Woman in Family Life, Education, and Letters
The queens of France exerted little or no influence upon the cultural
or political development of that country. Frequently of foreign
extraction and reared in the strict religious discipline of
Catholicism, they spent their time in attending masses, aiding the
poor and, with the little money allowed them, erecting hospitals and
other institutions for the weak and needy. Thus, they are, as a rule,
types of gentleness, virtue, piety, and self-sacrifice.
The little information which history gives concerning them is confined
mainly to their matrimonial alliances. To them, marriage represented
nothing more than a contract—a union entered into for the purpose of
settling some political negotiation; thus they were often cast upon
strange and unfriendly soil where intrigues and jealousy immediately
affected them.
Seldom did they venture to interfere with the intrigues of the
mistress; in their uncertain position, any manifestation of resentment
or opposition resulted in humiliation and disgrace; if wise, they
contented themselves with quietly performing their functions as
dutiful wives. Such women were Claude, daughter of Louis XII., and
Eleanor of Spain—wives of Francis I.; lacking the power to act
politically, both passed uneventful and virtuous lives in comparative
obscurity. The wife of Charles IX.—Elizabeth of Austria, daughter of
Maximilian II.—had absolutely no control over her husband; however,
he condescended to flatter himself with having, as he said, "in an
amiable wife, the wisest and most virtuous woman not only of France
and Europe, but of the universe." Her nature is well portrayed in
the answer she gave to the remark made to her, after the death of her
husband: "Ah, Madame, what a misfortune that you have no son! Your
lot would be less pitiful and you would be queen-mother and regent."
"Alas, do not suggest such a disagreeable thing!" she replied. "As
if France had not afflictions enough without my producing another to
complete its ruin! For, if I had a son, there would be more divisions
and troubles, more seditions to obtain the administration and
guardianship during his infancy and minority; all would try to profit
themselves by despoiling the poor child—as they wanted to do with the
late king, my husband." Returning to Austria, she erected a convent,
treated the nuns as friends and refused to marry again even to ascend
the throne of Spain.
Louise de Vaudemont, wife of Henry III, was a French woman by
birth and blood. After the death of the Princess of Condé, whom he
passionately loved and desired to marry, Henry conceived an intense
affection for Louise, daughter of Nicholas of Lorraine, Count of
Vaudemont—a young lady of education and culture—"a character of
exquisite sweetness lends distinction to her beauty and her piety;
her thorough Christian modesty and humility are reflected in her
countenance." Brantôme wrote: "This princess deserves great praise;
in her married life she comported herself so wisely, chastely, and
loyally toward the king that the nuptial tie which bound her to him
always remained firm and indissoluble,—was never found loosened or
undone,—even though the king liked and sometimes procured a change,
according to the custom of the great who keep their full liberty."
Soon after the marriage, however, Henry began to make life unpleasant
for the queen, one of his petty acts being to deprive her of the moral
ladies in waiting whom she had brought with her.
Louise de Vaudemont was a striking contrast to the perverted woman of
the day; the latter, no longer charmed by the gentler emotions, sought
the exaggerated and the eccentric, extraordinary incidents, dramatic
situations, unexpected crises, finding all amusements insipid unless
they involved fighting and romantic catastrophes. "_Billets doux_ were
written in blood and ferocity reigned even in pleasure."
In the midst of this turmoil, Louise busied herself with charity,
appearing among the poor and distributing all the funds which her
father gave her for pocket money; the evils of her surroundings threw
her virtues, by contrast, into so much the brighter light. Though she
held herself aloof from intrigues and rivalries, favoring no one and
encouraging no slander, she was, strange to say, respected, admired
and honored by Protestants and Catholics alike.
Calumny and all the agitations about her did not disturb Louise in her
prayers. "The waves of the angry ocean broke at the foot of the
altar as the queen knelt; but Huguenots and Catholics, leaguers and
royalists, united to pay her homage. They were amazed to see such
purity in an atmosphere so corrupt, such gentleness in a society so
violent. Their eyes rested with satisfaction on a countenance whose
holy tranquillity was undisturbed by pride and hatred. The famous
women of the century, wretched in spite of all their amusements and
their feverish pursuit of pleasure, made salutary reflections as they
contemplated a woman still more highly honored for her virtues than
for her crown." That she was not a mother was, with her, an enduring
sorrow; even that, however, did not alter her calmness and benign
resignation.
