Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/294

Rh and grown hectic and parched,—'twas said owing to her overmuch indulgence in sorrow. She made a very excellent and pious end. Just before her death, she had her crown placed at the head of her bed close beside her, and would never have it removed from there so long as she yet lived, directing that after her death she should be crowned and so remain till her body was laid beneath the ground.

She did leave behind her a sister, Madame de Joyeuse, which was her counterpart in her chaste and modest life, and did make great mourning and lamentation for her husband; and verily he was a brave, valiant and well accomplished Lord. Beside, I have heard say, how when our present King was in such straits, and shut up and imprisoned as in a bag in Dieppe, which the Duc du Maine held invested with forty thousand men, that an if she had been in the place of the Commander of the town De Chastes, she would have had revenge of the death of her husband in a very different fashion from the said worthy Commander, who for the obligations he lay under to M. de Joyeuse, ought never to have surrendered, in her opinion. Nor did she ever like the man afterward, but did hate him worse than the plague, being unable to excuse a fault as he had committed, albeit others deem him to have kept faith and loyalty according to his promises. But then an angry woman, be the original cause of offence just or unjust, will take no satisfaction; and this was the way with this Princess, who could never bring herself to like our reigning monarch, though she did sore regret the late King and wore mourning for him, and this although she did belong to the League; for she always declared both her husband and she did lie under many obligations to