504 JOINVILLB'S MEMOIRS OF SAINT LOUIS ΓΧ. £PT. n. letters from him to entreat they would pray to God for him, and for the soul of the late queen hie mother. [The Poitiers edition adds : "After I had quitted the apartment of the king, the lady Mary de Bonnes-Vert us came to entreat that I would wait on the queen to comfort her, for that she was in marvellous great grief. When I was in her chamber, and saw her weeping so very bitterly, I could not refrain from saying to her, that the proverb was very true which said, 6 W e ought never to believe in the tears of women,' for that the lamentation she was making was for the woman she hated the most in this world. She replied, that it was not for her she wept, but for the extreme melancholy of the king, as well as for her daughter, afterwards queen of Navarre, who would now be under the guardianship of men. The reason why the queen disliked the queen dowager, was the continued rudeness of her behaviour to her ; for she would not suffer her son to keep company with his queen, and prevented it as much as lay in her power. When the king made any excursions through his kingdom, in company with the two queens, Queen Blanche had him separated from his queen, and they were never lodged in the same house. It happened one day, during a stay which the court made at Pontoise, that the king was lodged in the story above the apartments of his queen, and he had given ordere to his ushers of the chamber, whenever he should go to lie with his queen, and his mother was coming to his, or to the queen's chamber, to beat the dogs until they cried out : when the king heard them, be hid himself from his mother. Now one day Queen Blanche went to the queen's chamber, where her son had gone before to comfort her, for she was in great danger of death, from a bad delivery, and he hid himself behind the queen to avoid being seen ; but his mother perceived him, and, taking him by the hand, said, 'Come along: you will do no good here,' and put him out of the chamber. Queen Margaret observing this, and that she was to be separated from her husband, cried aloud, ' Alas ! will you not allow me to see my lord, neither when I am alive nor dying?' In uttering these words she fainted, and her attendants thought she was dead : the king likewise believed it, and instantly returned to her, and recovered her from her fainting-fit."]]