Louise de Vaudemont was indeed a bright star in a heaven of
darkness—one of the best queens of whom French history can boast;
she is an example of goodness and gentleness, of purity, charity, and
fidelity in a world of corruption, cruelty, hatred, and debauch—where
sympathy was rare and chastity was ridiculed. Although a highly
educated woman, the faithful performance of her duties as queen and
as a devout Catholic left her little time for literature and art; she
remains the type of piety and purity—an ideal queen and woman.
A heroine in the fullest sense of that word was Jeanne d'Albret, the
great champion of Protestantism; she was the mother of Henry IV. and
the wife of the Duke of Bourbon, Count of Vendôme, a direct descendant
of Saint Louis. This despotic, combative, and war-loving queen reigned
as absolute monarch, and was as autocratic and severe as Calvin
himself, confiscating church property, destroying pictures and
altars—even going so far as to forbid the presence of her subjects
at mass or in religious processions. "Her natural eloquence, the
lightning flashes from her eyes, her reputation as a Spartan matron
and an intractable Calvinist, all contributed to give her great
influence with her party. The military leaders—Coligny, La
Rochefoucauld, Rohan, La Noue—submitted their plans of campaign to
her."
Though Jeanne was, perhaps, as fanatical, intolerant, and cruel as her
adversaries, she was driven to this by the hostility shown her by
the Catholic party—a party in which she felt she could place no
confidence. Her retreat was amid rocks and inaccessible peaks, whence
she defied both the pope and Philip II. She brought up her son—the
future Henry IV.—among the children of the people, exercising toward
him the severest discipline, and inuring him to the cold of the winter
and the heat of the summer; she taught him to be judicious, sincere,
and compassionate—qualities which she possessed to a remarkable
degree. Chaste and pure herself, she considered the court of France
a hotbed of voluptuousness and debauchery, and at every opportunity
strengthened herself against its possible influence.
The political and religious troubles of Jeanne d'Albret began when
Pope Paul IV. invested Philip II. of Spain with the sovereignty of
Navarre—her territory; she resisted, and, following the impulses of
her own nature, formally embraced Calvinism, while her weak husband
acceded to the commands of the Church, and, applying to the pope for
the annulment of his marriage, was prepared, as lieutenant-general of
the kingdom, a position he accepted from the pontiff, to deprive
his wife of her possessions. His death before the realization of his
project made it possible for Jeanne to retain her sovereignty; alone,
an absolute monarch, she declared Calvinism the established religion
of Navarre. After the assassination of Condé she remained the champion
of the Huguenots, defying her enemies and scorning the court of
France.
So great were her power and influence over the soldiery that Catherine
de' Medici, her bitter enemy, desiring to bring her into her power,
or, at least, to conciliate her, planned a marriage between Jeanne's
son and Marguerite of Valois—sister of Charles IX. When the
suggestion that the marriage should take place came from the king of
France, Jeanne d'Albret suspected an ambush; with the determination
to supervise personally all arrangements for the nuptials, she set
out for the French court. Venerated by the Protestants, and hated but
admired by the Catholics, she had become celebrated throughout Europe
for her beauty, intelligence, and strength of mind; thus, her arrival
at Paris created a sensation.
She was so scandalized at the luxury and bold debauchery at court that
she decided to give up the marriage; she had detected the intrigues
and falsity of both the king and Catherine, and had a foreboding of
evil. She wrote to her son Henry:
"Your betrothed is beautiful, very circumspect and graceful, but
brought up in the worst company that ever existed (for I do not see
a single one who is not infected by it) ... I would not for anything
have you come here to live; this is why I desire you to marry and
withdraw yourself and your wife from this corruption which (bad as I
supposed it to be) I find still worse than I thought. Here, it is not
the men who invite the women, but the women who invite the men. If you
were here, you could not escape contamination without a great grace
from God."
