Note 983 — Chapter XI

And yet—such are the inconsistencies of human character—this queen, whose nature was a singular compound of timidity, hypocrisy, licentiousness, malice, superstition, and atheism, would seem at times to have felt the need of the assistance of a higher power. If Catharine was not dissembling even in her most confidential letters to her daughter, it was in some such frame of mind that she recommended Isabella to pray to God for protection against the misfortunes that had befallen her mother. The letter is so interesting that I must lay the most characteristic passage under the reader's eye. The date is unfortunately lost. It was written soon after Charles's accession: "Pour se, ma fille, m'amye, recommendé-vous bien à Dyeu, car vous m'avés veue ausi contente come vous, ne pensent jeamès avoyr aultre tryboulatyon que de n'estre asés aymayé à mon gré du roy vostre père, qui m'onoret pluls que je ne merités, mes je l'aymé tant que je avés tousjour peur, come vous savés fayrement asés: et Dyeu me l'a haulté, et ne se contente de sela, m'a haulté vostre frère que je aymé come vous savés, et m'a laysée aveque troys enfans petys, et en heun reaume (un royaume) tout dyvysé, n'y ayent heum seul à qui je me puise du tout fyer, qui n'aye quelque pasion partycoulyère." God alone, she goes on to say, can maintain her happiness, etc. Négociations, etc., 781, 782.