TWO children were born of the marriage of Charles of Orleans, Count of Angoulême, a prince of the blood royal of France, and Louise, the daughter of Philip Duke of Savoy, and Margaret of Bourbon. The elder of the two was Margaret, the principal subject of this memoir, born on the 11th of April, 1492; the younger, born on the 12th of September, 1494, was the prince who succeeded Louis XII. on the throne of France, February, 1515, under the name of Francis I.
Married when she was little more than eleven years old, Louise of Savoy was left a widow before she had completed her eighteenth year, and thenceforth devoted herself with exemplary assiduity to the care of her children, who repaid her solicitude by the warm affection they always felt for their mother and for each other. She was a woman of remarkable beauty and capacity, and her character and conduct were deserving, in many respects, of the eulogies which her daughter never wearied of lavishing upon them; but less partial writers have convicted her of criminal acts, which brought disasters upon her son and her country. In the first year of his reign, Francis I. committed the regency of the kingdom to his mother, and set out on his expedition to Italy. He was absent but a few months; nevertheless, this first regency enabled Louise of Savoy to fill the most important offices with men entirely devoted to her interests, and even to her caprices and to gratify by any and every means the insatiable thirst for money with which she was cursed.
In the beginning of the year 1522, Lautrec, one of the king's favorites, who commanded his forces in Italy, lost in a few days all the advantages which Francis had gained by the victory of Marignano. He returned to Paris with only two attendants, and sought an audience of the king, who refused at first to receive him. Finally, at the intercession of the Constable of Bourbon, Francis allowed Lautrec to appear before him, and after loading him with reproaches, demanded what excuse he could offer for himself. Lautrec calmly replied, "The troops I commanded not having been paid, refused to follow me, and I was left alone."–"What!" said the king, " I sent you four hundred thousand crowns to Genoa, and Semblançay, the superintendent of finance, forwarded you three hundred thousand."–"Sire, I have received nothing." Semblançay being summoned to the presence, "Father," said the king, (who addressed him in that way on accouut of his great age), "come hither and tell us if you have not, in pursuance of my order, sent M. de Lautrec the sum of three hundred thousand crowns?"–"Sire," replied the superintendent, "I am prepared to prove that I delivered that sum to the duchess your mother, that she might employ it as you say."–"Very well," said the king, and went into his mother's room to question her. Louise of Savoy threw the whole blame on Semblançay, who was immediately confronted with her. He persisted in his first statement, and the duchess was forced to confess that she had received the greater part of the sum in question, but she alleged that the money was due to her by the superintendent, and she did not see why her private income should be applied to the Italian expedition. Francis most bitterly upbraided his mother for thus embezzling the money of the state, but his wrath fell more heavily on the minister, whom he found to have been guilty of culpable complaisance towards her. The unfortunate Semblançay was arrested; commissioners were appointed to examine his accounts, and being condemned by their report, he was hung on the gibbet at Montfaucon on the 9th of August, 1527.
Louise of Savoy was deeply implicated in a still fouler transaction, which was attended with the most terrible consequences: this was the iniquitous lawsuit brought against the Constable of Bourbon, which was followed by his desertion and treason. According to all historians, the insensate love of the Duchess of Angoulême, then aged forty-four, for the constable, who was but thirty-two, was the sole cause of this suit; but her cupidity, and the secret jealousy with which Francis I. regarded one of the handsomest, wealthiest, and bravest men in his kingdom, also contributed to that result. The object of the suit was to wrest from the constable the lordships bequeathed to him by Suzanne de Beaujeu, one of the richest heiresses in Europe, and to which Louise of Savoy laid claim as next of kin to the deceased. She did so at the instigation of the Chancellor Duprat, whose reasonings on the subject we are enabled to give in his own words, as follows:
"The marriage of M. Charles de Bourbon with Madame Suzanne was nothing else than a mere shift to stop the action at law which the said lord was ready to move against Madame de Bourbon and her daughter, on account of the estates of appanage and others entailed on the marriage of Jean de Bourbon and Maria of Berry. The mere apprehension of this contest made the said Madame de Bourbon condescend thereto, and to that end she dissolved the contract passed between M. d'Alençon and Madame Suzanne. Hence there is a likelihood that a similar apprehension of a suit to be promoted for the whole inheritance of the house by two stronger parties than was then the said Lord of Bourbon, who was neither old enough nor strong enough to prosecute it, as the king and his mother will be, may cause some overtures to be made on the one side or the other to compromise and allay this difference.
"M. de Bourbon is now but thirty-two, and Madame, the king's mother, cannot be more than forty at most, which is not too disproportioned an age for so great a lady, handsome, rich, and so highly qualified. Should the said Lord of Bourbon agree to this marriage, why there she is at the point she desires, Duchess of Bourbonnais and Auvergne, and lady of that great heritage. If, on the contrary, he refuses, it will be necessary to bring this action, prosecute it vigorously, employ in it the authority of the king and my lady his mother, and spare nought to further it. This will make him bethink himself, however intractable he may be, and he will be very glad to return into favor by this means. If not, as he is a courageous prince, when he finds himself threatened with the loss of all his possessions, titles, and dignities, he will do something extraordinary, and will choose rather to abandon his country (as M. du Bellay says) than to live in it in a necessitous condition. He will withdraw out of the realm; and by so doing he will confiscate all. So that he cannot fail to do what is desired, be it how it may." *
The Constable of Bourbon having rejected, and even it is said with disdain, the offer of marriage made to him, the suit was brought before the parliament, and was decided in favor of the Duchess of Angoulême. But the pleasure brought her by this triumph over her haughty adversary was not of long duration. A few months after he was despoiled of all his estates, Charles of Bourbon quitted France, and entered the service of Charles V. In the following year, 1524, he drove the French out of Italy, and on the 24th of February, 1525, he defeated them in the famous battle of Pavia, in which Francis I. was taken prisoner, after receiving five wounds. The Duchess of Angoulême, as Regent of France, displayed great courage and ability under this heavy calamity. She soon received from her captive son the letter containing that memorable phrase: De toutes choses ne m'est demeuré que l'honneur, et la vie que est sauve –"I have lost all but honor and life." This letter was a great joy to her. Margaret wrote respecting it to her brother, "Your letter has had such an effect on Madame, and of all those who love you, that it has been to us a Holy Ghost after the sorrow of the Passion . . . Madame has felt her strength so greatly redoubled, that all day and evening not a minute is lost for your affairs, so that you need not have any pain or care about your realm and your children."
