At the same time she increased her importunity with her brother; she conjured the king to inaugurate a new era; she once more urged the propriety of inviting the count. ‘I do not care for that man,’ answered Francis sharply. He cared for him, however, when he wanted him. There is a letter from the king ‘to his very dear and beloved cousin of Hohenlohe,’ in which he tells him that, desiring to raise a large army, and knowing ‘his loyalty and valour, his nearness of lineage, love, and charity,’ he begs him most affectionately to raise three thousand foot-soldiers.[487] But where the Gospel was concerned, it was quite another matter. To put an end to his sister’s solicitation, Francis replied to her one day: ‘Do you wish, then, for my sons to remain in Spain?’ He had given them as hostages to the emperor. Margaret was silent: she had not a word to say where the fate of her nephews was concerned. She wrote to the count: ‘I cannot tell you, my friend, all the vexation I suffer: _the king would not see you willingly_; the reason is the liberation of his children, which he cares for quite as much as for his own.’ She added: ‘I am of good courage towards you, rather on account of our fraternal affection than by the perishable ties of flesh and blood. For the _other_ birth, the _second_ delivery--there lies true and perfect union.’ The Count of Hohenlohe, Luther’s disciple, did not come to France. This refusal was not the only grief which Francis caused his sister. The love of the King of Navarre had grown stronger, and she began to return it. But the king opposed her following the inclination of her heart. Margaret, thwarted in all her wishes, drinking of the bitter cup, revolting sometimes against the despotic will to which she was forced to bend, and feeling the wounds of sin in her heart, retired to her closet and laid bare her sorrows to Christ. O thou, my priest, my advocate, my king, On whom depends my life--my everything; O Lord, who first didst drain the bitter cup of woe And know’st its poison (if man e’er did know), These thorns how sharp, these wounds of sin how deep-- Saviour, friend, king, oh! plead my cause, I pray: Speak, help, and save me, lest I fall away.[488]