In the meantime, Catherine, undecided whether to strike immediately or
to wait, was redoubling her kindness and courtesy and her affectionate
overtures; her enemies were in her hands. Although Jeanne suspected
that Catherine was capable of every perfidy, she at times believed
that her suspicions were unjust or exaggerated. The situation between
these two great women was indeed a dramatic one: both were tactful,
powerful, experienced in war and diplomacy; both were mothers with
children for whose future they sought to provide. Jeanne's hesitancy,
however, was fatal; physically exhausted from suffering and sorrow,
worry and excitement, she suddenly died, in the midst of her
preparations for the marriage. While it is not absolutely certain that
her death was due to poison, subsequent events lead strongly to the
belief that Catherine was instrumental in causing it—that, probably,
being but the first act toward the awful catastrophe she was planning.
"A few hours before her agony, Jeanne dictated the provisions of her
will. She recommended her son to remain faithful to the religion
in which she had reared him, never to permit himself to be lured by
voluptuousness and corruption, and to banish atheists, flatterers, and
libertines.... She begged him to take his sister, Catherine, under his
protection and to be, after God, her father. 'I forbid my son ever
to use severity towards his sister; I wish, to the contrary, that he
treat her with gentleness and kindness; and that—above all—he have
her brought up in Béarn, and that she shall never leave there until
she is old enough to be married to a prince of her own rank and
religion, whose morals shall be such that the spouses may live happily
together in a good and holy marriage.'" D'Aubigné wrote of her:
"A princess with nothing of a woman but sex—with a soul full of
everything manly, a mind fit to cope with affairs of moment, and a
heart invincible in adversity."
It was in deep mourning that her son, then King of Navarre, arrived at
Paris; the eight hundred gentlemen who attended him were all likewise
in mourning. "But," says Marguerite de Valois, "the nuptials took
place in a few days, with triumph and magnificence that none others,
of even my quality, had ever beheld. The King of Navarre and his troop
changed their mourning for very rich and fine clothes, I being dressed
royally, with crown and corsage of tufted ermine all blazing with
crown jewels, and, the grand blue mantle with a train four ells long
borne by three princesses. The people down below, in their eagerness
to see us as we passed, choked one another." (Thus quickly was Jeanne
d'Albret forgotten.) The ceremonies were gorgeous, lasting four days;
but when Admiral Coligny, the Huguenot leader, was struck in the hand
by a musket ball, the festive aspect of affairs suddenly changed.
On the second day after the wounding of Coligny, and before the
excitement caused by that act had subsided, Catherine accomplished
the crowning work of her invidious nature, the tragedy of Saint
Bartholomew.
Peace and quiet never appeared upon the countenance of Catherine
de' Medici—that woman who so faithfully represents and pictures the
period, the tendencies of which she shaped and fostered by her own
pernicious methods; and Charles IX., her son, was no better than his
mother. Saint-Amand, in his splendid picture of the period, gives a
truthful picture of Catherine as well: "It is interesting to observe
how curiously the later Valois represented their epoch. Francis I. had
personified the Renaissance; Charles IX. sums up in himself all the
crises of the religious wars—he is the true type of the morbid and
disturbed society where all is violent; where the blood is scorched
by the double fevers of pleasure and cruelty; where the human soul,
without guide or compass, is tossed amid storms; where fanaticism
is joined to debauchery, superstition to incredulity, cultured
intelligence to depravity of heart. This wholly unbalanced
character—which stretches evil to its utmost limits while preserving
the knowledge of what is good, which mistrusts everybody and yet
has at least the aspiration toward friendship and love, if not its
experience—is it not the symbol and living image of its time?"
Marguerite de Valois, sister of Charles IX. and wife of Henry IV., by
her own actions and intrigues exercised little influence politically;
she was, above all else, a woman of culture and may be taken as an
example of the type which was largely instrumental in developing
social life in France. Famous for her beauty, talents, and profligacy,
it seems that historians are prone to dwell too exclusively upon the
last quality, overlooking her principal rôle—that of social leader.