After taking all necessary measures for the internal defence of the kingdom, the regent and her daughter took up their residence at Lyon, for the purpose of the more readily receiving news from Italy. There they learned that Charles V. had removed his prisoner to Madrid, and that he was becoming more and more exacting in the conditions for his release. Francis I. wrote to his mother that he was very ill, and begged her to come to him; but, in spite of her love for her son, she felt that she could not comply with his request, for it would have been risking the fate of the monarchy to put the regent along with the King of France into the Emperor's hands. Sacrificing, therefore, her feelings as a mother to the requirements of the state, she sent her daughter Margaret instead of herself to Madrid.
After she had done her part to the utmost for her son's release, and in the negotiations for the treaty of peace which was concluded to Cambrai on the 5th of August, 1529, the Duchess of Angoulême took no further share in the government of the realm. She had repaired, as far as it was possible for her, the misfortunes earned by her conduct with regard to the constable. Her labors as regent, during her son's captivity, had completely ruined her health, which had begun to fail before that event. In September, 1531, she was at Fontainebleau with her daughter and all the other ladies of her court; the plague was raging in the neighborhood, and Louise, who had a great dread of death, was incessantly occupied with medicine and new receipts against disorders of all kinds. Her spirits were very low, and her countenance so changed as scarcely to be recognized by her daughter. "If you would like to know her pastime," Margaret writes to her brother, "it is that, after dinner, when she has given audience, instead of doing her customary works, she sends for all those who have any malady, whether in the legs, arms, or breasts, and with her own hands she dresses them, by way of trying an ointment she has, which is very singular." This horror at the thought of death was common to both mother and daughter. Brantôme says of the former, "She was in her time, as I have heard many say who have seen and known her, a very fine lady, but very worldly withal, and was the same in her declining age, and hated to hear discourse of death, even from preachers in their sermons: as if, said she, we did not know well enough that we must all die some time or other; and these preachers, when they have nothing else to say in their sermons, like ignorant persons fall to talking of death. The late Queen of Navarre, her daughter, liked no more than her mother these repetitions and preachings concerning death." *
A few days after the date of the letter quoted in the last paragraph, Louise of Savoy quitted Fontainebleau for change of air, but was obliged to stop at Grès, a little village of the Gâtinais, where she died on the 22d of September, 1531. We now turn to her daughter's history.
Charles of Austria, Count of Flanders, afterwards the Emperor Charles V., was residing at the court of Louis XII. when Margaret of Angoulême appeared there, accompanying her brother on his entrance into public life. The Count of Flanders was much struck by her appearance and her accomplishments, and eagerly sought her in marriage. But Louis XII. refused to bestow upon him the sister of the heir presumptive of the throne of France, and chose rather to marry her in the following year, December 1509, to Charles, Duke of Alençon, a prince of the royal family.
Historians have treated the memory of Margaret's first husband with excessive severity. He had the misfortune to escape unwounded from the fatal battle of Pavia, while endeavoring to save the remains of the routed army; and it has been alleged that, on his arrival at Lyon, where he found his wife and mother-in-law, he was received by them both with the most contumelious reproaches, and that, unable to endure his shame and remorse, he died a few days after. That is not true. The battle Pavia was fought on the 24th of February, 1525, and the Duke of Alençon did not die until the 11th of April, that is to say, more than a month after his arrival in Lyon. It appears from the testimony of an eye-witness, brought to light by the last editors of the Heptameron, that he was carried off by a pleurisy in five days, that he was comforted on his deathbed by his wife and her mother, that he spoke with profound regret of the king's misfortune, but that nothing escaped his own lips or those of the two ladies to indicate the faintest idea on either side that he had not done his duty at Pavia.
The first five years of Margaret's wedded life were passed in privacy in her duchy of Alençon, but from the date of her brother's accession to the throne, in January, 1515, her talents were employed with advantage in affairs of state. "Such was her discourse," says Brantôme, "that the ambassadors who addressed her were extremely taken with it, and gave a high character of it to their countrymen on their return, and by this she became a good assistant to the king her brother; for they always waited on her after their principal audience, and frequently, when he had affairs of importance, he referred them entirely to her determination, she so well knowing how to engage and entertain them with her fine speeches, and being very artful and dexterous in pumping out their secrets: these qualifications the king would often say made her of great use to him in facilitating his affairs. So that I have heard there was an emulation between the two sisters, who should serve her brother best; the one–the Queen of Hungary–her brother the emperor, the other, her brother King Francis; but the former by war and force, the latter by the activity of her fine wit and complaisance." . . . "During the imprisonment of the king her brother, she was of great assistance to the regent her mother in governing the kingdom, keeping the princes and grandees quiet, and gaining upon the nobility; for she was of a very easy access, and won the hearts of all people by the fine accomplishments she was mistress of." *
The death of her husband, without children, six weeks after the battle of Pavia, left Margaret free to act as became her intense affection for her mother and her brother, who both had the most urgent need of her help. With the emperor's permission she embarked at Aigues Mortes for Spain, in spite of contrary winds, on the 27th of August, 1525; hastened to Madrid, "and found her brother in so wretched a condition, that had she not come he had died; because she understood his temper and constitution better than all his physicians could do, and caused him to be treated accordingly, which entirely recovered him: so that the king would often say that without her he must have died; and that he was so much obliged to her for it that he should forever acknowledge it, and love her (as he did) to his dying day." †
The task which Margaret had to accomplish at Madrid was one of great difficulty. In spite of the apparent cordiality with which she was universally treated at the imperial court, and the very favorable disposition Charles V. always evinced in words, she soon perceived the hollowness of his friendly protestations. "Every one tells me that he likes the king," she says in one of her letters, "but the experience thereof is small. If I had to do with good men, who understood what honor is, I should not care; but it is the reverse." Fortunately, she was not one to give way before the first difficulties. She tried in the beginning to win over some great personages of the imperial court, but afterwards perceiving that the men always avoided talking with her upon any serious topic, she took care to address herself to their mothers, wives, or daughters. In a letter to Marshal de Montmorency she says of the Duke de Infantado, who had invited her to his castle of Guadalaxara, "You will tell the king that the duke has been warned from the court that as he desires to please the emperor, neither he nor his son is to speak to me; but the ladies are not forbidden me, and I shall speak to them doubly."
