CHAPTER VIII.

THERE needed not this letter to make the Countess comprehend how great an advantage it would be to her cause, to engage in it the assistance of a warlike and powerful prince, like the King of England; and if she herself had not, unsolicited, attempted doing so, it was, probably, from feeling, that such an application would be useless.

De Montfort himself had, as before mentioned, gone to England for that express purpose, had acknowledged Edward as his own Sovereign, and that of France, and swearing allegiance, received in return the usual assurances of support: these not having been fulfilled, though he had been again and again conjured

no longer to delay sending troops, Jeanne gav up all hopes of success, and concluded that it would be useless to press him farther on the

matter.

But on the arrival of the messenger, and on perusing the letter which Robert had sent by him, her long abandoned hopes, of engaging Edward to protect her, began to revive. The Count laid before her the true character of the English monarch, who, he said, naturally indolent and fond of pleasure, and, at that moment, rendered, by the influence of love, which enthralled him, even less than usually disposed to tear himself from the easy and luxurious life he led at Windsor, was yet a chivalrous and romantic prince, who would hold it as a point of honour, and the bounden duty of a knight, not to refuse succour to a distressed and persecuted lady, beseeching it of him; and not only beseeching it, but her husband being his vassal-having an undoubted right to expect her application should be complied with.

Such being the character of the man, he

recommended her to lose no time, but, instantly obtaining her husband's sanction—Robert knew not then of de Montfort's capture-to come over herself to England, where, speaking personally to the Prince, she would necessarily have a far better chance of success, than she could anticipate from the efforts of any Envoy, however able or eloquent he might be.

Seeing the reasonableness of such counsel in ordinary cases, Jeanne would have unhesitatingly followed it in this; could she have done so without running a greater risk than, under present circumstances, she considered herself justified in doing; but after a mature deliberation, she resolved that, upon the whole, it would be more prudent to remain stationary at Hennebon, where she had an almost immediate information of all that passed in its neighbourhood, and where she could both encourage the soldiery by example, and awe the enemy by her presence, than to leave it on an errand, for the success of which, whatever high hopes had been held out, no positive assurance had been given.

She therefore confined herself to answering Robert's letter by another: in which, setting forth the reasons which constrained her to follow his advice in part only, she begged and entreated he would exert himself to the utmost in her cause, and by all possible means engage the King-if he would not, or could not come himself in person-to at least send him, Robert, over with troops to her assistance.

The Countess also penned another letter to Edward himself, not only beseeching him as a preux and loyal Knight, bound by the oath of chivalry to defend the cause of justice, and guard females from oppression: but, also representing to him, that as a Sovereign, he owed protection to him whose acknowledgment of vassalage he had publicly accepted in the palace of Lambeth.

These letters being finished, she enveloped them so as to form a single packet, which entrusting to the care of Sir Amauri de Clisson, she ordered him not to confine himself to simply delivering it, but, besides this, to use every

art he owned, in order to find out, and take advantage of, the particular weaknesses of those to whom he was missioned; and also to employ all the eloquence he possessed, towards drawing them over to her views and interests.

Thus furnished and instructed, de Clisson prepared for his voyage, and going aboard a vessel then lying in the harbour, he floated down the river Blavel with the falling tide, and afterwards coasting round the western shore of Brittany, made for England, intending to have disembarked at Southampton, and proceeded thence, by land, to London.

But there is generally something to cross our purposes, if not to mar them. Il y a toujours un fer qui cloche-something which makes one either go wrong at first, or find one's self nothing the better for being right at last. Some unlucky wind or other which drives us to the north or south, when we wish to be sailing east or west; or vice versa. And this too, is most particularly the case, I have observed, when one chances to be in the most particular haste. 'Tis