She first came into prominence through her relations with the Duke of
Guise who paid assiduous court to her for some time; for a while, no
topic was more discussed than that of their marriage. When, however,
Charles IX. heard that the duke had been carrying on a secret
correspondence with his sister, he exclaimed, savagely: "If it be so,
we will kill him!" Thereupon, the duke hurriedly contracted a marriage
with Catherine of Clèves. That Marguerite, at this early date, had
become the mistress of Henry of Guise is hardly likely and becomes
even less probable when it is considered how closely she was watched
by her mother, Catherine de' Medici.
Her marriage, previously mentioned, to Henry of Navarre was a mere
political match, there being absolutely no love, no affection, no
sympathy. This union was looked upon as the surest covenant of peace
between Catholicism and Protestantism and put an end to the disastrous
religious wars that had been carried on uninterruptedly for years;
both the parties to this contract lived at court, leading an existence
of pleasure and immorality. Remarkably intelligent, Marguerite was a
scholar of no mean ability; she displayed much wit and talent, but
no judgment or discretion; though conveying the impression of being
rather haughty and proud, she lacked both self respect and true
dignity. Her beauty was marvellous, but "calculated, to ruin and damn
men rather than to save them."
Henry, the husband of Marguerite, was constantly sneered at and
taunted by the Catholics; although Catholic in name he was Protestant
at heart and keenly felt his false position. During Catherine's short
term as queen-regent, he was held in captivity until the arrival
of Henry III., when he escaped to his own Béarn people; for this,
Marguerite was held responsible and kept under guard.
Although hating his religion, his wife went to live with him,
tolerating his infidelities while he refused to tolerate her religion.
The unhappiness of this marriage was not due to Marguerite alone; the
first trouble arose when she discovered his love for his mistress,
Gabrielle d'Estrées, and, thinking herself equally privileged,
she began to indulge in the same excesses. The result of so many
annoyances and debaucheries, so much vexation, was an illness; as soon
as she became convalescent, she returned to her mother at court where
she speedily gained the ill will of the king by her profligate habits,
her quarrels with both Catholics and Protestants, her intimacy with
the Duke of Guise, her plottings with her younger brother, her cutting
satires on court favorites.
She was sent back to Henry, upon the way meeting with the mishap of
being insulted by archers and, with her maids, led away prisoner. Her
husband was with difficulty persuaded to receive her, and, finding him
all attentive to his mistress, Marguerite fled to Agen, where she
made war upon him as a heretic; unable to hold her position there on
account of her licentious manner of living and the exorbitant taxes
imposed upon the inhabitants, she fled again and continued moving
from one place to another, causing mischief everywhere, "consuming the
remainder of her youth in adventures more worthy of a woman who had
abandoned her husband than of a daughter of France." At last, she was
seized and imprisoned in the fortress of Usson; here she was supported
mainly by Elizabeth of Austria, widow of Charles IX.
When her husband became King of France, he refused to liberate her
until she should renounce her rank; to this condition she refused
to accede until after the death of her rival, the mistress of
Henry—Gabrielle d'Estrées, Duchess de Beaufort. After the annulment
of the marriage, Marguerite said: "If our household has been little
noble and less bourgeois, our divorce was royal." She was permitted
to retain the title of queen, her debts were paid and other great
concessions granted. Her subsequent relations with Henry IV. were very
cordial and fraternal; she even revealed political plots to him.
When, after nearly twenty years of captivity, Marguerite returned to
Paris (1605), she gained the favor of everybody—the king, dauphin,
and court ladies. She was present at the coronation of Marie de'
Medici, and, by being tactful enough to keep apart from all intrigues,
quarrels, and jealousies, she managed to win the good will of the
king's favorites. She became the social leader, the queen inviting her
to all court ceremonies and consulting her on all disputed questions
of etiquette—even going so far as to intrust her with the reception
of the Duke of Pastrana, who had come to ask the hand of Elizabeth
of France. It is reported that in her last years she led a worse life
than in her earlier days—she had become a woman of the bad world,
resorting to every possible means to hide her age and to gain any
vantage ground. In order to be well supplied with blond wigs, she kept
fair-haired footmen who were shorn from time to time to furnish
the supply. In the latter part of her life, spent at Paris and its
vicinity, she fell a victim to hypochondria, suffering the most bitter
pangs of remorse and terrible fear at approaching death. To alleviate
this, she founded a convent where she taught the children music. She
died in 1615, in Paris, "in that blended piety and coquetry which
formed the basis of a character unable to give up gallantries and
love."