As for Margaret's behavior towards Charles V., let us again have recourse to Brantôme, whom we shall quote as often as we can: "She spoke so bravely and so handsomely to the emperor concerning his bad treatment of the king her brother, that he was quite astonished, setting before him his ingratitude and felony wherewith he, the vassal, dealt towards his lord on account of Flanders; then she reproached him with the hardness of his heart for being so devoid of pity with regard to so great and so good a king; and said that acting in that manner was not the way to win a heart so noble and royal and so sovereign as that of the king her brother; and that should he die in consequence of his rigorous treatment, his death would not remain unpunished, for he had children who would be grown up some day, and would take signal vengeance. These words, pronounced so bravely, and with so much passion, made the emperor bethink himself, so that he moderated his behavior, and visited the king, and promised him many fine things, which he did not, however, perform for that time. But if this queen spoke so well to the emperor, she did still more so to those of his council, where she had audience, and where she triumphed with her fine speaking and graceful manner, of which she had no lack."
Margaret took great pains to hasten the conclusion of the marriage between Francis I. and Eleonore of Austria, widow of the King of Portugal, rightly regarding that alliance as the surest means of prompt deliverance. Though the royal widow had been promised to the Constable of Bourbon, the emperor did not hesitate to sacrifice his engagement with the illustrious deserter to the interests of his policy. He himself, fascinated by Margaret's talent and graces, entertained for a moment the idea of a union with her, and sent a letter to the regent containing a distinct proposal to that effect. In the same letter the emperor said, with reference to the Constable of Bourbon, that "there were good marriages in France, and quite enough for him; naming Madame Renée, with whom he might content himself." These words have been understood to imply that there had been some question of a marriage between the Duchess of Alençon and the constable, but there is no evidence to warrant such a conjecture. There is no mention of anything of the sort in any of the diplomatic pieces exchanged between France and Spain on the subject of the king's liberation. They stipulate that the constable shall be restored to all his possessions, and even that a wife shall be procured for him in France; but Margaret's name nowhere appears in them, nor does she herself ever speak of the constable in any of her numerous letters. The story of an amour between these two persons, which is told by Varillas in his Histoire de Francois I., and which forms the main subject of a fictitious Histoire de Marguerite, published in 1696, is totally without foundation.
After three months and a half of negotiations, Margaret and her brother saw the necessity of providing for the safety of the crown and government of France in case the king's captivity should be perpetual, and Francis signed an edict, in 1525, by which he ordained that the young dauphin should be immediately crowned, that the regency should remain in his mother's hands, but that in case of her being disabled by sickness or other impediment, or by death, from exercising it, then it should devolve upon his "most dear and most beloved only sister, Margaret of France, Duchess of Alençon and Berry."
It has been erroneously asserted that Margaret carried with her this act of abdication when she quitted Spain, and that because the emperor was aware of this fact he gave orders that she should be arrested the very moment her safe-conduct expired. It was Marshal de Montmorency who carried the act of abdication to France, and in designing to seize the person of the princess, Charles V. had no other object in view than to secure to himself a fresh hostage in case the treaty should not be executed. At her brother's instance Margaret applied to the imperial court for permission to quit Spain; it was granted her, but in such a manner as plainly showed her there was more wish to retard her journey than to speed her upon it. She left Madrid in the beginning of December, and traveled at first by easy stages, until world was sent her by her brother that she should hasten, for the emperor, hoping that on the 25th of the month, on which day her safe-conduct was to expire, she would be still in Spain, had given orders for her arrest. There upon she quitted her litter, got on horseback, and making as much way in one day as she had previously done in four, she arrived at Salses, where some French lords awaited her, one hour before the expiry of her safe-conduct.
In return for all Margaret's pains to hasten his deliverance, Francis I. could not do less than procure for her a fit husband. Negotiations were opened upon the subject with Henry VIII. of England, but happily they came to nothing. There was at the court of France a young king–one, indeed, who was without a kingdom, but not without eminent advantages both of mind and person. This was Henri d'Albret, Count of Béarn, legitimate sovereign of Navarre, which was withheld from him by Charles V., contrary to treaty. Henri had been taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia, and had made his escape after a captivity of about two months, by letting himself down from the window by means of a rope. Having lived some time at the court of France, he was well known to Margaret, and there is every reason to believe that the marriage was one of inclination, on her side at least. It was celebrated, therefore, notwithstanding, a considerable disparity of age, at Saint Germain en Laye, in January, 1527.
