As for Marguerite herself, she never again saw the man who had served her so devotedly, and whom she had so deeply wronged. The child love of earlier and happier days had given place to hatred so unrelenting, so cruel, that when Bourchard himself had passed away she did not hesitate to visit it on his children. Indeed, after Marguerite had become Countess of Flanders, the one object in her life seems to have been to exclude them from all part in their inheritance. If she could have had her way, the issue of William of Dampierre would have been declared the only legal heirs, alike of Hainault and of Flanders. Again and again at Marguerite's instance the facts of this antiquated matrimonial suit, every one of which had happened fifty years before, were discussed by grave divines. Again and again the Countess of Flanders dragged her honour in the dust, and besmirched the memory of her dead husband, in the hope of proving the illegitimacy of the children she had borne him. The case was heard in the ecclesiastical courts of France; it was food for the delectation of imperial judges, and its merits were considered by the lawyers of the Roman Curia over and over again, but in spite of the pains which Marguerite had taken to blacken her own character, in each case she was declared innocent--the children of Bourchard d'Avesnes had been certainly born in wedlock. Marguerite, however, refused to acquiesce, and it was not until the land had been drenched with blood by the supporters of the rival claimants, and Guy and William of Dampierre had both fallen into the hands of their opponents, that at length this implacable old woman and all other parties concerned agreed to refer the matters in dispute to the arbitration of that marvellous peacemaker, St. Louis of France, who awarded Hainault to the heirs of Bourchard d'Avesnes, and to the Dampierres, Flanders. A decision to which each party was constrained to submit, and when Marguerite died, Guy de Dampierre became Count of Flanders, and Jean d'Avesnes Count of Hainault. [Illustration: HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN AND SOUTH AISLE OF NOTRE DAME]