DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0405
LAST DAYS OF MARGARET OF NAVARRE 357
So he had written in days that were happy by com-
parison. Thenceforth cares and griefs seemed to multiply
around her and her good fortune to desert her. Her hus-
band was unfaithful and went more and more away from
her, with the one good result that he left the affairs of his
kingdom entirely in her hands. It was as much a mark
of confidence as of neglect, but not the one she would have
chosen. “ He does not even care to give the pleasure of a
single line of his handwriting to a poor ailing woman,” she
once wrote. Her daughter was as cold as ever. The new
king, Francis’ son, disliked his aunt and made difficulties
about her pension. She had even to debase herself by
writing almost servile letters to beg for a continuance of
royal favour, or by asking Diane de Poitiers to intercede
in her behalf. “You know,” she wrote to a friend, “that
without it, it would be impossible for me to keep up my
house—that I have only just enough to get through the
year—-and it may surely be believed that without necessity
it is not my habit to be a beggar.” She implored Mont-
morency, who had been recalled to Court, not to work
against her, and it was largely due to him that at last she
got her pension.
“I see that time has not conquered your memory,” she
wrote to him, “and has not made you forget the love I
have borne you, from your childhood onwards.” This was all
very well, but his memory could have evoked other impressions
besides those of her love, and after the pleasure she showed
at his disgrace on Jeanne’s wedding-day one cannot but
regret that she stooped to become his debtor.
The pension, paltry enough, did not come a moment too
So he had written in days that were happy by com-
parison. Thenceforth cares and griefs seemed to multiply
around her and her good fortune to desert her. Her hus-
band was unfaithful and went more and more away from
her, with the one good result that he left the affairs of his
kingdom entirely in her hands. It was as much a mark
of confidence as of neglect, but not the one she would have
chosen. “ He does not even care to give the pleasure of a
single line of his handwriting to a poor ailing woman,” she
once wrote. Her daughter was as cold as ever. The new
king, Francis’ son, disliked his aunt and made difficulties
about her pension. She had even to debase herself by
writing almost servile letters to beg for a continuance of
royal favour, or by asking Diane de Poitiers to intercede
in her behalf. “You know,” she wrote to a friend, “that
without it, it would be impossible for me to keep up my
house—that I have only just enough to get through the
year—-and it may surely be believed that without necessity
it is not my habit to be a beggar.” She implored Mont-
morency, who had been recalled to Court, not to work
against her, and it was largely due to him that at last she
got her pension.
“I see that time has not conquered your memory,” she
wrote to him, “and has not made you forget the love I
have borne you, from your childhood onwards.” This was all
very well, but his memory could have evoked other impressions
besides those of her love, and after the pleasure she showed
at his disgrace on Jeanne’s wedding-day one cannot but
regret that she stooped to become his debtor.
The pension, paltry enough, did not come a moment too