Henri d'Albret received as his wife's portion the duchies of Alençon and Berry, and the counties of Armagnac and Perche, which Francis entailed on his sister's issue, whether male or female. He also pledged himself in the marriage contract to force the emperor immediately to restore Navarre to his brother-in-law. Margaret repeatedly urged him to fulfil this promise, and she speaks of it in many of her letters; but political exigencies always prevailed against her, and there was even a clause inserted in a protocol relative to the deliverance of the children of France, which ran thus: "Item, the same king promises not to assist or favor the King of Navarre to reconquer his kingdom, albeit he has married his most beloved and only sister."
The indifference of Francis I. with regard to the political fortunes of his brother-in-law, notwithstanding the numerous and signal services the latter had rendered him, disgusted the young price, and he resolved to quit the court, where Montmorency, Brion, and several other persons, his declared enemies, were in the ascendant. He put his design into execution in 1529, after the conclusion of the treaty of Cambrai, and Margaret retired with him to Béarn, where she diligently applied herself, in conjunction with her husband, to all measures capable of raising their dominions to a more flourishing condition, as we learn from Hilarion de la Coste. "This country," he says, "naturally good and fruitful, but lying in a bad state, uncultivated and barren, through the negligence of its inhabitants, quickly changed its face by their management. They invited husbandmen out of all the provinces of France, who occupied, improved, and fertilized the lands; they caused the towns to be adorned and fortified; houses and castles to be built, that of Pau among others, with the finest gardens which were then in Europe. After having fitted up a handsome place of residence, they gave orders about laws and good government; they established, for the differences of their subjects, a court to determine them without appeal; and they reformed the common law of Oléron, which was used in that country, and which, since its last reformation in 1288, had been greatly corrupted. By their conversation and court they greatly civilized the people. And to guard themselves against a new usurpation from Spain, they covered themselves with Navarrins, a town upon one of the Gaves, which they fortified with strong ramparts, bastions, and half-moons, according to the art then in use." "This," says Bayle, "is one of the finest encomiums that could be bestowed on the Queen of Navarre."
After the death of her first husband, Margaret retained full possession of the duchy of Alençon, not only as regarded its revenues, but also its civil and political administration. She always watched over that principality with great solicitude. As she never could reside in it except for very brief intervals, she was careful to commit its government to able men, whose conduct fully justified her choice.
It was chiefly during her frequent and long residences in her principality of Béarn that the Queen of Navarre had opportunities of conferring with the advocates of the Reformation, and there many of them, including Andrew Melanchthon, Gérard Roussel, Lefèvre d'Etaple, Pierre Calvi, Charles de Sainte Marthe, and Calvin himself, found a refuge with her from persecution. The question whether or not Margaret ever seriously entertained the thought of abjuring the Church of Rome has been much debated by historians, but that she very much inclined to the opinions of the Reformers is not disputed either by Protestant or Catholic writers; both sides confess the fact. Florimond de Remond says, in his History of the Birth and Progress of Heresy, "It is particularly observed by all the historians of both parties that this princess was the sole cause, without designing any ill, of the preservation of the French Lutherans, and that the Church, which afterwards took the name of Reformed, was not stifled in its cradle; for besides that she lent an ear to their discourses, which at first were specious, and not so bold as afterwards, she with a good intention maintained a great many of them in schools at her own expense, not only in France but also in Germany. She took a wonderful care to preserve and secure those that were in danger for the Protestant religion, and to succor the refugees at Strasburg and Geneva. Thither she sent to the learned at one time a benefaction of four thousand livres. . . . . In short, this good-natured princess had nothing more at heart for those nine or ten years than to procure the escape of such as the king exposed to the rigor of justice. She frequently talked to him of it, and by little touches endeavored to impress on his soul some pity for the Lutherans."
Margaret's influence would perhaps have induced Francis to favor the Reformation if the extravagance of some hotheaded people, who posted up certain placards in the year 1534, had not exasperated him to such a degree as to make him become afterwards a violent persecutor of Lutheranism–the name then given in France to what has since been called Calvinism. She was obliged, from that time, to act with great caution, and to conduct herself in such a manner as the Calvinists have highly condemned, and which gave occasion to the Papists to say that she perfectly renounced her errors. Brantôme, after saying that this queen was suspected of Lutheranism, adds, that "out of respect and love to her brother, who loved her entirely, and always called her his darling, she never made any profession or appearance of it; and if she believed it, she always kept it to herself with very great secrecy, because the king violently hated it, declaring that this and every new sect tended more to the destruction of kingdoms, monarchies, and dominions, than to the edification of souls." Others believe that it was not possible for Francis I. to be ignorant that the Queen of Navarre was a Lutheran in her heart; her attachments to the party, and the protection she gave the fugitives for this cause, were not such things as could be concealed from the King of France; he only affected not to know them. "The Constable de Montmorency, discoursing . . . one day with the king, made no difficulty or scruple to tell him, that if he would quite exterminate the heretics of this kingdom he must begin with his court and with his nearest relations, naming the queen his sister. To this the king answered, 'Let us not speak of that; she loves me too much; she will never believe but what I believe, or take up a religion to the prejudice of my state.'" *
Catholic writers assert that some years before her death the Queen of Navarre acknowledged her religious errors; and De Remond even goes so far as to imply that she denied on her death-bed having ever swerved from the standard of Roman orthodoxy. Bayle comments on the remarks of this writer in a singularly earnest and noble passage.
