Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/31

16 her dreadful prison guarded by her jealous and ferocious husband, was left to die without a word. A certain Louise de Crevecœur discovered too late the heartlessness of her lover. "Do you not know?" she writes, "that those in prison make use of poison; my children and I eat nothing without I find an antidote for our food. It is for my love of you that they hurt me thus; and you endure it. This is sharper to me than the pain that I suffer." How terrible a light this chance-found letter casts on the figure of the gay, handsome, brave young Amadis who was at this time the hero of Europe. "It is for my love of you that they hurt me thus; and you endure it!" From many an honest servant of Francis this cry must have gone up; for neither gratitude nor pity beat under that dinted breast-plate of his. Yet, after all these years, knowing the end, and despite our great contempt, we feel the glamour that surrounds the figure of this ardent young poet and soldier, this brilliant hero of the Renaissance. And how much more did not his radiance blind the women who adored him as their hero and their king!

"Scrivere a Luisa di Savoia è come scrivere alla stessa Trinità." So wrote the witty, blasphemous Cardinal Bibbiena. And it was true. Francis repaid the love and service of his worshippers by his confidence. Louisa and Margaret were scarcely less powerful than himself. On all political questions he consulted these contrasted minds: the violent, autocratic Louisa, and Margaret the modest and humane. Unconsciously to themselves, these different natures paralysed each other; and the policy of Francis is a brilliant tissue of inconsistencies, uncertainties, and sudden disasters.

Francis, though so newly King of France, did not