e, and he sent for
Margaret at Verdun to come with the prince and attend it. He also sent
for Rene, her father, and other influential family friends. It is said
that when Margaret arrived and met her father, she was so much
agitated by the news, and by the hopes which it awakened in her bosom,
that, in embracing him, she burst into tears from the excess of her
excitement and joy.

[Sidenote: Reconciliation with Warwick proposed.]

But she could not endure the idea of a reconciliation with Warwick. At
first she positively refused to see or to speak to him. When, however,
at length he arrived at Tours, the king introduced him into Margaret's
presence, but for a long time she refused to have any thing to do with
him.

"She could never forgive him," she said. "He had been the chief author
of the downfall of her husband, and of all the sorrows and calamities
which had since befallen her and her son.

[Sidenote: Margaret's objections.]

"Besides," she said, "even if she were willing to forgive him for the
intolerable wrongs which he had inflicted upon her, it would be very
prejudicial to her husband's cause to enter into any agreement or
alliance with him whatever; for all her party and friends in England,
whom Warwick had done so much to injure, and who had so long looked
upon him as their worst and deadliest foe, would be wholly alienated
from her if they were to know that she had taken him into favor, and
thus she would lose much more than she would gain."

[Sidenote: Warwick's arguments.]

[Sidenote: His promises.]

Warwick replied to this as well as he could, pleading the injuries
which he had himself received from the Lancaster party as an excuse
for his hostility against them. Then, moreover, he had been the means
of unsettling King Edward in his realm, and of preparing the way for
King Henry to return; and he promised that, if Margaret would receive
him into her service, he would thenceforth be true and faithful to her
as long as he lived, and be as much King Edward's foe as he had
hitherto been his friend. He appealed, moreover, to the King of France
to be his surety that he would faithfully perform these stipulations.

[Sidenote: King Louis intercedes.]

The King of France said that he would be his surety, and he begged
that Margaret would pardon Warwick, and receive him into favor for
_his_ sake, and for the great love that he, the king, bore to him. He
would do more for him, he added, than for any man