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202 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. cession of the town of Berwick, a measure which added im- mensely to her unpopularity in England, and the betrothal of her son to the sister of James, but to proceed alone to France, there to solicit further supplies of men and money from her first cousin Louis, who had succeeded his father, Charles the Seventh. It was no new trial to the forlorn queen to venture upon this difficult mission, unsupported but by its great pur- port, the restoration of her husband's rights. She had ever been the one to decide, and to a mind now cognizant of its own intrinsic power, action, ever preferable to apathy, assumed its fullest scope when unfettered by the opinions of others. But for her son she might have resigned the stake for which she so ardently played, and retired with contentment to the privacy more congenial to her mild and saintly spouse ; but with the powerful incentive not of Henry's right alone, but that of the anticipated line of his successors, indifference on her part would have been reprehensible, even if such a nature as hers could have affected it. Accompanied, therefore, by her son, the precious object of her fondest interest, she quitted at once for the Continent. Still in the prime of that extraordinary beauty which had ever rendered her remarkable, and appealing, in the eloquence of forsaken sorrow, to the sympathy and gallantry of her countrymen, Margaret, if she obtained not all she desired, yet received ample proof that the fascinations of her youth remained unimpaired by misfortune. She was in this emer- gency first indebted to the gratitude of a French merchant to whom she had rendered a service at her father's court. He happened to be in Scotland at this time, when, beside her other distresses, she was totally destitute of money, nobly not only supplied her with funds, but with a vessel to carry her to France. The Duke of Bretagne next guaranteed his aid, while a former friend, the gallant and romantic Pierre de Breze, count de Varennes, grand seneschal of Normandy, offered hir his fortune and sword, and raised a body of men-at-arms in her service. Margaret somewhat imprudently, by her too evident gratitude of this heroic supporter, offended other par- tisans, and though she succeeded with Louis so far as to procure a loan of money, with two thousand troops, yet it is quaintly observed that the monarch, in giving the command of them to De Breze, wished to insure the count's destruction, who, though preserved, certainly proved a most unfortunate