Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/224

Rh scarcely able to travel, he led his retinue to Loches in Touraine. He was no better. He was, indeed, so much weaker, that for some while he was compelled to sojourn there; and when he was able to set out again, he decided to turn his face homewards, and made for St. Germain, his favourite and usual resort.

On the way thither, he had to pass Rambouillet, where he determined to rest for a night. But, on arriving there, he remembered many a glorious day in youth, when he had hunted the boar through the forests round the castle. He ordered a great boar-hunt for the morrow. The courtiers, with the Dauphin at their head, waited anxiously on that morning, wondering if the King would appear. The agonies that his abscess had caused him, the prostration that had laid him low at Loches, his unfixed, hesitating and uncertain mind, all rendered it unlikely. But, lo! down the great staircase comes the King, something of his old majesty in the poise of his unwieldy figure, and in his swollen altered features a little of their youthful grace and animation. It is as though the hero of Christendom, the Francis of Marignano and Pavia were alive again; the Francis whose prowess in war and in the chace was the theme of every Court in Europe. All day long this fair deceitful mirage lasts. The horn winds, the bounds yelp, the hunters ride through the glades of the green forest; and Francis is first of all, swiftest and most vigorous. Like a man under a charm, he feels neither fatigue nor anguish, neither the languor of his wasting fever nor the darting and throbbing of his wound.

All day he hunts; but, on returning to the castle, he is so prostrate, that he at once retires to sleep.