life rather than on a lineage sprung of evil-doing. Still the advice, in a worldly point of view and according to Machiavelli’s doctrine, was not to be despised. Very different was the behaviour, so ’tis said, of Queen Mary of England, third wife of King Louis XII. Being but ill-content and distrustful of the feebleness of the King her husband, she was fain to sound these waters for herself, taking for guide in crossing the ford the noble Comte d’Angoulême, the same which was afterward King Francis, then a young, handsome and charming Prince, to whom she did show much favour, always addressing him as “My excellent son-in-law;” as indeed he was, having already married Madame Claude, daughter of King Louis. The fact is she was smit with love for him; and he on seeing her was in much the same case. The end was the pair were very nigh coming together, the which they would surely have done but for the late M. de Grignaux,[115*] a nobleman of honour and good birth from Périgord, a prudent and well advised man, who had been gentleman in waiting to the Queen Anne, as we have above said, and was so still to Queen Mary. He seeing the play was very like to come off, did chide the aforesaid Comte d’Angoulême for the fault he was about to commit, saying with an angry energy: “Nay! by the Risen God (this was his favourite oath), what would you be at? See you not this woman, keen and cunning as she is, is fain to draw you to her, to the end you may get her with child? But an if she come to have a son, what of you? You are still plain Comte d’Angoulême, and never King of France, as you do hope to be. The King her husband is old, and cannot now make her children. You must needs meddle and go with her, you with your young hot blood, and she the same, and by the Risen Lord! the end will be she will just catch on like a limed bird, conceive you a child, and there you are! After that you’ve only to say, ‘Goodbye! my chance of the fair Kingdom of France!’ Wherefore I say, reflect.” In fact the said Queen was for practising and proving true the Spanish saw or proverb, which saith, _munca muger aguda murio sin herederos_, “no clever woman ever died without heirs;” or in other words, an if her husband make her none, she will call in other help to get her end. Now M. d’Angoulême _did_ reflect and sware he was going to be wise and refrain; yet tried and tempted again and again with the wiles and advances of the fair Englishwoman, did presently throw him more fiercely than ever into the pursuit of her. Such the effects of love and passion! such the power of a mere bit of flesh and blood, that for its sake men will surrender kingdoms and empires, and altogether lose the same, as we find over and over again in History. Eventually M. de Grignaux, seeing the young man was bent on his own undoing and the carrying further of his amour, told Madame d’Angoulême, his mother, of the matter, which did so reprove and smartly chide him, as that he gave up the sport once and for all.