“My lord, the joy we are still feeling at the kind letters which you were pleased to write yesterday to me and to your mother, makes us so happy with the assurance of your health, on which our life depends, that it seems to me that we ought to think of nothing but of praising God and desiring a continuance of your good news, which is the best meat we can have to live on. And inasmuch as the Creator bath given us grace that our trinity should be always united, the other two do entreat you that this letter, presented to you, who are the third, may be accepted with the same affection with which it is cordially offered you by your most humble and most obedient servants, your mother and sister-- LOUISE, MARGUERITE.” This close and tender union of the three continued through all separations and all trials; the confidence of the captive king was responsive to the devotion of his mother the regent and of his sister who had become his negotiatrix. When the news came of the king’s captivity, the regency threatened for a moment to become difficult and stormy; all the ambition and the hatred that lay dormant in the court awoke; an attempt was made to excite in the Duke of Vendome, the head of the younger branch of the House of Bourbon, a desire to take the regent’s place; the Parliament of Paris attacked the chancellor, Duprat, whom they hated--not without a cause; but the Duke of Vendome was proof against the attempts which were made upon him, and frankly supported the regent, who made him the chief of her council; and the regent supported the chancellor. She displayed, in these court-contentions, an ability partaking both of firmness and pliancy. The difficulties of foreign policy found her equally active and prudent. The greatest peril which France could at that time incur arose from the maintenance of the union between the King of England and Charles V. At the first news of the battle of Pavia, Henry VIII. dreamed for a moment of the partition of France between Charles and himself, with the crown of France for his own share; demonstrations of joy took place at the court of London; and attempts were made to levy, without the concurrence of Parliament, imposts capable of sufficing for such an enterprise. But the English nation felt no inclination to put up with this burden and the king’s arbitrary power in order to begin over again the Hundred Years’ War. The primate, Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to Cardinal Wolsey, “It is reported to me that when the people had orders to make bonfires for the capture of the King of France, many folks said that it was more reason for weeping than for rejoicing. Others openly expressed their desire that the King of France might be set at liberty, that a happy peace might be concluded, and that the king might not attempt to conquer France again, a conquest more burdensome than profitable, and more