She had centred many hopes upon her little boy, John, of whom she was
confined without accident, but he died, as already stated, in infancy,
and this misfortune was a great shock to her, though she tried to
conceal it by having the Te Deum sung at the funeral in lieu of the
ordinary service, and by setting up in the streets of Alençon the
inscription, “God gave him, God has taken him away.” However, from that
time forward she never laid aside her black dress, though later on
she wore it trimmed with marten’s fur. Her best known portrait (1)
represents her attired in this style with the quaint Bearnese cap, which
she had also adopted, set upon her head.
1 Bibliothèque Nationale, _Recueil de Portraits au crayon,
&c._, fol. 46.
Not only did Margaret lose her son by death, but she was prevented from
enjoying the companionship of her daughter Jane. Francis, who never once
lost sight of his own interests, deemed it advisable to possess himself
of this child, who was the heiress to the throne of Navarre. Accordingly
when Jane was but two years old she was sent by the King to the Château
of Plessis-lès-Tours, where she was carefully brought up in strict
seclusion.
To the fact that Margaret was never really happy with either of her
husbands, and that she was precluded from discharging a mother’s duties,
one may ascribe, in part, her fondness for gathering round her a Court
in which divines, scholars, and wits prominently figured. The great
interest which she took in religious matters, as is shown by so many of
her letters, (1) led her to shelter many of the persecuted Reformers in
Bearn; others she saved from the stake, and frequently in writing to
the King and Marshal de Montmorency she begs for the release of some
imprisoned heretic.
1 One of these letters, written by her either to Philiberta
of Savoy, Duchess of Nemours, or to Charlotte d’Orléans,
Duchess of Nemours, both of whom were her aunts, may be thus
rendered in English: “My aunt, on leaving Paris to escort
the King, Monsieur de Meaux (Bishop Briçonnet), sent me the
Gospels in French, translated by Fabry, word for word, which
he says we should read with as much reverence and as much
preparation to receive the Spirit of God, such as He has
left it us in His Holy Scriptures, as when we go to receive
it in the form of Sacrament. And inasmuch as Monsieur de
Villeroy has promised to deliver them to you, I have
requested him to do so, for these words (the Gospels) must
not fall into evil hands. I beg, my aunt, that if by their
means God grants you some grace, you will not forget her who
is above all else your good niece and sister, Margaret.”
Fabry’s translation of the Gospels was made in 1523-24.
Margaret’s religious views frequently caused dissension between her and
her husband, in whose presence she abstained from giving expression to
them. Hilarion de Coste mentions that “King Henry having one day been
informed that a form of prayer and instruction contrary to that of
his fathers was held in the chamber of the Queen, his wife, entered it
intending to chastise the minister, and finding that he had been hurried
away, the remains of his anger fell upon his wife, who received a blow
from him, he remarking, ‘Madam, you want to know too much about it,’ and
he at once sent word of the matter to King Francis.”
It was at Nérac that most of the divines protected by Margaret found a
refuge from the persecutions of the Sorbonne. Here she kept court in
a castle of which there now only remains a vaulted fifteenth-century
gallery formerly belonging to the northern wing. Nérac has, however,
retained intact a couple of quaint mediaeval bridges, which Margaret
must have ofttimes crossed in her many journeyings. Moreover, the
townsfolk still point out the so-called Palace of Marianne, said to have
been built by Margaret’s husband for one of his mistresses, and also the
old royal baths, which the Queen no doubt frequented.
It was at the castle of Nérac that Margaret’s favourite protégé, the
venerable Lefèvre d’Étaples, died at the age of one hundred and one, in
the presence of his patroness, to whom before expiring he declared that
he had never known a woman carnally in his life. However, he regretfully
added that in his estimation he had been guilty of a greater sin, for
he had neglected to lay down his life for his faith. Another partisan of
the Reform, Gerard Roussel, whom Margaret had almost snatched from the
stake and appointed Bishop of Oloron, had no occasion to express any
such regret. His own flock speedily espoused the doctrines of the
Reformation, but when he proceeded to Mauléon and tried to preach there,
the Basques refused to listen to him, and hacked the pulpit to pieces,
the Bishop being precipitated upon the flagstones, and so grievously
injured that he died.
Beside the divines who sought an asylum at Nérac, there were various
noted men of letters, foremost among whom we may class the Queen’s two
secretaries, Clement Marot, the poet, and Peter Le Maçon, the translator
of Boccaccio’s _Decameron_. This translation was undertaken at the
Queen’s request, as Le Maçon states in his dedication to her, and it
has always been considered one of the most able literary works of the
period. With Marot and Le Maçon, but in the more humble capacity of
valet, at the yearly wages of one hundred and ten livres, there came the
gay Bonaventure Despériers, the author of _Les Joyeux Devis_; (1) other
writers, such as John Frotté, John de la Haye and Gabriel Chapuis, were
also among Margaret’s retainers.