ceeded
immediately to Rouen, where the commissioner, who came to attend her,
delivered her to the French embassadors appointed to receive her, and
attend to the signing of the renunciation.

[Sidenote: Her renunciation.]

The document was written in Latin, but the import of it was as
follows:

I, Margaret, formerly in England married, renounce all that I
could pretend to in England, by the conditions of my marriage,
with all other things there, to Edward, now King of England.

[Sidenote: Feelings with which she signed it.]

It cost Margaret no effort to sign this paper. With the death of her
husband and her son all hope had been extinguished in her bosom, and
life now possessed nothing that she desired. She signed this fatal
document, renouncing not only all claims to be henceforth considered a
queen, but all pretension that she had ever been one, with a passive
indifference and unconcern which showed that her spirit was broken,
and that the fires of pride and ambition which had burned so fiercely
in her breast were now, at last, extinguished forever.

[Sidenote: Ungenerousness of Louis.]

When the paper was signed Margaret was dismissed and left at liberty
to go her own way to her native province of Anjou, where it was her
intention to spend the remainder of her days. Her plan was to pass by
the way of Paris, in order to see once more her cousin, King Louis,
who had treated her with so much consideration and honor when she was
on her way to England with a fair prospect of finding her husband upon
the throne. But the case was different now, Louis thought, and instead
of receiving kindly her intimation that she was intending to visit
Paris on her way home, he sent her word that she had better not come,
and advised her instead to make the best of her way to her father in
Anjou.

[Sidenote: An escort offered.]

He, however, as if to soften this incivility, sent an escort to
accompany her in her journey home, but Margaret was so stung by her
cousin's heartless abandonment of her in her distress that she
resolved to accept no favor at his hands; so she refused the escort,
and set out with her few personal companions alone.

[Sidenote: Danger.]

[Sidenote: English people in Normandy.]

This little blazing up of the old flames of pride and resentment in
her heart came near, however, to costing Margaret her life, for she
had not gone far on her journey before an emergency occurred in which
an esc