DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0215
THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE
173
returned to her devotions and opened the Bible on the song
of Hezekiah, which she took as a good omen. At this very
moment a postilion’s horn sounded in the street with a
note that seemed to mean haste. “What news?” she cried,
rushing to the window—but no answer came: the postilion,
whom none dared question, had gone to the Bishop’s Palace,
and she resumed her prayers. It was thus, kneeling almost
prone against a stone bench, that the Bishop of Seez found
her when, a few minutes later, he entered the room. There
was a pause before she rose; at last—“ Ah, Monsieur de
Seez,” she said, “have you come to tell a suffering mother
the death of her only child? I know full well she is now
with God.” Such was her state that he had to break his
good news to her and make her gradually understand that
the danger was past. She showed no exuberant joy, but
lifted her hands to heaven, thanking and glorifying God.
Sad though she was in her solitude, she never seems to
have blamed her brother, either for separating her from her
child, ox' for his behaviour about Navarre. A letter to her
cousin, Montmorency, begging him to try and persuade the
King to keep faith about her kingdom, is her only mention
of her wrongs; but she must have been thinking of Francis
when she wrote in after years that “ she had learned to live
on paper more than on anything else.” Her letters to him
are loving and effusive as ever; as for his to her, she never
tires of saying that they are a cure for all her wretchedness,
even for her colds and indigestions; and she kisses them
“at least once a day” and wears them as relics. She went
so fai' as to make her poor husband do the same. There
is no length she will not run. In order to be with Francis
173
returned to her devotions and opened the Bible on the song
of Hezekiah, which she took as a good omen. At this very
moment a postilion’s horn sounded in the street with a
note that seemed to mean haste. “What news?” she cried,
rushing to the window—but no answer came: the postilion,
whom none dared question, had gone to the Bishop’s Palace,
and she resumed her prayers. It was thus, kneeling almost
prone against a stone bench, that the Bishop of Seez found
her when, a few minutes later, he entered the room. There
was a pause before she rose; at last—“ Ah, Monsieur de
Seez,” she said, “have you come to tell a suffering mother
the death of her only child? I know full well she is now
with God.” Such was her state that he had to break his
good news to her and make her gradually understand that
the danger was past. She showed no exuberant joy, but
lifted her hands to heaven, thanking and glorifying God.
Sad though she was in her solitude, she never seems to
have blamed her brother, either for separating her from her
child, ox' for his behaviour about Navarre. A letter to her
cousin, Montmorency, begging him to try and persuade the
King to keep faith about her kingdom, is her only mention
of her wrongs; but she must have been thinking of Francis
when she wrote in after years that “ she had learned to live
on paper more than on anything else.” Her letters to him
are loving and effusive as ever; as for his to her, she never
tires of saying that they are a cure for all her wretchedness,
even for her colds and indigestions; and she kisses them
“at least once a day” and wears them as relics. She went
so fai' as to make her poor husband do the same. There
is no length she will not run. In order to be with Francis