twofold rebel?
In fact, the queen would perhaps have fallen into Gloucester's artful
snare, despite all the arguments and even the half-menaces [Louis
would have thrown over Margaret's cause if Warwick had demanded it; he
instructed MM. de Concressault and du Plessis to assure the earl that
he would aid him to the utmost to reconquer England either for the Queen
Margaret or for any one else he chose (on pour qui il voudra): for that
he loved the earl better than Margaret or her son.--BRANTE, t. ix. 276.]
of the more penetrating Louis, but for a counteracting influence which
Richard had not reckoned upon. Prince Edward, who had lingered behind
Louis, arrived from Amboise, and his persuasions did more than all the
representations of the crafty king. The queen loved her son with that
intenseness which characterizes the one soft affection of violent
natures. Never had she yet opposed his most childish whim, and now he
spoke with the eloquence of one who put his heart and his life's life
into his words. At last, reluctantly, she consented to an interview with
Warwick. The earl, accompanied by Oxford, arrived at Tours, and the two
nobles were led into the presence of Margaret by King Louis.
The reader will picture to himself a room darkened by thick curtains
drawn across the casement, for the proud woman wished not the earl
to detect on her face either the ravages of years or the emotions
of offended pride. In a throne chair, placed on the dais, sat the
motionless queen, her hands clasping, convulsively, the arms of the
fauteuil, her features pale and rigid; and behind the chair leaned the
graceful figure of her son. The person of the Lancastrian prince was
little less remarkable than that of his hostile namesake, but its
character was distinctly different. ["According to some of the French
chroniclers, the Prince of Wales, who was one of the handsomest and
most accomplished princes in Europe, was very desirous of becoming the
husband of Anne Nevile," etc.--Miss STRICKLAND: Life of Margaret of
Anjou.] Spare, like Henry V., almost to the manly defect of leanness,
his proportions were slight to those which gave such portly majesty to
the vast-chested Edward, but they evinced the promise of almost equal
strength,--the muscles hardened to iron by early exercise in arms,
the sap of youth never wasted by riot and debauch. His short purple
manteline, trimmed with ermine, was embroidered with his grandfather's
favourite device, "
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