"I do not examine," he says, "whether Florimond de Remond has it from good authority that she protested at her death that what she had done for the followers of the new opinions proceeded rather from compassion than from any ill-will to the ancient religion of her fathers. But granting her protestation to be sincere, I maintain that there was something more heroic in her compassion and generosity than there would have been had she been persuaded that the fugitives she protected were orthodox. For a princess or any other woman to do good to those whom she takes to be of the household of the faith, is no extraordinary thing, but the common effect of a moderate piety. But for a queen to grant her protection to people persecuted for opinions which she believes to be false; to open a sanctuary to them; to preserve them from the flames prepared for them; to furnish them with a subsistence; liberally to relieve the troubles and inconveniences of their exile, is an heroic magnanimity which has hardly any precedent; it is the effect of a superiority of reason and genius which very few can reach to; it is the knowing how to pity the misfortune of those who err, and admire at the same time their constancy to the dictates of their conscience; it is the knowing how to do justice to their good intentions, and to the zeal they express for truth in general; it is the knowing that they are mistaken in the hypothesis, but that in the thesis they conform to the immutable and eternal laws of order, which require us to love the truth, and to sacrifice to that the temporal conveniences and pleasures of life; it is, in a word, the knowing how to distinguish in one and the same person his opposition to particular truths which he does not know, and his love for truth in general; a love which he evidences by his great zeal for the doctrines he believes to be true. Such was the judicious distinction the Queen of Navarre was able to make. It is difficult for all sorts of persons to arrive at this science; but more especially difficult for a princess like her, who had been educated in the communion of Rome, where nothing had been talked of for many ages but fagots and gibbets for those who err. Family prejudices strongly fortified all the obstacles which education had laid in the way of this princess; for she entirely loved the king her brother, an implacable persecutor of those they called heretics, a people whom he caused to be burned without mercy wherever the indefatigable vigilance of informers discovered them. I cannot conceive by what method this Queen of Navarre raised herself to so high a pitch of equity, reason, and good sense: it was not through an indifference as to religion, since it is certain she had a great degree of piety, and studied the Scriptures with singular application. It must therefore have been the excellence of her genius, and the greatness of her soul, that discovered a path to her which scarcely any one knows. It will be said, perhaps, that she needed only to consult the primitive and general ideas of order, which most clearly show that involuntary errors hinder not a man who entirely loves God, as he has been able to discover him after all possible inquiries, from being reckoned a servant of the true God, and that we ought to respect in him the rights of the true God. But I might immediately answer, that this maxim is of itself subject to great disputes; so far is it from being clear and evident; besides, that these primitive ideas hardly ever appear to our understanding without limitations and modifications which obscure them a hundred ways, according to the different prejudices contracted by education. The spirit of party, attachment to a sect, and even zeal for orthodoxy, produce a kind of ferment in the humors of our body; and hence the medium through which reason ought to behold those primitive ideas is clouded and obscured. These are infirmities which will attend our reason as long as it shall depend on the ministry of organs. It is the same thing to it as the low and middle region of the air, the seat of vapors and meteors. There are but very few persons who can rise above these clouds, and place themselves in a true serenity. If any one could do it, we must say of him what Virgil said of Daphnis:
Candidus insuetum miratur lumen Olympi,
Sub pedibusque videt nubes et sidera Daphnis."
We have seen how the Constable de Montmorency endeavored to poison the mind of Francis I. against his sister. Margaret heard of this, and resented it the more strongly, as she had always behaved to Montmorency as a friend, and especially she had espoused his interests in opposition to those of his rival, Admiral Brion. The sequel of this affair, as related by Brantôme, is curious: "She never afterwards liked the constable, and she helped greatly towards his disgrace and banishment from court: insomuch that the day on which Madam the Princess of Navarre" (Margaret's only daughter) "was married to the Duke of Cleves at Chasteleraud, as she was to be led to church, being so heavily laden with jewels, and cloth of gold and silver, that by reason of the weakness of her body she could not walk" (she was but twelve years old) "the king commanded the constable to take his little niece in his arms and carry her to the church; at which the whole court was very much surprised, as being an office not suitable or honorable enough in such a ceremony for the constable, and which might have been given to some other; wherewith the Queen of Navarre seemed not at all displeased, and said 'There is a man who would ruin me with the king my brother, and who serves at present to carry my daughter to church.' I have this story from the person I have mentioned, and also that the constable was much displeased with this office, and greatly mortified to be made such a spectacle to all the company, and said, 'There is an end of all my favor; farewell, host.' And so it happened; for after the entertainment and the wedding dinner, he was dismissed, and departed immediately."
Judging from several original portraits of Margaret which are preserved in the libraries of France, her last editors infer that her beauty, so much celebrated by the poets of her time, consisted chiefly in the dignity of her deportment, and the sweet and cheerful expression of her countenance. Her eyes, nose, and mouth were large. She retained no marks of the smallpox with which she was attacked before middle age, and she preserved the freshness of her complexion to a late period. Like her brother, to whom she bore a strong likeness, she was tall and stately; but her imposing air was tempered by extreme affability and a merry humor. Her enthusiastic panegyrist, Sainte Marthe, says of her, "Seeing her humanely receive everybody, refuse none, and patiently listen to each, thou wouldst have promised thyself an easy access to her;
but if she cast her eyes on thee, there was in her face I know not what divinity, that would have so confounded thee, that thou wouldst have been unable, I do not say to walk one step, but even to stir one foot to approach her." Though conforming on special occasions to her brother's sumptuous tastes, Margaret's personal habits were remarkably simple. She dressed plainly, and after the loss of her infant son, almost always in black. Brantôme, speaking of the extravagant pomp displayed by Cæsar Borgia when he visited France, remarks, that the great Queen of Navarre never had more than "three sumpter mules and six for her litters, though she had three or four chariots for her ladies." Her biographers have generally asserted that this frugality was imposed on Margaret by the precarious state of her fortune; but it is rather to be attributed to her somber character and her munificent charity. The supposition that her means were inadequate to her rank is manifestly erroneous; for at the very time when they are said to have been lowest, we find her declining to receive from Henry II. payment of a considerable sum lent five-and-twenty years before to his predecessor in a moment of financial difficulty, and desiring that the amount should be given to the sisters of her first husband, the Duke d'Alençon.
