The Strangled Queen Read Online Free PDF Page A

a long slumber of the mind.
    From the courtyard, blanketed to some extent by the walls, came the shouts of Bersumee, who was busy having his lodging emptied by the soldiers.
    "Louis still hates me, doesn't he?" she said.
    "Oh, as for that, I won't conceal from you that he hates you very well! You must admit that he has reason to," replied Artois. "To have decorated him with a cuckold's horns is an embarrass ment when they must be worn above the crown o f France! Had you done, as much to me, Cousin, I should not have made such a clamour throughout the kingdom. I should have given you such a beating that you would never have desired to-do, the like again, or else ..."
    He looked so steadily at Marguerite that she was frightened.
    ". . . or else I should have acted in such a way that I could feign the preservation of my honour. However, the late King, your father-in-law, clearly judged otherwise and things are as they are."
    He certainly possessed a fine assurance in deploring a scandal he had done everything in his power to set alight. He went on, "Louis's first thought, after witnessing his father's death, indeed the only thought he has in mind at present, since I believe him incapable of entertaining more than one at a time, is to extricate himself from the embarrassment in which you have placed him and to live down the shame you have caused him."
    "What does Louis want?" asked Marguerite.
    For a moment Artois swung his monumental leg backwards and forwards as if he were about to kick a stone.
    "He intends asking for the annulment of your marriage," he answered, "and you can see, from the fact that he, has sent me to you at once, that he wants to put it through as quickly as possible."
    "So I shall never be Queen of France," thought Marguerite. The foolish dreams of the day before were already proved vain. A single day of dreaming to set against seven months of imprisonment against the whole of time!
    At this moment two men came in carrying wood and kindling. They lit the fire. Marguerite waited till they had gone again.
    "Very well," she said wearily, "let him ask for an annulment. What can I do?"
    She went over to the fireplace and held her hands out to the flames which were beginning to catch.
    "Well, Cousin, there is much you can do, and indeed you can be the recipient of a certain gratitude if you will take a course that will cost you nothing. It happens that. adultery is no ground for annulment; it's absurd, but so it is. You could have had a hundred lovers instead of one, pleasured every man in the kingdom, and you would be no less indi ssolubly married to the man to whom you were joined before God. Ask the chaplain, or anyone else you like; so it is. I have taken the best advice upon it, because , I know very little of church matters: a marriage cannot be broken, and if one wishes to break it, it must be proved that there was some impediment to its taking place, or that it has not been consu mmated, so that it might never h ave been. You're listening to me? "
    "Yes, yes, I see what you mean," said Marguerite.
    It was no longer a question of the affairs of the kingdom, but of her own fate; and she was registering each word in her mind that she might not forget it.
    "Well," went on her visitor, "this is what Monseigneur of Valois has devised to get his nephew out of his difficulty, "
    He paused and cleared his throat.
    "You will admit that your daughter, the Princess Jeanne, is not Louis's child; you will admit that you have never slept with your husband and that there has therefore never been a true marriage. You will declare this voluntarily in the presence of myself and your chaplain as supporting witnesses. Among your previous servants and household there will be no difficulty in f inding witnesses to testify that this is the truth. Thus the marriage will have no defence and the annulment will be automatic."
    "And what am I offered in exchange for this lie-?" asked Marguerite.
    "In exchange for your co-operation,"