Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/23

8 embassy to King Louis, requesting the hand of Mademoiselle d'Angoulême. This would have been a far more brilliant alliance than the English match, and Louisa would gladly have given her consent. But the King refused. Perhaps he thought it dangerous to wed a French princess with the natural rival of France; very probably Anne, who still counted on Charles for some yet unborn daughter of her own, persuaded him not to break her heart and grant this second triumph to her rival. The heir of Spain was dismissed, and Queen Anne selected a very different bridegroom, more suitable in years, but not at all in spirit. This was Charles of Alençon, first Prince of the Blood, a duke with power of life and death in his duchy, almost a petty sovereign. He was a handsome, dull, inefficient youth of twenty, without ideas or presence, and of a brooding and jealous temper. There was, however, no ground for rejecting the choice of the Queen, eager to humiliate her insatiable rival. The Duke of Alençon was an honourable match for Mademoiselle d'Angoulême. Descended from that Charles I. of Valois who was made Count of Alençon by his brother Philip the Fair, Monsieur d'Alençon came of a house which for two centuries had been glorious and quasi-royal. And yet he was stupid and mean of spirit; a sad mate for the gay, brilliant, mystical girl he was to marry, whose tender radiance and smile of wistful rapture deserved a happier destiny. It was also a profound disappointment to Louisa that, having refused the King of Spain, her pearl of princesses should be given to a simple duke. Yet this came to pass—Margaret obediently suffering her dismal fate. So, for a while, mother and children were divided. Francis, living in impatient restraint at court; Louisa,