Distinguished as Margaret was by her mental powers and graces, she was still more admirable for the warmth and tenderness of her affections. These, it is to be feared, were but inadequately requited, and would have been a source of unhappiness to her, were it not for that precious prerogative which loving natures enjoy, to find pleasure in self-sacrifice and suffering. There was little community of feeling between her and the Duke d'Alençon, and their marriage was childless. The husband of her choice, Henry of Navarre, was a handsome, brave cavalier, of respectable capacity, and passably good-humored; but he had little sympathy with his wife's literary and theological tastes, and the difference in their ages was not favorable to connubial concord. It is even said that he treated her at times with a roughness unworthy of a preux chevalier. Hilarion de la Coste says that Henry "having been informed that there was used in his wife's chamber some form of prayer and instruction contrary to that of his fathers, entered it, with a resolution to punish the minister, but finding they had contrived his escape, the weight of his anger fell upon the queen, to whom he gave a box on the ear, saying to her, 'Madam, you want to be too knowing;' and immediately gave advice of it to King Francis." Brantôme, having given some instances of matrimonial discord between princes, adds this: "And lately King Henry d'Albret, with Queen Margaret of Valois, as I have it from good hands, who treated her very ill, and would have done still worse had it not been for King Francis, her brother, who spoke home and roughly to him, and charged him with threats to honor the queen his sister in regard to the rank she bore." The whimsical behavior of this King of Navarre on the occasion of the birth of his grandson, afterwards Henry IV. of France, may enable us to guess how far he was capable of tenderness and delicacy of feeling in his conduct to his wife. On hearing that his daughter was pregnant, he recalled her from Picardy, where she was residing with her husband. The princess arrived in Pau on the 4th of December, after a journey of twenty days, and nine days afterward her child was born. Her father had promised that he would put his will into her hands as soon as she should be delivered, but on condition that in her labor she should sing a song; "to the end," said he, "that you may not bring me a crying and ill-humored child." The princess promised that she would, and had so much courage and resolution, that , in spite of the pains of labor, sang as she heard him enter her chamber a Béarnish ditty, the burden of which was, Noste donne deou cap dea pon, adjouda mi en aqueste houre; that is, "Our Lady of the bridge-end, help me at this hour." As soon as the child was born, his grandfather took him out of the midwife's hands, carried him into his cabinet, and there plentifully rubbed his lips and gums with garlic, by which horrible treatment the poor infant very narrowly escaped suffocation.
The intense affection which Margaret bestowed on her brother he returned as fully as it was in his nature to do. His conduct towards her was marked by that imperious egotism of which he gave so many unfortunate proofs in the most important circumstances of his life. He always called her ma mignonne, but he exacted unsparingly from "his darling" the surrender of her opinions, inclinations and feelings to the claims of his policy or his caprice. He even took from her her only surviving child when it was but two years old, and had it brought into the château of Plessis les Tours, where the poor mother saw it only at long intervals during her unfrequent journeys in France. But Margaret was never weary of making sacrifices for the brother she idolized; and it is remarkable, not less as a characteristic of the age than of herself, that notwithstanding the propriety of her personal conduct and her ardent piety, she was more than tolerant of the illicit amours to which her splendid brother openly addicted himself. She composed the devices for the jewels which Francis I. presented to Madame de Chateaubriant; she maintained a most friendly intercourse with Madame d'Etampes, and to her she presented her poem of Le Coche, or the Debat d'Amour, in which she pronounced a most pompous eulogy on the beauty and the virtues of that royal mistress.
The death in April, 1547, of that brother whom she had loved so much, and to whose glory and welfare she had devoted her existence, was a heavy blow to Margaret. * She survived him but two years, and that brief remnant of her life was spent chiefly in seclusion and religious abstraction from the concerns of the world. Nevetheless, it is not correctly stated by a recent English writer, † that during that period "no solicitations could induce the queen to emerge from her seclusion, or interest herself as formerly in literature or politics." In the very next paragraph the same writer contradicts this loose assertion, by saying that Margaret "often solaced her grief by composing elegies and plaintive songs on her misfortune." Besides this , it is certain that the Queen of Navarre was occupied but a few months before her death in the composition of her book of tales; for the 66th novel of her Heptameron recounts a ludicrous adventure which befell her daughter, Joanne d'Albret, and the Duke de Vendôme, shortly after their marriage in October, 1548. Margaret's health began to decline in the summer of the following year, and she expired at the château of Audos, in Bigorre, on the 21st of December, 1549, in her fifty-seventh year.
