Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/142

Rh. It would secure neither France nor Spain. And the future Queen would be an absentee living on her husband's German territory. Henry d'Albret deeply resented the betrothal. But he was too feeble to oppose the imperious brother-in-law, whose pensioner in some sort he was; powerless, although the Estas of his dominions more than once appealed against this peremptory order of the King of France.

It is only at this moment that we fully appreciate the intense and all-absorbing devotion of Margaret to her brother. This whim of his ran counter to every interest of her husband, of her subjects, even of her child. They are all nothing to her. She cannot conceive that they should oppose their will to that of Francis. Even the passionate anger and grief of the little princess did not touch her mother's heart. Jeanne, still ailing, frightened, not yet twelve years old, wept bitterly at the thought of being given to the care of a stranger, different in language and manners. Her proud and sore little heart rebelled at leaving France to marry a simple Duke. Yet she had been very dull and lonely at Plessis. "She filled her chamber with complaints; the air with sighs. One of the fairest princess of Europe is fading away in tears; her locks hanging loose, undressed; her lips without a smile! And when King Francis heard this thing, he named the lady to the Duke of Cleves without the consent of her father or her mother," declares Olhagaray.

But it was not because of Jeanne's desolation that the King desired to marry her. She was only a glove to fling down in the face of the Emperor; merely a note of defiance to sound in his hearing. She was a pledge to the Netherlands, and to the Lutherans who were favoured and sheltered by the Duke of Cleves.