I have this story from the person I mentioned, who added that M. le connétable was much displeased at this duty and showed great vexation at being made such a spectacle, saying: “It is all over with my favour, I bid it farewell.” And so it proved; for after the fête and the wedding dinner, he had his dismissal and departed immediately. I heard this from my brother, who was then a page at Court and saw the whole mystery and remembered it well, for he had a good memory. Possibly I am wearisome in making this digression; but as it came to my remembrance, may I be forgiven.
To speak again of the learning of this queen: it was such that the ambassadors who spoke with her were greatly delighted, and made reports of it to their nations when they returned; in this she relieved the king, her brother, for they always went to her after paying their chief embassy to him; and often when great affairs were concerned they intrusted them to her. While they awaited the final and complete decision of the king she knew well how to entertain and content them with fine discourse, in which she was opulent, besides being very clever in pumping them; so that the king often said she assisted him much and relieved him a great deal. Therefore was it discussed, as I have heard tell, which of the two sisters served their brothers best,—one the Queen of Hungary, the emperor; the other, Marguerite, King François; the one by the effects of war, the other by the efforts of her charming spirit and gentleness.
When King François was so ill in Spain, being a prisoner, she went to him like a good sister and friend, under the safe-conduct of the emperor; and finding her brother in so piteous a state that had she not come he would surely have died, and knowing his nature and temperament far better than all his physicians, she treated him and caused him to be treated so well, according to her knowledge of him, that she cured him. Therefore the king often said that without her he would have died, and that forever would he recognize his obligation and love her for it; as he did, until his death. She returned him the same love, so that I have heard say how, hearing of his last illness, she said these words: “Whoever comes to my door and announces the cure of the king, my brother, whoever may be that messenger, be he lazy, ill-humoured, dirty or unclean, I will kiss him as the neatest prince and gentleman of France, and if he needs a bed to repose his laziness upon, I will give him mine and lie myself on the hardest floor for the good news he brings me.” But when she heard of his death her lamentations were so great, her regrets so keen, that never after did she recover from them, nor was she ever as before.
When she was in Spain, as I have heard from my relations, she spoke to the emperor so bravely and so honestly on the bad treatment he had given to the king, her brother, that he was quite amazed; for she showed him plainly the ingratitude and felony he had practised, he, a vassal, to his seigneur in relation to Flanders; after which she reproached him for his hardness of heart and want of pity to so great and good a king; saying that to use him in this way would never win a heart so noble and royal and so sovereign as that of her brother; and that if he died of such treatment, his death would not remain unpunished; he having children who would some day, when they grew up, take signal vengeance.
Those words, pronounced so bravely and with such deep anger, gave the emperor much to think of,—so much indeed that he softened and visited the king and promised him many fine things, which he did not, nevertheless, perform at this time.
Now, if the queen spoke so well to the emperor, she spoke still more strongly to his council, of whom she had audience. There she triumphed in speaking and haranguing nobly with that good grace she never was deprived of; and she did so well with her fine speech that she made herself more pleasing than odious and vexatious,—all the more, withal, that she was young, beautiful, the widow of M. d’Alençon, and in the flower of her age; which is very suitable to move and bend such hard and cruel persons. In short, she did so well that her reasons were thought good and pertinent, and she was held in great esteem by the emperor, his council, and the Court. Nevertheless he meant to play her a trick, because, not reflecting on the expiration of her safe-conduct and passport, she took no heed that the time was elapsing. But getting wind that the emperor as soon as her time had expired meant to arrest her, she, always courageous, mounted her horse and rode in eight days a distance that should have taken fifteen; which effort so well succeeded that she reached the frontier of France very late on the evening of the day her passport expired, circumventing thus his Imperial Majesty [Sa Cæsarée Majesté] who would no doubt have kept her had she overstayed her safe-conduct by a single day. She sent him word and wrote him this, and quarrelled with him for it when he passed through France. I heard this tale from Mme. la seneschale, my grandmother, who was with her at that time as lady of honour.
During the imprisonment of the king, her brother, she greatly assisted Mme. la regente, her mother, in governing the kingdom, contenting the princes, the grandees, and winning over the nobility; because she was very accessible, and so won the hearts of many persons by the fine qualities she had in her.
In short, she was a princess worthy of a great empire; besides being very kind, gentle, gracious, charitable, a great alms-giver and disdaining none. Therefore was she, after her death, regretted and bemoaned by everybody. The most learned persons vied with each other in making her epitaph in Greek, Latin, French, Italian; so much so that there is still a book of them extant, quite complete and very beautiful.
This queen often said to this one and that one who discoursed of death, and eternal happiness after it: “All that is true, but we shall stay a long time under ground before we come to that.” I have heard my mother, who was one of her ladies, and my grandmother, who was her lady of honour, say that when they told her in the extremity of her illness that she must die, she thought those words most bitter, and repeated what I have told above; adding that she was not so old but that she might live on for many years, being only fifty-two or fifty-three years old. She was born under the 10th degree of Aquarius, when Saturn was parted from Venus by quaternary decumbiture, on the 10th of April, 1492, at ten in the evening; having been conceived in the year 1491 at ten hours before mid-day and seventeen minutes, on the 11th of July. Good astrologers can make their computations upon that. She died in Béarn, at the castle of Audaus [Odos] in the month of December, 1549. Her age can be reckoned from that. She was older than the king, her brother, who was born at Cognac, September 12th, year 1494, at nine in the evening, under the 21st degree of Gemini, having been conceived in the year 1493, December 10th, at ten o’clock in the morning, became king January 11th, 1514 [1515 new style], and died in 1547.
This queen took her illness by looking at a comet which appeared at the death of Pope Paul III.; she herself thought this, but possibly it only seemed so; for suddenly her mouth was drawn a little sideways; which her physician, M. d’Escuranis, observing, he took her away, made her go to bed, and treated her; for it was a chill [caterre], of which she died in eight days, after having well prepared herself for death. She died a good Christian and a Catholic, against the opinion of many; but as for me, I can affirm, being a little boy at her Court with my mother and my grandmother, that we never saw any act to contradict it; indeed, having retired to a monastery of women in Angoumois, called Tusson, on the death of the king, her brother, where she made her retreat and stayed the whole summer, she built a fine house there, and was often seen to do the office of abbess, and chant masses and vespers with the nuns in the choir.