Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/220

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NÉRAC IN 1545.
205

after our death, you must not doubt that this honest creature, dead for your sake, felt a thrill as soon as you stepped upon her grave. And if you did not feel it, because of the thickness of the tomb, you must not doubt but it was real. And since it is a pious office to hold the dead in memory, and even those whom one has loved, I pray you to give her a Pater-noster, an Ave Maria, and a De Profundis, and to sprinkle her with holy water. And thus you will acquire the name of a very faithful lover and a good Christian. I will leave you, then, for that, and go away."

In such a mood as this—tenderly cynical, melancholy, dreamy—Margaret ruled over her Court of Navarre in these latter days of general désœuvrement which followed on the death of Charles of Orleans.