Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/88

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THE CAPTIVITY.
73

Back to confront Parliament with a writ of abdication, and a dissatisfied country, with the news of a Regency of women. Yet not for lack of striving was her task undone.

What else could she have done? Any peace that Charles would grant must, of necessity, dismember France. "And so," concludes the Bourgeois of Marseilles, "the said lady returned by land, and she made no good cheer, and not without cause; for she could not agree with the Emperor that her brother should be ransomed by money, but they demanded a portion of the realm, which we could not grant without great loss and dishonour.—Dieu per sa pietat nos mande bueno pas."