DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0214
172
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
ness seemed certain, when the King came down on the
peaceful little group and carried off Jeanne to Tours. He
had suspicions, not unfounded, that her parents wanted to
betroth her to the Heir of Spain. This did not suit his
purposes at all. He put her in his Castle of Plessis-le-Tours,
Louis Xi’s grim, iron-barred fortress, and here he had her
educated. He had determined to bring her up in orthodox
Catholicism, and this may have confirmed him in his course:
however that may be, he succeeded in breaking his Mignonne’s
heart by the separation, and though she treated him as a
deity, her spirit was sore within her.
It is easy to imagine her terror when, Jeanne being eight
years old, she suddenly heard that the child was mortally
ill at Tours. The distance from that town to Paris, where
Margaret, was staying, was no slight matter in those days;
and, when the news came, her servants were not at hand
and none of her vehicles were obtainable. She borrowed
her niece’s litter and reached Bourg that evening, going
straight to the Church to escape the crowd of Courtiers
that awaited her at the door. She would take no one with
her but her favourite duenna, the Senechale de Poitou; and
as she entered, she said that all hope had left her. Weeping
and praying, she prostrated herself before the Crucifix and
accused her own sins as the cause of her child’s illness.
When she rose again, she was calm : “ The Holy Spirit has
promised me my daughter’s recovery,” she said. Once in her
lodging, she sat down with her suite to supper, and all
through the meal she talked of God’s pity and mercy and
“ the miseries and tribulations of men, with a great gravity
of language.” After this, she sent her company away,
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
ness seemed certain, when the King came down on the
peaceful little group and carried off Jeanne to Tours. He
had suspicions, not unfounded, that her parents wanted to
betroth her to the Heir of Spain. This did not suit his
purposes at all. He put her in his Castle of Plessis-le-Tours,
Louis Xi’s grim, iron-barred fortress, and here he had her
educated. He had determined to bring her up in orthodox
Catholicism, and this may have confirmed him in his course:
however that may be, he succeeded in breaking his Mignonne’s
heart by the separation, and though she treated him as a
deity, her spirit was sore within her.
It is easy to imagine her terror when, Jeanne being eight
years old, she suddenly heard that the child was mortally
ill at Tours. The distance from that town to Paris, where
Margaret, was staying, was no slight matter in those days;
and, when the news came, her servants were not at hand
and none of her vehicles were obtainable. She borrowed
her niece’s litter and reached Bourg that evening, going
straight to the Church to escape the crowd of Courtiers
that awaited her at the door. She would take no one with
her but her favourite duenna, the Senechale de Poitou; and
as she entered, she said that all hope had left her. Weeping
and praying, she prostrated herself before the Crucifix and
accused her own sins as the cause of her child’s illness.
When she rose again, she was calm : “ The Holy Spirit has
promised me my daughter’s recovery,” she said. Once in her
lodging, she sat down with her suite to supper, and all
through the meal she talked of God’s pity and mercy and
“ the miseries and tribulations of men, with a great gravity
of language.” After this, she sent her company away,