DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0216
174
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
she will gladly renounce her royal blood to be “ the serving-
maid of his washerwoman.” “And I give you my word,
Sire,” (she ends) “ that without regretting my cloth of gold,
I much desire to put on a disguise and to try being your
servant.” There was one occasion when he sent her a New
Year’s present of a Crucifix, accompanied by some rather
trite verses he had composed. “When” (she writes) “I
behold an object so divine, so well made, so rich and excel-
lent. ... I can do nothing but embrace the finely-carven
figure, for the honour and the reverence that I bear my
two Christs.”
She wrote these rhapsodies in all sorts of uncomfortable
places—often while travelling about on one of the rather
un-christian missions of the most Christian King. Now she
is posting hither and thither as escort to one of his lady-
loves ; now awaiting her arrival and catching a chill in a
draughty inn by the roadside. And when the war breaks
out in Provence and in Picardy, she becomes, as she says
herself, “Penthilisea, Queen of the Amazons”; reviews his
armies, first in one province then in another; and examines
the fortifications in the North. “Would to God,” she writes,
after watching a battle in Provence, “ that the Emperor
would try to cross the Rhone whilst I am here ! I would
wager on my life that, woman though I be, I could prevent
him from doing so.”
II
The other personage who at this time played a part in
the life of Margaret was Anne de Montmorency, the
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
she will gladly renounce her royal blood to be “ the serving-
maid of his washerwoman.” “And I give you my word,
Sire,” (she ends) “ that without regretting my cloth of gold,
I much desire to put on a disguise and to try being your
servant.” There was one occasion when he sent her a New
Year’s present of a Crucifix, accompanied by some rather
trite verses he had composed. “When” (she writes) “I
behold an object so divine, so well made, so rich and excel-
lent. ... I can do nothing but embrace the finely-carven
figure, for the honour and the reverence that I bear my
two Christs.”
She wrote these rhapsodies in all sorts of uncomfortable
places—often while travelling about on one of the rather
un-christian missions of the most Christian King. Now she
is posting hither and thither as escort to one of his lady-
loves ; now awaiting her arrival and catching a chill in a
draughty inn by the roadside. And when the war breaks
out in Provence and in Picardy, she becomes, as she says
herself, “Penthilisea, Queen of the Amazons”; reviews his
armies, first in one province then in another; and examines
the fortifications in the North. “Would to God,” she writes,
after watching a battle in Provence, “ that the Emperor
would try to cross the Rhone whilst I am here ! I would
wager on my life that, woman though I be, I could prevent
him from doing so.”
II
The other personage who at this time played a part in
the life of Margaret was Anne de Montmorency, the