imperial wore),
Me will you own, your daughter whom you bore?
Me, once your greatest boast and chiefest pride,
By Bourbon and Lorraine,[4] when sought a bride;
Now widowed wife,[5] a queen without a throne,
Midst rocks and mountains[6] wander I alone.
Nor yet hath Fortune vented all her spite,
But sets one up,[7] who now enjoys my right,
Points to the boy,[8] who henceforth claims the throne
And crown, a son of mine should call his own.
But ah, alas! for me 'tis now too late[9]
To strive 'gainst Fortune and contend with Fate;
Of those I slighted, can I beg relief?[10]
No; let me die the victim of my grief.
And can I then be justly said to live?
Dead in estate, do I then yet survive?
Last of the name, I carry to the grave
All the remains the House of Valois have.

[Footnote 1: Francois I.]

[Footnote 2: Henri II.]

[Footnote 3: Francois II., Charles IX., and Henri III.]

[Footnote 4: Henri, King of Navarre, and Henri, Duc de Guise.]

[Footnote 5: Alluding to her divorce from Henri IV.]

[Footnote 6: The castle of Usson.]

[Footnote 7: Marie de' Medici, whom Henri married after his divorce
from Marguerite.]

[Footnote 8: Louis XIII., the son of Henri and his queen, Marie
de' Medici.]

[Footnote 9: Alluding to the differences betwixt Marguerite and
Henri, her husband.]

[Footnote 10: This is said with allusion to the supposition that
she was rather inclined to favour the suit of the Duc de Guise
and reject Henri for a husband.]

THE MEMOIRS OF MARGUERITE DE VALOIS

LETTER I

I should commend your work much more were I myself less praised
in it; but I am unwilling to do so, lest my praises should seem
rather the effect of self-love than to be founded on reason and
justice. I am fearful that, like Themistocles, I should appear
to admire their eloquence the most who are most forward to praise
me. It is the usual frailty of our sex to be fond of flattery. I
blame this in other women, and should wish not to be chargeable
with it myself. Yet I confess that I take a pride in being painted
by the hand of so able a master, however flattering the likeness
may be. If I ever were possessed of the graces you have assigned
to me, trouble and vexation render them no longer visible, and
have even effaced them from my own recollection, So that I view
myself in your Memoirs, and say, with old Madame de Rendan, who,
not having consulted her glass since her husband's death, on