Part 12 (2/2)
Storms in the life of Marguerite began long before the Reformation. At the age of two years she lost her mother, beautiful Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold. The young queen's last words were spoken to her ”Daisy.” ”Farewell, farewell, my sweetest little daughter,” she murmured. ”Thou art too soon left motherless.” At the age of four, Marguerite, for political reasons, was married to the Dauphin of France, afterward known as Charles VIII., who was ten years her senior. The marriage was solemnized with great pomp at Amboise. After the ceremony the tired, bewildered baby was returned to her good governess, Madame Secrete.
Marguerite, up to her twelfth year, was educated wholly with a view to her future position as Queen of France. But the pride of Charles the Bold ran in the little maid's veins. She never forgot that she was the ”daughter of Caesar.” Caesar himself ”Our Max,” ”Beggar Max,” ”Spendthrift Max,” ”Mayor of Augsburg,” ”Hunter Max,” as he was variously called by his people, but always with a ”G.o.d bless him!” added could, and a hundred times a day did, easily throw off the imperial dignity; but stately little Marguerite never laid hers aside, even in her childish games with the French royal children. She is described as possessing ”set will, affectionate nature, and unusual zeal for study.”
At the age of twelve, a crus.h.i.+ng blow fell upon this proud little daughter of Caesar. To gain a province, her husband divorced her and married Anne of Brittany. The latter maid was kidnapped during a journey through France and held prisoner in a castle until she agreed to the marriage, which was then speedily effected. Marguerite haughtily refused to resign the t.i.tle, ”Queen of France,” which she had borne for eight years. For seventeen months there were, therefore, two Queens of France Anne at Paris, and Marguerite holding her court at Amboise. Even the annals of royalty have never shown a more complicated situation. Anne of Brittany was, legally, for she had been married by proxy to Maximilian Marguerite's stepmother. Now, by her enforced marriage to Charles, Anne found herself the rival of her nominal stepdaughter.
Maximilian, doubly furious against France, demanded that Marguerite's dowry be returned and that she be sent back to him with regal honors. It was a hard journey for a high-spirited girl. Every town along the route held fetes and was brightly illuminated as she pa.s.sed through it. These munic.i.p.al displays, either from stupidity or malice, were mostly in execrable taste. On every hand, blazoned in fire, Marguerite saw her own name sometimes even her own portrait coupled with that of the king who had cast her off. But she exhibited few outward signs of inward shame.
Once at Cambrai, when the crowd shouted ”Noel, Noel;” she called in a clear, far-reaching tone ”Say not 'Noel,' but cry, 'Long live Burgundy!'” Once, at dinner in a French town through which she pa.s.sed, lament was made that the vintage had been blighted; and she said: ”Small wonder that the grapes wither in a country where oaths are broken!”
But Marguerite or, rather, her wealth was not long without suitors. Don Juan of Austria, son of Ferdinand and Isabella, offered himself and was accepted by Maximilian. There was a brief delay in the negotiations and Don Juan, exasperated thereby, impudently reminded the emperor that a divorced princess ought to come cheaper than either a widow or a maid.
At about the same time Marguerite's brother, Philip the Handsome, was betrothed to Don Juan's sister, Juana. The two girls travelled together from Brussels as far as Liege, where Philip was to be married. There was a great contrast between the two Marguerite calm, stately, fair, was ruled always by reason; and Juana dark, intense, was governed by emotion. Upon this journey, however, youth and common interests must have made the two girls companionable to each other. No prophetic sign warned either of sorrows which the future held in store. The following letter, lately printed in _Secret Memoirs of the House of Austria_, gives the story of Juana's tragedy. Another letter, to which we shall refer later, proves that Marguerite's love pa.s.sion, though free from crime, unlike Juana's, was no less deep and real than that of her hot-blooded southern sister. The letter was written by one of Philip's generals. An extract from it says: ”The good King Philip was suspected by his Queen of an amour, and that without reason, as was afterward discovered, but she took it so much and so grievously to heart that she at last resolved to kill her lord and husband in revenge for it. As women are so easily moved and impelled, according to the old adage 'they have long robes but short counsels,' she got so utterly beside herself as to poison her good husband, although it was to her own loss. Shortly after, she found out that she had been wrong, and that she had allowed her quick temper to get the better of her. Then she began to rue what she had done, and found no rest, tormented as she was by the furies of remorse; and as she had her husband no more and could not get him back, she began to love him twice as well as before, and grieved and fretted so violently that at last she went out of her mind altogether and became quite childish.”
