Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/74

Rh peace waited the arrival of Madame d'Alençon. For it was now determined that the Duchess Margaret should visit her brother at Madrid, and solicit the Emperor on his behalf. "The arrival of Madame Marguerite," writes Brion in July from Venezuello, "will decide the deliverance of the King."

After some delay the Emperor sent a safe conduct to Margaret, and she prepared for her adventurous journey. Many mistrusted the integrity of Charles, and feared that he might invent some pretext to detain her as a hostage. "Dieu vuelle que la fin seé como la principé" (God grant that the end be no worse than the beginning), wrote at this moment a citizen of Marseilles. And many feared other perils less august: the highway robbers who then infested the less-travelled portions of France and Spain. The season, too, was signally unhealthy; hot, with violent storms and thunder. But Margaret disregarded all these things; she was to see her brother again and to do him a service.

Much was, indeed, hoped for this journey, much expected from the influence of Margaret upon the Emperor. At another moment she might have shrunk from petitioning the man who had not yet answered the proposals which gave her to him in marriage. But during this long tedious journey she was subject to an access of exaltation, such as in times of great danger and difficulty she had experienced before. She seemed impervious to any thought but one, that she was nearing her captive brother; and as needles do not hurt the tender flesh of tranced women, nor tortures reach the acne of martyrs in their hour of crowning, so neither bodily discomfort nor wounded pride touched the feeling of Margaret at this moment.

On her road towards Madrid, a fortnight's journey