Once more a crown glittered before the ambitious girl's eyes, and again it was dashed from her. Six months after their marriage, Don Juan suddenly died. Marguerite returned to Germany. Again she married, this time Philibert of Savoy, who seems to have loved her deeply; he, too, soon died. Twice a widow and once divorced, Marguerite at the age of twenty-five returned to her father's court, declaring that no political exigencies should again force her into matrimony. About this time, she adopted her strange, sad motto: _Spoliat mors munera nostra_ (Death ever destroys what is granted to us). A pathetic little poem it loses much in translation written by Marguerite at this time is still preserved:
"Must I thus ever languish on? Must I, alas, thus die alone? Shall none my tears and anguish know? From childhood, I have suffered so! Too long it lasts this weary woe."
As Thackeray said long afterward of the work of another poet-princess: "These plaintive lines are more touching than better poetry."
Still another sorrow was in store for Marguerite. Her beloved brother, Philip the Handsome, died. The manner of his death we know. It was his dying request that his sister Marguerite, then regent of the Netherlands, should have the guardianship of his five children, Charles, Leonora, Isabel, Marie, and Catalina. The maternal instinct never beat more strongly in any woman's heart than in that of the royal Marguerite. Faithfully, wisely, lovingly, she fulfilled her brother's trust.
Another crown was offered Marguerite: Henry VII. of England sought her in marriage. Her father wished her to accept this suitor, but Marguerite persistently refused. Much correspondence passed between Maximilian and his daughter at this time. From it we learn little of Marguerite's inner life, but the glimpses of Maximilian are charming. Had he not been sure that his daughter would appreciate his humorous allusions and his nonsensical fancies, he would never have written as he did. In regard to his plan for settling the difficulties between Church and State by the startling expedient of making himself Pope, he writes:
"We send the Bishop of Greece to-morrow to Rome, to the Pope, to find some means of agreeing with him to take us for a coadjutor, so that after his death we may be sure of having his papacy, and of becoming a priest, and you will be obliged after my death to worship me, of which I shall be extremely proud. I have also begun to sound the cardinals, with whom two or three thousand ducats will do me great service, considering the partiality which they already exhibit.