Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/83

68 splendid monarch of Europe. If, enfeebled by long captivity, he assented to these conditions, France must, perforce, descend to the level of a petty state.

But when in a few days the couriers returned, her heart must have beat high with glad recognition of her brother's chivalry. His letter ran:—

",

"I know you cannot condemn me to perpetual imprisonment more honestly than by asking, for my ransom, an impossible thing. On my side I am resolved to take my prison in good part, being sure that God (who knows I merit it not for long, being the captive of honourable warfare), God will give me strength to bear it patiently. And I have no regret, save only the fact that the honest proposals, which you chose to hold to me in my illness, should be barren of effect."

Thus affairs were still in the same state as on the morrow of Pavia.

Margaret was now in despair. Ferreras, the Spanish historian, assures us that she undertook to get Francis out of prison in disguise; that she put in his bed a negro who was accustomed to carry the wood to the King's fire, and dressing her brother in the slave's attire, and having blacked his face, attempted to escape with him in the dusk, but was discovered by a groom of the chambers. This may be true, or it may be a mere blundering remembrance of the escape of Henry d'Albret from Pavia. But in either case, it was evident there was no rescue for the King of France.

In November another scheme began to occupy Margaret and her brother; a scheme by which the