Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/73

58 met a handsome, stalwart German, the fair-haired Palatine Frederic. The two young people had fallen violently in love with each other, and kept their passion a secret for some months. But, finally, some well-informed Prime Minister got a hint of it; and the wayward Leonor was married against her will to a dissolute old dotard, the King of Portugal. On his death, the Palatine Frederic renewed his offers. But Leonor had already heard of her brother's captive, the Ogier, the Amadis, the Roland of France. She turned a deaf ear to her faithful Palatine.

Leonor had been promised by her brother to the Constable Bourbon. She refused to wed the traitor who had mined her hero. Her frank, expansive nature did not seek to hide her interest. She writes to Louisa, "Would that it were in my power to deliver the King!" And, seeing Leonor so devoted, a new condition of peace began to be mooted in the court of Louisa at Lyons.

A letter exists, of which the signature is quite illegible, dated the 2nd of June 1525, and addressed to Louisa. Here the new plan is formulated for, I think, the first time. It is proposed that Leonor shall be given in marriage, not to Bourbon, but to Francis; that her daughter by her first husband he married to the young Dauphin; that the Duchess Margaret wed the Emperor; and Constable Bourbon the Princess Renée. On this plan the Duchy of Burgundy might be reserved for the eldest son of Leonor and Francis. This would, however, dismember the Dauphin's inheritance. On the 6th of June, Madame, who was Regent in France, sent an embassy to Madrid, to treat of the marriage of Leonor with Francis and of the Dauphin with her daughter. But all the other conditions of