Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/233

218 Henry confirmed the pension, and asked Margaret to stand sponsor to his new-born child, treating her with a kindness and regard that would go far to endear his memory, did we not suspect an aim in reserve, an object which made it worth his while to conciliate. Margaret suspected nothing. She was profoundly touched by his goodness, and by a friendly and magnanimous letter which Constable de Montmorency had the fine tact to send her on his reinstatement in power. That Montmorency should be the advocate of the Queen of Navarre, who had been tho instrument of his fall, was indeed a heaping of coals of fire upon her head. She scarcely knew how sufficiently to confess her humility. She wrote:—

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"You will not find it strange if incessantly I thank you as you incessantly give me occasion, for, by the message this porter has brought me, I see clearly that time has had no victory over your remembrance, to be able to efface the affection that, since your childhood, I have borne you; and the like I pray you to continue until the end of your old mother, and be you to her the staff of her age, as she was the rod of youth to you. For you have had many friends, but, remember, you have had but one mother, who will never lose this name or character in all that she may do or desire for you or yours."

So Margaret wrote to Montmorency, gratefully smiling through her tears, and wrote to Henry that he is the "life, health, and repose of her spirit." Meanwhile, Montmorency, under Henry's orders, was opening all the letters and packets addressed to the