[Barn and the Pyrenees by Louisa Stuart Costello]@TWC D-Link book
Barn and the Pyrenees

CHAPTER VIII
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The example of sanctity he had set in the latter part of his life seemed to have been lost on the turbulent and coquettish Queen of the Court of Love, his daughter, Elionore, and to have been also sufficiently disregarded by his grandsons.

Not that Elionore neglected to build and endow churches and monasteries in every part of her dominions, particularly at Poitiers; and, probably, she considered all offences wiped out by so doing: not excepting her criminal project, recorded by Bouchet, of quitting her husband, Louis of France, and "_espousing the Sultan Saladin_, with whose image and portraiture she had fallen in love." Whatever motives Louis le Jeune had in getting rid of his powerful wife, policy could not be one; for never was a more foolish business; he did not, perhaps, contemplate, in his shortsightedness, that she would marry his rival, and carry all her possessions to the crown of England; but he was sure that by dissolving his marriage he was injuring France.

The account of the state of the great heiress, insulted and injured in so vital a point, is piteous enough, and not unlike, in position, to the case of Queen Catherine when repudiated by Henry VIII.
"This dissolution and separation was signified to Queen Elionore by the bishops, who undertook the task with great regret, for they knew it would be very displeasing to the poor lady, who, as soon as the decision was announced to her, fell in a swoon from the chair on which she sat, and was for more than two hours without speaking, or weeping, or unclosing her clenched teeth.

And when she was a little come to herself, she began, with her clear and blue (_vers_) eyes, to look around on those who brought her the news, and said, 'Ha! my lords, what have I done to the king that he should quit me?
in what have I offended him?
what defect finds he in my person?
I am not barren, I am not illegitimate, nor come of a low race.

I am wealthy as he is by my means.
I have always obeyed him; and if we speak of lineage, I spring from the Emperor Otho the First and King Lothaire; descended in direct line from Charlemagne; besides which we are relations both by father and mother if he requires to be informed of it.'" "Madam," said the Archbishop of Limoges, "you speak truth indeed.


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