in her. And when he was in love with anybody he never concealed it from
her, knowing that she had no other will than his own.

1 The Bibliophile Jacob surmises that this personage may be
one of the Italian grandees at that period in the service of
France, in which case the allusion may be to John
Caraccioli, Prince of Melphes, created a marshal of France
in 1544. Queen Margaret, however, makes no mention of her
Prince being a foreigner. "Belhoste" is of course a
fictitious name invented to replace that which the Prince
really bore, and admits of so many interpretations that its
meaning in the present instance cannot well be determined.
From the circumstance, however, that the Prince's wife was
of inferior birth to himself, it is not impossible that the
personage referred to may be either Charles de Bourbon,
Prince of La Roche-sur-Yonne and Duke of Beaupréau, or John
VIII., Lord of Créqui, Canaples and Pontdormi, and Prince of
Poix. The former, who married Philippa de Montespedon, widow
of René de Montéjan, and a lady of honour to Catherine de'
Medici when Dauphiness, took a prominent part in the last
wars of Francis I.'s reign, and survived till 1565. The
latter, generally known at Court by the name of Canaples,
was a gentleman of the chamber and an especial favourite of
Francis I. Brantôme says of him in his _Homines Illustres_
that he was "a valiant lord and the strongest man of arms
that in those days existed in all Christendom, for he broke
a lance, no matter its strength, as easily as though it were
a mere switch, and few were able to withstand him." In 1525
the Prince of Poix married a Demoiselle d'Acigné or Assigny,
of _petite noblesse_, who in 1532 became a lady of honour to