27/77 In vain had his wife, Joan of France, an unhappy and virtuous princess, ugly and deformed, who had never been able to gain her husband's affections, implored her all-powerful sister, Anne of Bourbon, to set him at liberty: "As I am incessantly thinking," she wrote to her, "about my husband's release, I have conceived the idea of setting down in writing the fashion in which peace might be had, and my said husband be released. I am writing it out for the king, and you will see it all. I pray you, sister, to look to it that I may get a few words in answer; it has been a very sad thing for me that I never see you now." There is no trace of any answer from Anne to her sister. had a heart more easily touched. |