. It
is greater to be a princess of England. As for this love you avow, I
would make so bold as to suggest that you have a good, true wife to
whom you would do well to give it all. To me it is nothing, even were
you a thousand times the king you are. My heart is another's, and I
have my brother's permission to marry him."

"Another's? God's soul! Tell me who this fellow is that I may spit him
on my sword."

"No! no! you would not; even were you as valiant and grand as you
think yourself, you would be but a child in his hands."

Francis was furious, and had Mary's apartments guarded to prevent her
escape, swearing he would have his way.

As soon as Brandon and I arrived in Paris we took private lodgings,
and well it was that we did. I at once went out to reconnoiter, and
found the widowed queen a prisoner in the old palace des Tournelles.
With the help of Queen Claude I secretly obtained an interview, and
learned the true state of affairs.

Had Brandon been recognized and his mission known in Paris, he would
certainly have been assassinated by order of Francis.

When I saw the whole situation, with Mary nothing less than a prisoner
in the palace, I was ready to give up without a struggle, but not so
Mary. Her brain was worth having, so fertile was it in expedients, and
while I was ready to despair, she was only getting herself in good
fighting order.

After Mary's refusal of Francis, and after he had learned that the
sacrifice of Claude would not help him, he grew desperate, and
determined to keep the English girl in his court at any price and by
any means. So he hit upon the scheme of marrying her to his
weak-minded cousin, the Count of Savoy. To that end he sent a hurried
embassy to Henry VIII, offering, in case of the Savoy marriage, to pay
back Mary's dower of four hundred thousand crowns. He offered to help
Henry in the matter of the imperial crown in case of Maximilian's
death--a help much greater than any King Louis could have given. He
also offered to confirm Henry in all his French possessions, and to
relinquish all claims of his own thereto--all as the price of one
eighteen-year-old girl. Do you wonder she had an exalted estimate of
her own value?

[Illustration]

As to Henry, it, of course, need not be said, that half the price
offered would have bought him to break an oath made upon the true
cross itself. The promise he had made to Mary, broken in intent before
it was given, stood not for an inst