MARGUERITE D'ANGOULEME queen of Navarre, was the daughter of Charles d'Orleans, count d'An gouleme and was born in Angouleme on April I1, 1492. She was two years older than her brother Francis I. She was betrothed early to Charles, duke d'Alencon, and married him in 1509. She was not very fortunate in this first marriage, but her brother's accession to the throne made her, next to their mother, Louise of Savoy, the most powerful woman of the kingdom. She became a widow in 1525, and married in 1527 Henri d'Albret, titular king of Navarre. Navarre was not reconquered for the couple as Francis had promised, but ample apanages were assigned to Marguerite, and at Nerac and Pau miniature courts were kept up, which yielded to none in Europe in the intellectual brilliancy of their frequenters. Marguerite was at once one of the chief patronesses of letters that France possessed, and the chief refuge and defender of advocates of the Reformed doctrines. Round her gathered C. Marot, Bonaventure Des Periers, N. Denisot, J. Peletier, V. Brodeau, Boaistuau, Le Macon and many other men of letters, while she protected Rabelais, E. Dolet and others. For a time her influence with her brother prevailed, but latterly political rather than religious considerations led him to wage a fierce persecution against both Protestants and freethinkers, a persecution which drove Des Periers to suicide and brought Dolet to the stake. Marguerite's own inclinations seem to have been rather towards a mystical pietism than towards dogmatic Prot estant sentiments. Marguerite died in Odot-en-Bigorre on Sept. 21, 1549. By her first husband she had no children, by her second a son who died in infancy, and a daughter, Jeanne d'Al bret, who became the mother of Henry IV. She does not, from the portraits which exist, appear to have been regularly beautiful, but as to her sweetness of disposition and strength of mind there is universal consent.
Her literary work consists of the Heptameron, of poems en titled Les Marguerites de la marguerite des princesses, and of Letters. The Heptameron, constructed, as its name indicates, on the lines of the Decameron of Boccaccio, consists of 72 short stories told to each other by a company of ladies and gentlemen who are stopped in the journey homewards from Cauterets by the swelling of a river. It was not printed till 1558, ten years
after the author's death, and then under the title of Les Amants fortunes. Internal evidence is strongly in favour of its having been a joint work, in which more than one of the men of letters who composed Marguerite's household took part. It is a delight ful book, and strongly characteristic of the French Renaissance. The Letters are interesting and good. The Marguerites consist of a very miscellaneous collection of poems, mysteries, farces, de votional poems of considerable length, spiritual and miscellaneous songs, etc. The Dernieres poesies, not printed till 1896 (by M. A. Lefranc), are interesting and characteristic, consisting of verse epistles, comedies (pieces in dramatic form on the death of Francis I., etc.), Les Prisons, a long allegorical poem of amorous religious-historical tenor; some miscellaneous verse chiefly in dizains, and a later and remarkable piece, Le Navire, expressing her despair at her brother's death.