to indulge her grief, as most other women would have done, but cometh forth of her house with her brother's children, and holding these by the hand, doth take them up and down the city, making public mourning of her bereavement before the citizens, rousing the same by her tears and piteous cries and sad words which she did utter to all, to take up arms and rise in fierce protest, and insult the King's house and picture, as we have seen done, and I do hope to relate