One of the very few historians who give due credit to her social
importance and assign her the position she may rightfully command
among French women of the sixteenth century is M. Du Bled. According
to him, she was the leader of fashion, and in all its components
she showed excellent taste and judgment. Forced to marry the king of
Navarre, she said, after the ceremony: "I received from marriage all
the evil I ever received, and I consider it the greatest plague of my
life. They tell me that marriages are made in heaven; heaven did not
commit such an injustice;" and this seems to be the secret of her
"vicious life."
As soon as she discovered that the king's favorites were determined
to make life hard and disagreeable for her, she sought consolation in
love and the toilette, in balls and fêtes, in ballets and hunting, in
promenades and gallant conversations, in tennis and carousals, and in
an infinite variety of ingeniously planned pleasures. The spirit of
chivalry, the habits of exalted devotion, were again in full sway
about her. She worried little about virtue: "She had the gift of
pleasing, was beautiful, and made full use of the liberality of the
gods. Whatever may be said of her morals, it can truthfully be stated
that she showed art in her love and practised it more in spirit than
with the body." Music was a favorite art with her; she encouraged
and rewarded singing, especially in the convent which she founded and
where she spent almost all of her later days instructing the children.
Her court at Usson, where, as a prisoner, she lived for twenty years,
was the most brilliant and least material of all France; there poets,
artists, and scholars were held in high esteem, and were on familiar
footing with Marguerite; the latter showed no despotism, but, with the
most consummate skill, directed conversations and proposed subjects,
encouraging discussion, and skilfully drawing from her friends the
most brilliant repartees. She received people of distinction without
ceremony.
She introduced the two elements which were combined in the
eighteenth-century salon: a fine cuisine and freedom among her friends
from the restraint usually imposed by distinction. She was, also,
one of the first to have a circle—well organized according to modern
etiquette—where the highest aristocracy, men of letters, magistrates,
artists, and men of genius met on equal terms and in familiar and
social intercourse; Montaigne, Brantôme, and other great writers
dedicated their works to her. She also directed a select few, an
academy, to instruct and distract herself. It is said that every
coquette, every bourgeois woman, and almost every court lady
endeavored to imitate her. When she died, at the age of sixty-two,
poets and preachers sang and chanted her merits, and all the poor wept
over their loss; she was called the queen of the indigent. Richelieu
mentioned her devotion to the state, her style, her eloquence, the
grace of her hospitality, her infinite charity. "She remains, _par
excellence_, the one great sympathetic woman of the sixteenth century;
her admirers, during life and after death, were legion. She shared
in the lesser evils of the century, but it cannot be said that she
participated in the brutalities, grossness, or glaring immoralities
of her time; her weaknesses, compared with the great debauches of the
age, seemed like virtues."
Such is this great woman of the sixteenth century, who has received
almost universal condemnation at the hands of historians. It is to be
taken into consideration that she was forced to marry a man whom she
did not love, and to live in a country utterly uncongenial to
her nature and opposed to the religion in which she was reared;
furthermore, that her husband first defiled the marital union, thus
driving her to follow the general tendencies of the time or to seek
solace in religious activity, for which she had too much energy. After
due consideration of the extenuating circumstances, her faults and
vices, such as they were, may easily be condoned. Because she was the
wife of a powerful Protestant king, she was condemned by Catholics and
by them regarded with suspicion; and, in order to save herself, she
was forced to commit unwise acts and even follies.
