HEPTAMERON, The. The (Heptameron) of Marguerite, sister of Francois 1, variously called Marguerite d'Angoulime, Marguerite de Valois, or Marguerite de Navarre, is a collec tion of stories modeled on the (Decameron) of Boccaccio. A company of travelers, five gentlemen and five ladies, on their way home from Cauterets, in the Pyrenees, are overtaken by a sudden storm and flood, and take refuge in a hospitable monastery till the impassable roads may be repaired. To while away the time, after giving the to hearing mass and the reading of Holy Writ, they pass the afternoon in telling stories that take us very far from the atmosphere of such edifying exercises. Each person tells a story each day. Apparently it was Marguerite's plan that 10 days should be passed thus, as in the De cameron. But the death of her brother inter rupted her labors, and but 72 stories had been finished at her death, bringing the seventh day to an end, but only beginning the eighth; hence the name Love is the invariable theme, but in ever varying guise, from gross appetite to fine and pure devotion.
The tone is mainly that of gay and frank sen suality familiar to the Renaissance, but there is not a little fine feeling and delicate senti ment, and we may detect a tendency to look beyond the incident and the situation to the psychology and the moral quality of the actors that foreshadows the later development of fiction. A very interesting feature of the Heptameron is the brief comments of the com pany after each tale, in which, though quite divergent views of love are represented, we can discern Marguerite's own high ideal of womanly virtue and manly courtesy. The stories were published first in 1558 under the title (Histoire des amanz fortunez,) but in in complete form, and, still incomplete, under their present title in 1559. The edition of F. Frank (3 vols., 1879) is considered the best. There are numerous translations in English.