Note 181 — Chapter XIII · (continued 2)

As early as October 27th, Navarre sent a gentleman to Jeanne d'Albret, then at Pau in Béarn, "desiring to have her now to cherish him, and do the part of a wife;" and the messenger told Sir Thomas Smith, with whom he dined that day in Evreux, "that the king pretendeth to him, that this punishment [his wounds] came to him well-deserved, for his unkindness in forsaking the truth." Forbes, State Papers, ii. 167. The authenticity of the story of Antoine of Navarre's death-bed repentance is sufficiently attested by the letter written, less than a year later (August, 1563), by his widow, Jeanne d'Albret, to the Cardinal of Armagnac: "Où sont ces belles couronnes que vous luy promettiés, et qu'il a acquises à combattre contre la vraye Religion et sa conscience; comme la confession dernière qu'il en a faite en sa mort en est seur tesmoignage, et les paroles dites à la Royne, en protestation de faire prescher les ministres par tout s'il guerissoit." Pierre Olhagaray, Histoire de Foix, Béarn, et Navarre (Paris, 1609), p. 546. See also Brantôme (edition Lalanne), iv. 367, and the account, written probably by Antoine's physician, De Taillevis, among the Dupuy MSS. of the Bibliothèque nationale, ibid., iv. 419.