Amidst the multifarious occupations of her well-filled life, the Queen of Navarre found leisure to compose a great number of literary works, besides carrying on a voluminous correspondence with her brother, his ministers, and many other persons. Her productions in verse, the greater part of which have been printed, consist of eight long poems on sacred, amorous, or historical subjects; eight dramatic pieces, including four mysteries, two moralities, and two farces; poetical epistles to her brother, her mother, and the King of Navarre; and roundeaux, dixains, songs and other small pieces. According to the last editors of the Heptameron, some of Margaret's fugitive pieces, published by them for the first time, are superior as literary works to her more serious compositions, and in them alone are to be found the gaiety and grace for which she has been so much celebrated by her contemporaries. There is one among them of a graver character, which appears to us so remarkable for its impassioned force and its full and flowing rhythm, that we gladly lay it before the reader:
Souvieigne vous des lermes respandues,
Qui par regret très grand furent rendues
Sur vostre tant amyable visaige;
Souvieigne vous du dangereux oultraige
Que vous cuida faire mon povre coeur
Pressé par trop d'une extreme douleur,
Quand il força la voix de satisfaire
Au très grand mal où ne sçavois que faire,
Tant qu'à peu près la pleur fut entendu;
Souvieigne vous du sens qui fut perdu
Tant que raison, parolle & contenance
N'eurent pouvoir, ny force, ny puissance,
De desclairer ma double passion,
Ny aussi peu ma grand affection;
Souvieigne vous du coeur qui bondissoit
Pour la tristesse en quoy il perissoit;
Souvieigne vous des souspirs très ardens
Qui à la foule en despict de mes dentz
Sortoient dehors, pour mieulx me soulaiger
Souvieigne vous du peril & danger
Où nous estions, dont nous ne tenions compte,
Car vraye amour ne congnoist paour ny honte
Souvieigne vous de nostre amour honneste,
Dont ne devons pour nul baisser la teste,
Car nous sçavons tous deux certainement
Qu'honneur & Dieu en sont le fondement;
Souvieigne vous du très chaste embrasser
Dont vous ne moy ne nous pouvions laisser;
Souvieigne vous de vostre foy promise
Par vostre main dedans la mienne mise;
Souvieigne vous de mes doubtes passées,
Que vous avez en une heure effassées,
Prenant en vous si grande seureté,
Que je m'asseure en vostre fermeté;
Souvieigne vous que vous avez remis
Du plus parfaict de voz meilleurs amys
Le coeur, l'esprit & le corps en repos,
Par vostre honneste & vertueux propos,
Auquel je veulx adjouster telle foy,
Que plus n'aura doubte pouvoir sus moy;
Souvieigne vous que je n'ay plus de paine,
Que ceste là que avecques moy je maine:
C'est le regret de perdre vostre veue,
Par qui souvent tant de joye ay receue;
Souvieigne vous du regard de vostre oeil,
Dont l'esloingner me faict mourir de dueil;
Souvieigne vous du lieu très mal paré
Où fust de moy trop de bien separé;
Souvieigne vous des heures qui sonnoyent,
Et du regret qu'en sonnant me donnoient,
Voyant le temps & l'heure s'advancer
Du despartir où ne fays que penser;
Souvieigne vous de l'adieu redoublé
A chascun pas, de l'esperit troublé,
Du coeur trancy & du corps affoibly,
Et ne mectez le triste oeil en oubly;
Souvieigne vous de la parfaicte amour,
Qui durera sans cesser nucyt & jour,
Qui a dens moy si bien painct vostre ymaige,
Que je n'ay riens sinon vostre visaige,
Vostre parler, vostre regard tant doulx
Devant mes yeulx; bref, je n'y ay que vous;
Vous suppliant, o amye estimée,
Plus que nulle aultre & de moy tant aymée,
Souvieigne vous d'immortel souvenir
De vostre amy, & le vueillés tenir
Dens vostre coeur seul amy & parfaict,
Ainsi que vous dedens le sien il faict."
On the whole, the Queen of Navarre has been far more successful in the poetical treatment of secular than of sacred subjects, and for obvious reasons. We cannot speak from personal knowledge of her efforts in the latter field, but we are very well disposed to accept the judgment pronounced upon them by the Bibliophiles Français, that they are barren of poetry and brimful of tediousness, consisting as they do of long paraphrases of Scripture, theological dissertations, and metaphysico-devotional rhapsodies. One of them, however, deserves more special mention, as marking the author's dissent from the religion of Rome. "The mirror of the sinful soul" (Miroir de l'ame pecheresse ) "was composed in a strain very unusual in the Church of Rome, there being no mention made in it either of male or female saints, or of merits, or of any other purgatory than the blood of Jesus Christ." * The work was consequently assailed with fierce denunciations from the orthodox pulpits; a comedy was acted by the students of the College of Navarre, in which the queen was represented as a Fury of Hell, and the Sorbonne decreed at least, if it did not promulgate, a censure upon her heretical production. Margaret complained to her brother, and the result was that Nicholas Cop, rector of the Sorbonne, expressly disowned the censure pronounced by the body over which he presided; the student-comedians, and the most intemperate of the preachers, were committed to prison; and Noël Beda, syndic of the faculty of theology, who had been the most ardent promoter of the attacks on the king's sister, died in confinement at Mont Saint Michel.
The Heptameron is, of all Margaret's works, the one on which her literary reputation has mainly rested since her death. We have sketched its bibliographical history in our preface, and it now remains for us to speak of its composition. Dunlop, who may be considered as expressing the general opinion of literary historians, says that "few of the tales composed in it are original; for, except about half a dozen which are historically true, and are mentioned as having fallen under the knowledge and observation of the Queen of Navarre, they may all be traced to the Fabliaux, the Italian Novels, and the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles." On the contrary, the last editors of the Heptameron allege that "its distinctive character is, that it reproduces, under a tolerably transparent veil, real events which happened at the court of France, especially in the reigns of Louis XI., Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I. Of the seventy-two tales which compose the Heptameron, we know but five or six which are evidently borrowed from the French conteurs of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. This character of truth, which has not even been suspected by the majority of those who have spoken of this collection, may be demonstrated in the most evident manner." This opinion very nearly agrees with the Queen of Navarre's own statement in her prologue, that all the tales she was about to relate were founded in fact, and it is corroborated by many evidences, direct and indirect. Brantôme, for instance, tells us that "his mother knew some of the secrets of the novels, and that she was one of the confabulators" (une des devisantes ) . He analyses many of the tales in the Heptameron, certifies the authenticity of some of them, and makes known to us the real names of certain persons whom Margaret has introduced into them. From him we learn, that under the title of a Princess of Flanders the Queen has portrayed herself, and related the audacious attempt made upon her chastity by Admiral de Bonnivet. Another notable verification of the Heptameron is supplied by the Bibliophiles Français. The first novel relates a murder committed by a proctor at Alençon, and mentions that the murderer obtained letters of pardon from the King of France at the intercession of the King of England. The Bibliophiles have discovered these very letters in the French archives, and found them to agree perfectly with the Queen of Navarre's narrative.
