“O, welcome be he who at length
               Shall tap at my door and shall cry,
               ’The king to new health and new strength
               Is returning; the king will not die!’
               Then she, who were now better dead,
               Will run, the news-bearer to see,
               And kiss him for what he hath said,
               That her brother from danger is free.”

Francis was not “free from danger” when his sister arrived; she took her post at his side; on the 25th of September a serious crisis came on; and he remained for some time “without speaking, or hearing, or seeing.”  Marguerite had an altar set up in her chamber; and all the French, of the household, great lords and domestics, knelt beside the sick man’s sister, and received the communion from the, hands of the Archbishop of Embrun, who, drawing near the bed, entreated the king to turn his eyes to the holy sacrament.  Francis came out of his lethargy, and asked to communicate likewise, saying, “God will cure me, soul and body.”  He became convalescent, and on the 20th of October he was sufficiently recovered for Marguerite to leave Madrid, and go and resume negotiations at Toledo, whither Charles V. had returned.

The day but one after her arrival she wrote to the king, “The emperor gave me courteous and kind reception, and, after coming to meet me at the entrance of this house, he used very kind and courteous language to me.  He desired that he and I should be alone in the same room, and one of my women to keep the door.  This evening I will send you word of what has been done; entreating you, my lord, to put on before Sieur Alancon (the king’s custodian) an air of weakness and weariness, for your debility will strengthen me and will hasten my despatch, which seems to me slower than I can tell you; as well for the sake of seeing you liberated, which you will be by God’s help, as of returning and trying whether your dear hand can be of any use to you.”  Marguerite was impressed by the good-will she discovered at the court of Toledo in respect of the King of France, his liberation, and the establishment of peace; she received from the people in the streets, as well as from the great lords in their houses, the most significant proofs of favor.  Charles V. took umbrage at it, and had the Duke of Infantado, amongst others, informed that, if he wished to please the emperor, neither he nor his sons must speak to Madame d’Alencon.  “But,” said she, “I am not tabooed to the ladies, to whom I will speak double.”  She contracted a real intimacy with even the sister of Charles V., Eleanor, widow of the King of Portugal, whom Charles had promised to the Duke of Bourbon, and between whom and her brother, King Francis, Marguerite set brewing a marriage, which was not long deferred.  But, in spite of her successes at the court, and even in the family of the emperor, Marguerite had no illusions touching the small chance of bringing her grand object