Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/291

Rh In fact the said Queen was for practising and proving true the Spanish saw or proverb, which saith, nunca muger aguda murio sin herederos, "no clever woman ever died without heirs;" or in other words, an if her husband make her none, she will call in other help to get her end. Now M. d'Angoulême did reflect and sware he was going to be wise and refrain; yet tried and tempted again and again with the wiles and advances of the fair Englishwoman, did presently throw him more fiercely than ever into the pursuit of her. Such the effects of love and passion! such the power of a mere bit of flesh and blood, that for its sake men will surrender kingdoms and empires, and altogether lose the same, as we find over and over again in History. Eventually M. de Grignaux, seeing the young man was bent on his own undoing and the carrying further of his amour, told Madame d'Angoulême, his mother, of the matter, which did so reprove and smartly chide him, as that he gave up the sport once and for all.

None the less 'tis said the Queen did all she could to live and reign as Queen Mother for some little while before and after the death of the King her husband. However she lost him too soon, and had no sufficient time to carry through her purpose. Yet even so, she did spread the report, after the King's death, that she was pregnant. Accordingly, albeit naught really inside her belly, 'tis said she would swell out the outside thereof by means of linen wrappages gradually more and more every day, and that when her full time was come, she did propose to have ready a supposititious child of another woman, and produce this at the instant of her pretended delivery. But the Queen Regent, which was from Savoy and knew somewhat about child-bearing and the like, seeing things were