it seems to me that such an opportunity should not be lost, but that you should follow up your good fortune and act in such wise that neither the King of France nor his successors should have power hereafter to do harm to you or yours.”  That, too, was Charles V.’s own way of thinking; but, slow and patient as he was by nature, he relied upon the discomforts and the wearisomeness of prolonged captivity and indecision for tiring out Francis I. and overcoming his resistance to the harsh conditions he would impose upon him.  The regent, Louise, made him an offer to go herself and treat with him, at Perpignan, for the king’s liberation; but he did not accept that overture.  The Duke of Alencon, son-in-law of Louise, had died at Lyons, unable to survive the shame of his flight at the battle of Pavia; and the regent hinted that her daughter Marguerite, three months a widow, “would be happy if she could be agreeable to his Imperial Majesty,” but Charles let the hint drop without a reply.  However, at the end of August, 1525, he heard that Francis I. was ill:  “from great melancholy he had fallen into a violent fever.”  The population of Madrid was in commotion; Francis I. had become popular there; many people went to pray for him in the churches; the doctors told the emperor that there was fear for the invalid’s life, and that he alone could alleviate the malady by administering some hope.  Charles V. at once granted the safe-conduct which had been demanded of him for Marguerite of France, and on the 18th of September he himself went to Madrid to pay a visit to the captive.  Francis, on seeing him enter the chamber, said, “So your Majesty has come to see your prisoner die?” “You are not my prisoner,” answered Charles, “but my brother and my friend:  I have no other purpose than to give you your liberty and every satisfaction you can desire.”  Next day Marguerite arrived; her mother, the regent, had accompanied her as far as Pont-Saint-Esprit; she had embarked, on the 27th of August, at Aigues-Mortes, and, disembarking at Barcelona, had gone to Madrid by litter; in order to somewhat assuage her impatience she had given expression to it in the following tender stanzas: 

               “For the bliss that awaits me so strong
               Is my yearning that yearning is pain;
               One hour is a hundred years long;
               My litter, it bears me in vain;
               It moves not, or seems to recede;
               Such speed would I make if I might: 
               O, the road, it is weary indeed,
               Where lies—­at the end—­my delight!

               “I gaze all around me all day
               For some one with tidings to bring,
               Not ceasing—­ne’er doubt me—­to pray
               Unto God for the health of my king
               I gaze; and when none is descried,
               Then I weep; and, what else? if you ask,
               To my paper my grief I confide
               This, this is my sorrowful task.