The more closely to imitate her Florentine model, she introduces her tales by describing a remarkable accident of nature, by which the supposed narrators are thrown together for a season, and driven to seek for some device to while away the time. Certainly there is no comparison between the fine description of the plague at Florence which opens the Decameron, and that multiplicity of little events which the Queen has accumulated in her prologue; nevertheless, the contrivance of the latter is sufficiently ingenious, and bears a considerable resemblance to the frame of the Canterbury Tales. Ten French ladies and gentlemen, intercepted by a perilous inundation on their return from the baths of Cauterets, take shelter in a monastery of the Pyrenees, where they are forced to remain till a bridge should be thrown over an impassable stream, and amuse themselves meanwhile by relating stories in a beautiful meadow on the banks of the Gave. As to the persons into whose mouths Margaret has put her stories, it is natural enough to suppose that she chose them from her own family, and from among the lords and ladies who were usually about her. Madame Oisille, for instance, appears to be Margaret's mother, that name being almost an anagram of Louise. She is represented as an aged widow of great experience, who is as a mother to the other ladies. The rest of the company call each other simply by their respective names, but in addressing Oisille they always say Madame. Many of the novels which turn on the debauchery and wickedness of the Franciscans or Cordeliers are related by Oisille. The tone in which she speaks of them accords with the concluding passage of the journal of Louise of Savoy: "In the year 1522, in December, my son and I, by the grace of the Holy Ghost, began to know the hypocrites white, black, gray, smoky, and of all colors, from whom God in His infinite mercy and goodness preserve and defend us, for if Jesus Christ is not a liar, there is not among all mankind a more dangerous generation."
Hircan, another of the ten interlocutors, may very probably represent one of Margaret's two husbands, but which of the two we are not prepared to say. The Bibliophiles infer that it is the Duke d'Alençon, from the deference with which he is treated by the rest of the gentlemen; but surely this would apply quite as well to the King of Navarre. In the prologue, Hircan says to Simontault, "Since you have been the first to speak, it is right that you should take the lead, for in sport we are all equal." Hircan's wife, Parlamente, who was never idle or melancholy, is no doubt Margaret herself; and if Hircan is the Duke d'Alençon, then Simontault is probably the King of Navarre, or vice versâ. With respect to the other six persons, the Bibliophiles Français offer no conjectures, or only such as seem to us of little weight.
The conversations in the Heptameron on the characters and incidents of the last related tale, and which generally introduce the subject of the new one, are much longer than in the Italian novels, and indeed occupy nearly one-half the work. Some of the remarks are quaint and comical, others are remarkable for their naïveté, while a few breathe the conceits of the Italian sonneteers; for example, "It is said that jealousy is love, but I deny it; for though jealousy be produced by love as ashes are by fire, yet jealousy extinguishes love, as ashes smother the flame." These epilogues are well worthy of attention, as embodying the author's personal views on sundry important topics, such as friendship, love, and conjugal fidelity; and also as a curious model of conversation among persons of quality in the first half of the sixteenth century. Especially curious is it to observe in them how stories and comments of a very ticklish character are mingled with reflections imbued with the most exalted piety; how the company prepare themselves by devotional exercises for telling tales which are often anything but edifying; and how, when the day's work is done, they duly praise the Lord for giving them the grace to spend their time so pleasantly. Margaret's contemporaries were by no means shocked at these incongruities, as our more skeptical age would be. The causes of this difference would be an interesting subject of inquiry, but here we can only note the fact. To give another instance of it: When Clement Marot published his poetical versions of some of the Psalms, they quickly superseded all other songs throughout the country. The press could not throw off copies fast enough to supply the demand. Each of the princes and courtiers appropriated a psalm, and sang it to such a tune as he thought fit. Henry II. chose the psalm, Ainsi qu'on oyt le cerf braire, and made a hunting song of it. His mistress, Diane de Poitiers, jigged out Du fond de ma pensée to the popular dance tune, Le branle de Poitou; and Catherine de Medici, in allusion to her husband's infidelities, profanely appropriated Ne veuillez pas, ô Sire, set to the air, Des bouffons.
We have alluded to the questionable morality of the Heptameron, and certainly we will not endorse the argument of its new editors, who combat the common opinion that it should be classed among licentious books, upon the plea that "the Queen of Navarre excels in winding up a tale of extreme gallantry with moral reflections of the most rigorous kind." The best apology for the book is that its author has not exceeded the allowed license of good society in her own age, and that she is not to be judged by the standard of ours. Free as her language must often appear to us, it will be found, upon closer scrutiny, to be always controlled by certain conventional rules of propriety. Some grossly obscene passages, for which she has incurred unmerited censure, prove now to have been the work of those manifold offenders, her first editors.
* Histoire de Bourbon, p. 226 ro. Des desseins des professions nobles et publiques, &c., &c. Par Ant. de Laval. Paris, 1605.
* Dames Galantes.
* Brantôme. Dames Illustres.
† Ibid.
* Brantôme, Dames Illustres.
* "In his last sickness," says Brantôme, "I have heard that she spoke to this purpose: 'Should the courier who brings me news of the king my brother's recovery, be he ever so tired, harassed, mud-spattered and dirty, I would embrace and kiss him as the finest prince and gentleman of France; and should he want a bed and not be able to find one to repose himself, I would give him mine, and gladly lie on the ground for sake of the good news he brought.'"
† The Life of Marguerite d'Angoulême, Queen of Navarre, &c. By Martha Walker Freer. 2 vols. London, 1854.
* Beza, Hist. Ecclesiast. book i. p. 5.
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