The Tales of the Heptameron, Vol. I | Page 6

portrait executed about this period,
her dark-coloured dress is surmounted by a wimple with a double collar
and her head covered with a cap in the Bearnese style. This portrait (1)
tends, like those of a later date, to the belief that Margaret's beauty, so
celebrated by the poets of her time, consisted mainly in the nobility of
her bearing and the sweetness and liveliness spread over her features.
Her eyes, nose, and mouth were very large, but although she had been
violently attacked with small-pox while still young, she had been
spared the traces which this cruel illness so often left in those days, and
she even preserved the freshness of her complexion until late in life. (2)
1 It is preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, where it will be
found in the Recueil de Portraits au crayon par Clouett Dumonstier,
&c, fol. xi.
2 Referring to this subject, she says in one of her letters: "You can tell
it to the Count and Countess of Vertus, whom you will go and visit on
my behalf; and say to the Countess that I am sorely vexed that she has
this loathsome illness. However, I had it as severely as ever was known.
And if it be that she has caught it as I have been told, I should like to be
near her to preserve her complexion, and do for her what Ï did for
myself."--Génin's lettres de Marguerite d'Angoulême, Paris, 1841, p.
374.
Like her brother, whom she greatly resembled, she was very tall. Her
gait was solemn, but the dignified air of her person was tempered by
extreme affability and a lively humour, which never left her. (1)
1 Sainte-Marthe says on this subject: "For in her face, in her gestures,
in her walk, in her words, in all that she did and said, a royal gravity
made itself so manifest and apparent, that one saw I know not what of
majesty which compelled every one to revere and dread her. In seeing
her kindly receive every one, refuse no one, and patiently listen to all,
you would have promised yourself easy and facile access to her; but if
she cast eyes upon you, there was in her face I know not what of
gravity, which made you so astounded that you no longer had power, I

do not say to walk a step, but even to stir a foot to approach her."--
Oraison-funèbre, &c, p. 53.
Francis I. did not allow the magnificent reception accorded to him at
Alençon to pass unrewarded. He presented his sister with the duchy of
Berry, where she henceforward exercised temporal control, though she
does not appear to have ever resided there for any length of time. In
1521, when her husband started to the relief of Chevalier Bayard,
attacked in Mézières by the Imperial troops, she repaired to Meaux
with her mother so as to be near to the Duke. Whilst sojourning there
she improved her acquaintance with the Bishop, William Briçonnet,
who had gathered around him Gerard Roussel, Michael d'Arande,
Lefèvre d'Etaples, and other celebrated disciples of the Reformation.
The effect of Luther's preaching had scarcely reached France before
Margaret had begun to manifest great interest in the movement, and
had engaged in a long correspondence with Briçonnet, which is still
extant. Historians are at variance as to whether Margaret ever really
contemplated a change of religion, or whether the protection she
extended to the Reformers was simply dictated by a natural feeling of
compassion and a horror of persecution. It has been contended that she
really meditated a change of faith, and even attempted to convert her
mother and brother; and this view is borne out by some passages in the
letters which she wrote to Bishop Briçonnet after spending the winter
of 1521 at Meaux.
Whilst she was sojourning there, her husband, having contributed to the
relief of Mézières, joined the King, who was then encamped at
Fervacques on the Somme, and preparing to invade Hainault. It was at
this juncture that Clement Marot, the poet, who, after being attached to
the person of Anne of Brittany, had become a hanger-on at the Court of
Francis I., applied to Margaret to take him into her service. (1)
1 Epistle ii.: Le Despourveu à Madame la Duchesse d'Alençon, in the
OEuvres de Clément Marot, 1700, vol. i. p. 99.
Shortly afterwards we find him furnishing her with information
respecting the royal army, which had entered Hainault and was fighting
there. (1)

1 Epistle iii.: Du Camp d' Attigny à ma dite Dame d' Alençon, ibid., vol.
i. p. 104.
Lenglet-Dufresnoy, in his edition of Marot's works, originated the
theory that the numerous poems composed by Marot in honour of
Margaret supply proofs of an amorous intrigue between the