In fine, whatever may be said against Marguerite de Valois, whom
despair drove to acts which are not generally pardoned, she stands
foremost among the social leaders and cultured women of the sixteenth
century, a century whose prominent women were notorious for their
licentiousness and lack of conscience rather than famous for their
virtue and womanly accomplishments. Undeniably powerful and brilliant,
these unscrupulous women were never happy; usually proud, they finally
suffered the most cruel humiliations; "voluptuous, they found anguish
underlying pleasure." Their misfortunes are, possibly more interesting
than those successes of which chagrin anxiety, and heavy hearts were
the inseparable associates.
Religion, which in the sixteenth century was so badly understood, and
practised even worse—obscured and falsified by fanaticism, disfigured
and exaggerated by passion and hatred—was the secret cause of all
downfalls crimes, horrors, intrigues, and brutality. Yet, it alone
survives, and all the important figures of history return to it after
a period of negligence and forgetfulness. In their religious aspect,
the women of the sixteenth century differ as a rule, from those of
the eighteenth, who, though equally powerful, witty, refined, sensual,
frivolous, and scoffing, were far less devout; for "'tis religion
which restores the great female sinners of the sixteenth century 'tis
religion which saves a society ploughed up by so many elements of
dissolution and so many causes of moral and material ruin, rescuing
it from barbarism, vandalism, and from irretrievable decay;" but the
women of the eighteenth century clung, to the end, to the scepticism
and material philosophy which served them as their religion, their
God.
Among the conspicuous women of the sixteenth century to whom, thus
far, we have been able to attribute so little of the wholesome
and pleasing, the womanly or love-inspiring, there is one striking
exception in Marguerite d'Angoulême, a representative of letters, art,
culture, and morality. With the study of this character we are taken
back to the beginning of the century and carried among men of letters
especially, for she formed the centre of the literary world. She, her
mother, Louise of Savoy, and her brother, Francis I., were called a
"trinity," to the existence of which Marguerite bore witness in the
poem:
"Such boon is mine—to feel the amity
That God hath putten in our trinity
Wherein to make a third, I, all unfitted
To be that number's shadow, am admitted."
Marguerite inherited many of her qualities from her mother, "a most
excellent and a most venerable dame," though anything but moral and
conscientious; she, upon discovering that her daughter possessed rare
intellectual gifts, provided her with teachers in every branch of the
learning of the age. "At fifteen years of age, the spirit of God
began to manifest itself in her eyes, in her face, in her walk, in her
speech, and in all her actions generally." Brantôme says: "She had
a heart mightily devoted to God and she loved mightily to compose
spiritual songs. She devoted herself to letters, also, in her young
days and continued them as long as she lived, in the time of her
greatness, loving and conversing with the most learned folks of her
brother's kingdom, who honored her so greatly that they called her
their Mæcenas." Tenderness, particularly for her brother, seemed to
develop in her as a passion.
Marguerite was a rare exception in a period described by M.
Saint-Amand as one in which women were Christian in certain aspects
of their character and pagan in others, taking an active part in
every event, ruling by wit and beauty, wisdom and courage; an age of
thoughtless gaiety and morbid fanaticism, and of laughter and tears,
still rough and savage, yet with an undercurrent of subtle grace and
exquisite politeness; an age in which the extremes of elegance and
cruelty were blended, in which the most glaring scepticism and intense
superstitions were everywhere evident; an age which was religious as
well as debauched and whose women were both good and evil, innocent
and intriguing. Everything was fluctuating; there was inconstancy
even in the things most affected: pleasure, pomp, display. The natural
outcome of this undefined restlessness was dissatisfaction; and when
dissatisfaction brought in its train the inevitable reaction against
falseness and immorality, Marguerite d'Angoulême stood at the head of
the movement.
With her begins the cultural and moral development of France. It was
she who encouraged that desire for a new phase of existence,
which arose through contact with Italian culture. The men of
learning—poets, artists, scholars—who soon gathered about the French
court received immediate recognition from the king's sister, who had
studied all languages, was gay, brilliant, and æsthetic. While her
mother and brother were in harmony with the age, no better, no worse
than their environment, Marguerite aspired to the most elevated morals
and ideals; thus, she is a type of all that is refined, sensitive,
loving, noble, and generous in humanity, a woman vastly superior to
her time; in fact, the modern woman, with her highest attributes.
