Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/223

208 the English treaty, had slipped back into his old terms of friendship with his neighbour. They were of the same age and the same constitution. They had known each other from youth up, each was gallant and frank, though the lovable lightmindedness of Francis incurred the contempt of Henry's brutal strength. And ever since the memorable day when Francis had forced his way into the King of England's tent on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the French King had entertained a true liking for his neighbour, which outlasted many a sudden quarrel and breach of the peace. In one profound sentence, Gaillard has condensed the relations of Francis with his neighbours: "Charles V. greatly injured Francis and disliked him little; Francis hated him, and loved Henry VIII., by whom he was hated, and who was jealous of him."

In the last days of January our English Henry died, and by the end of February Francis was seriously ill. He had contracted a slow fever, which day by day consumed his long-diminished strength. He tried to brace himself against its ravages, but the means he took to strengthen his frame only left it weaker. The chace, his life-long passion, possessed him with redoubled craving at the last. He wondered from place to place, from province to province; hunting through all his forests all day long; himself, all night, a prey to agony and fever.

Always ill, always weaker, always in the saddle, he led his weary court from St. Germain to La Muette, thence to Villepreux and Dampierre, then on to Limosin, where he meant to pass the carnival. But after a rest of two or three days, his fever hunted him on. The air did not suit him in that place. In a milder atmosphere he thought he might be stronger; so,