The Queen of Navarre was obliged to discontinue her correspondence with the reformers of Germany; great joys and great anguish gave another direction to her thoughts. About a fortnight after the return of the children of France, Margaret became the mother of a fine boy at the castle of Blois. When the king passed through that place on his return from the Pyrenees, he took his sister with him, after her churching, to Fontainebleau. But erelong bad tidings of her child summoned Margaret to Alençon, where he was staying with his nurse; he died on Christmas day, 1530, at the age of five months and a half. The mother who had watched near him, who had felt his sweet breath upon her cheek, saw him now lying dead in his little cradle, and could not turn away her eyes from him. At one time she thought he would revive, but alas! he was really dead. The queen felt as if her life had been torn from her; her strength was exhausted; her heart bled, but God consoled her. 'I place him,' she said, 'in the arms of his Father;' and as she felt the necessity of giving glory to God publicly, she sent for one of her principal officers, and, with a voice stifled by tears and sighs, ordered that the child's death should be posted up in the principal quarters of the city, and that these words should be at the foot of the notice: THE LORD GAVE, AND THE LORD HATH TAKEN AWAY. A sentiment of joy mingled, however, with her inexpressible sorrow; and, confident that the little child was in the presence of God, the pious mother ordered a _Te Deum_ to be sung.[177] 'I entreat you both,' she wrote to her brother and to her mother, 'to _rejoice at his glory_, and not give way to any sadness.'[178] Francis, who had not long before lost two daughters, was moved at this solemn circumstance, and replied to his sister: 'You have borne the grief of mine, as if they were your own lost children; now I must bear yours, as if it were my own loss. It is the third of yours and the last of mine, whom God has called away to his blessed communion, acquired by them with little labour, and desired by us with such great travail.'[179] There are afflictions from God which awaken deep feelings, even in the most frivolous hearts, and lips which are ordinarily dumb sometimes utter harmonious sounds in the presence of death. Other consolations were not wanting to the queen. Du Bellay, at that time Bishop of Bayonne, and afterwards of Paris, hastened to Alençon: 'Ah!' said Margaret, 'but for our Lord's help, the burden would have been more than I could bear.'[180] The bishop urged her, on the part of the king, to go to St. Germain, where preparations were making for the coronation of Queen Eleanor, the emperor's sister. Margaret, who always obeyed her brother's orders, quitted Alençon, though with sorrow, in order to be present at his marriage. [Sidenote: MARRIAGE OF FRANCIS AND ELEANOR.]