To all of this Marie was forced to submit with what grace she could; but upon the matter of a husband she was resolved to have something to say for herself. No less than six suitors had some sort of claim to her, besides the one to whom her father had betrothed her in 1473. There was the dauphin, a mere boy of eight, for whom Louis was intriguing; there was, at the other extreme, the worthless and worn-out profligate, Clarence, whom Margaret of York hoped to establish in this new and rich nest; there was the fierce and cruel Adolphus of Guelders, who had ended a career of crime in prison, and whom the Ghenters meant to take out of prison that he might be their duke and leader: then there were the English Lord Rivers, brother of England's queen, and the son of the Lord of Ravenstein, and the son of the Duke of Cleves. In the whole list there was not one whom the poor girl could have considered with anything but aversion. The worst of all, both politically and personally, was the dauphin; the idea of contracting a marriage with a mere child, and that child the son of her most dangerous enemy, was revolting to Marie's feelings, so lately excited by the death of her two servants, betrayed by Louis. At her very court she was surrounded by spies, who, pretending to sympathize with her and console her, reported to Louis or to the emperor all the intimate confidences of the poor girl. The interest of Austria finally seemed to be in the ascendant, for now Margaret, despairing of making Clarence acceptable either to the young lady or to her subjects or even to Edward IV., had thrown her influence on the side of Maximilian, and the influence of France in the Burgundian councils had been ruined by the manifest determination of the king to absorb all French Burgundy, all Flanders, if he could get it. There had not been sufficient time for the growth of real national feeling in the ill-assorted and scattered provinces of the duchy; but the non-French parts of Burgundy, at least, by no means relished the idea of losing their identity and becoming parts of France.