Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/229

214 of his courtiers, and asked, "See you that rascal? He opens the vanguard of my felicity."

So, unregretted, the King's funeral passes on. Guise and Diana laugh together, quietly, but from the heart. "He is gone!" they say; "the old gallant!" and Henry enters into his felicity. Meanwhile, at Tusson, Margaret weeps and prays; and, in Madrid, the Emperor surprises the messenger who brings him the news by an outburst of grief for the death of his captive of yore. "He is gone!" cries Charles, like Guise and Diana; but with how different an accent. "He is gone, the great prince! I think that Nature will not make his like again." Charles takes the loss to heart; even as Francis sorrowed for Henry of England. The news leaves him old and lustreless. He has lost his rival and his captive; his brother and his noblest adversary.

Thus Francis rests at St. Denis, between the coffins of his sons. His heir makes merry over his burial; and, relates Dandolo, who wrote from France that year, "just so pallid and melancholy as he was, does he now seem cheerful and well-coloured. The young Cardinal de Guise is the very heart and spirit of him, and negotiates all State affairs with the King."

So little were the counsels of Francis remembered. Only his sister mourns and weeps. She alone, and the Emperor who ruined him.