Margaret’s own letters supply proof of this. She is constantly to be
found intervening in state affairs and exercising her influence. She
receives the deputies from Basle, Berne, and Strasburg who came to Paris
in 1537 to ask Francis I. for the release of the imprisoned Protestants.
She joins the King at Valence when he is making preparations for a
fresh war against Charles V.; then she visits Montmorency at the camp of
Avignon, which she praises to her brother; next, hastening to Picardy,
when the Flemish troops are invading it, she writes from Amiens and
speaks of Thérouenne and Boulogne, which she has found well fortified.
Francis, however, did not value her society and counsel solely
for political reasons; he was also fond of conversing with her on
literature, and at times they composed amatory verses together.
According to an oft-repeated tradition, one day at the Château of
Chambord, whilst Margaret was boasting to her brother of the superiority
of womankind in matters of love, the King took a diamond ring from his
finger and wrote on one of the window panes this couplet:--
“Souvent femme varie, Bien fol est qui s’y fie.” (1)
Brantôme, who declares that he saw the inscription, adds, however, that
it consisted merely of three words, “Toute femme varie” (all women are
fickle), inscribed in _large_ letters at the side of the window. (2) He
says nothing of any pane of glass (all window panes were then extremely
_small_) or of a diamond having been used; (3) and in all probability
Francis simply traced these words with a piece of chalk or charcoal on
the side of one of the deep embrasures, which are still to be seen in
the windows of the château.
1 “Woman is often fickle,
Crazy indeed is he who trusts her.”