Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/236

Rh Navarre told me he knew very well that his wife was the cause of his not receiving all his packets."

In these letters, and fragments of letters, we perceive the lessened authority of Margaret and her husband. Their opposition was not likely, now, to frustrate any plan of the King.

Meanwhile, Jeanne was brilliantly happy. She had so little affection for her mother that Margaret's sorrow touched her not at all. She had made a brilliant marriage, and had made it in France, with a man of her own language and her own manners; these had ever been the chief of her ambition. Antoine de Bourbon was vacillating, uncertain, timid. But he was better than the Duke of Cleves. He was rich, amiable, of the highest rank. Jeanne set about the pleasant extravagances of her trousseau with a merry heart. "I never saw so happy a bride," said Henry II. to Montmorency.

Meanwhile, Margaret continued her unaccountable opposition. She was deeply attached to Jeanne; but her daughter's happiness did not change her. Perhaps she foresaw how little fitted was the vacillating and fickle temper of Vendôme to guide her daughter's headstrong, courageous nature. More likely the long depression which took possession of her on her brother's death rendered her incapable of pleasure. It was sorely against her will that she joined the French Court at Lyons, proceeding thence to Moulins, where, on the 20th of October 1548, Jeanne d'Albret, the future mother of Henry IV., was married.

The festival, though not so fine as that which graced the unlucky nuptials of the Duke of Cleves, was still a splendid sight, celebrated avec toute espèce de festins, joyeusetés et pompes royales. The King of