Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/56

Rh had been born to Francis; and during the first three years of his reign Queen Claude gave the King only daughters. But in 1518 the Dauphin was born; in 1519 Henry, the King's second son. And then Bourbon began to shift his plans. If he still courted Louisa, it was in the hope of winning Renée, Queen Claude's young sister, whom he wished to marry, and as a means to the favour of the Duchess Margaret, with whom he fell in love; and gradually Madame perceived that she had lost him. She remembered all that she had done for him; how her influence had kept him in power; all the pensions she had heaped upon him, 24,000 livres as Constable, 14,000 as Gentleman of the Chamber, 24,000 as Governor of Languedoc; this in addition to his vast estates. She remembered that she was old and he was young, that she loved him and he used her to his profit. And then, in her furious indignation, she strove to undo all that she had done, to shatter this grandeur she had herself built up. So in 1521 the King took the leading of the Vanguard from Bourbon, who was at least a soldier, and gave it to Alençon. And in 1522 Madame began her lawsuit for the Bourbon estates.

Bourbon was quite aware that the King's mother, rightly or wrongly, was certain to gain her suit. He was also aware that, shorn of his lands, his power would be gone. He was the greatest landowner in France; the extent of his estates had become a proverb.

L'Empereur est grand terrein, Plus grand que Monsieur de Bourbon,"

writes Clément Marot. He was, in fact, the standard of comparison. He was resolved not to lose his