For months Juana kept Philip's embalmed body in her room, frequently embracing it in an agony of grief. When, at last, it was buried she could not rest until it was exhumed. Then she travelled with it at night by the light of torches all through Spain. Curiously enough, a soothsayer had once told Philip that he would make longer journeys through his kingdom after his death than he had ever taken while living.
Philip the Handsome had one strong trait in his otherwise weak nature.
He was devotedly attached to his sister Marguerite. He loved her better than anything else on earth except himself. She loved him, and his children after him for his sake, with no thought of self. When Marguerite left the Netherlands for Spain where her marriage with Don Juan was to take place, Philip went with her to the seacoast. The s.h.i.+p in which Marguerite and her suite sailed was threatened with destruction. Marguerite calmly dressed herself in her richest robes and jewels in order that her body, if washed ash.o.r.e, might be easily identified. Then under one of her splendid bracelets she slipped a band of oiled silk containing an epitaph written by herself:
”Cy gise Margot, la gente damoysella, Qui eust deux maris, et si morut pucelle.”
This has been roughly translated thus:
”Beneath this tomb the highborn Margaret's laid, Who had two husbands and yet died a maid.”
In this epitaph we get one of the few hints of the fact that Marguerite had inherited her father's whimsical sense of humor. Her letters and her papers generally seem written under the shadow of court etiquette. Her acts, however, and many of her recorded conversations, show a quick appreciation of ludicrous or grotesque situations.
But the young poetess's epitaph was premature. The s.h.i.+p made the coast of England in safety. The princess was invited to visit Henry VII. of England; which invitation she accepted with the result that she was, says the old historian, ”much caressyed by the whole Court.” Whether Marguerite at this time met Charles Brandon (afterward the Duke of Suffolk) who was destined secretly to play an important part in her love affairs, is unknown, but it is probable that she did. Shortly after, her marriage a magnificent ceremony took place at Madrid.
Once more a crown glittered before the ambitious girl's eyes, and again it was dashed from her. Six months after their marriage, Don Juan suddenly died. Marguerite returned to Germany. Again she married, this time Philibert of Savoy, who seems to have loved her deeply; he, too, soon died. Twice a widow and once divorced, Marguerite at the age of twenty-five returned to her father's court, declaring that no political exigencies should again force her into matrimony. About this time, she adopted her strange, sad motto: _Spoliat mors munera nostra_ (Death ever destroys what is granted to us). A pathetic little poem it loses much in translation written by Marguerite at this time is still preserved:
”Must I thus ever languish on?
Must I, alas, thus die alone?
Shall none my tears and anguish know?
From childhood, I have suffered so!
Too long it lasts this weary woe.”
As Thackeray said long afterward of the work of another poet-princess: ”These plaintive lines are more touching than better poetry.”
Still another sorrow was in store for Marguerite. Her beloved brother, Philip the Handsome, died. The manner of his death we know. It was his dying request that his sister Marguerite, then regent of the Netherlands, should have the guardians.h.i.+p of his five children, Charles, Leonora, Isabel, Marie, and Catalina. The maternal instinct never beat more strongly in any woman's heart than in that of the royal Marguerite.
Faithfully, wisely, lovingly, she fulfilled her brother's trust.
Another crown was offered Marguerite: Henry VII. of England sought her in marriage. Her father wished her to accept this suitor, but Marguerite persistently refused. Much correspondence pa.s.sed between Maximilian and his daughter at this time. From it we learn little of Marguerite's inner life, but the glimpses of Maximilian are charming. Had he not been sure that his daughter would appreciate his humorous allusions and his nonsensical fancies, he would never have written as he did. In regard to his plan for settling the difficulties between Church and State by the startling expedient of making himself Pope, he writes:
”VERY DEAR AND MOST BELOVED DAUGHTER:
”We send the Bishop of Greece to-morrow to Rome, to the Pope, to find some means of agreeing with him to take us for a coadjutor, so that after his death we may be sure of having his papacy, and of becoming a priest, and you will be obliged after my death to wors.h.i.+p me, of which I shall be extremely proud. I have also begun to sound the cardinals, with whom two or three thousand ducats will do me great service, considering the partiality which they already exhibit.
”P. S. The Pope has intermittent fever. Cannot live long.”
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