In Marguerite d'Angoulême contemporaries admired prudence, chastity,
moderation, piety, an invincible strength of soul, and her habit of
"hiding her knowledge instead of displaying it." "In an age wholly
depraved, she approached the ideal woman of modern times; in spite
of her virtue, she was brilliant and honored, the centre of a coterie
that delighted in music, verse, ingenious dialogues and gossip, story
telling, singing, rhyming. Deeply afflicted by the sad and odious
spectacle of the vices, abuses, and crimes which unroll before her,
she suffers through her imagination, mind and heart." Serious and
sympathetic, she was interested in every movement, feeling with those
who were persecuted on account of their religious opinions.
Various are the names by which she is known: daughter of Charles of
Orléans, Count of Angoulême, Duchesse d'Alençon through her first
marriage, and Queen of Navarre through her second, she was called
Marguerite d'Angoulême, Marguerite of Navarre, of Valois, Marguerite
de France, Marguerite des Princesses, the Fourth Grace, and the Tenth
Muse. A most appreciative and just account of her life is given by
M. Saint-Amand, which will be followed in the main outline of this
sketch.
She was born in 1492, and, as already stated, received a thorough
education under the direction of her mother, Louise of Savoy. At
seventeen she was married to Charles III., Duke of Alençon; as he
did not prove to be her ideal, she sought consolation in love for her
brother, sharing the almost universal admiration for the young king,
whose tendency to favor everything new and progressive was stimulated
by her. She became his constant and best adviser in general affairs
as well as in those of state. The foreign ambassadors sought her after
having accomplished their mission, and were referred to her when
the king was busy; they were enraptured, and carried back wonderful
reports of Marguerite.
The world of art was opened to the French by a bevy of such painters
and sculptors as Leonardo da Vinci, Rosso, Primaticcio, Benvenuto
Cellini, and Bramante, and they were encouraged and fêted by
Marguerite especially. In those days a new picture from Italy by
Raphael was received with as much pomp and ceremony as, in olden
times, were accorded the holiest relics from the East.
Men of letters gathered about the sister of the king, forming what
might be termed a court of sentimental metaphysics; for the questions
discussed were those of love. This refined gallantry, empty and vapid,
formed the foundation of the seventeenth-century salon, where the
language and fine points of sentiment were considered and cultivated
until sentiment acquired poise, grandeur, and an air of dignity and
reserve.
The period was one in which, during times of trial and misfortune, the
presence of an underlying religious sentiment became unmistakable. In
such an atmosphere, the propensity toward mysticism, which Marguerite
had manifested as a child, grew more and more apparent. When Francis
I. was captured at the battle of Pavia, his sister immediately sought
consolation in devotion, the nature of which is well illustrated in a
letter to the captive king:
"Monseigneur, the further they remove you from us, the greater becomes
my firm hope of your deliverance and speedy return, for the hour
when men's minds are most troubled is the hour when God achieves His
masterstroke ... and if He now gives you, on one hand, a share in the
pains which He has borne for you, and, on the other hand, the grace
to bear them patiently, I entreat you, Monseigneur, to believe
unfalteringly that it is only to try how much you love Him and to give
you leisure to think how much He loves you. For He desires to have
your heart entirely, as, for love, He has given you His own; He has
permitted this trial, in order, after having united you to Him by
tribulation, to deliver you for His own glory—so that, through you,
His name may be known and sanctified, not in your kingdom alone, but
in all Christendom and even to the conversion of the infidels. Oh, how
blessed will be your brief captivity by which God will deliver so many
souls from that infidelity and eternal damnation! Alas, Monseigneur!
I know that you understand all this far better than I do; but seeing
that in other things I think only of you, as being all that God has
left me in this world,—father, brother, husband,—and not having the
comfort of telling you so, I have not feared to weary you with a
long letter, which to me is short, in order to console myself for my
inability to talk with you."
After his incarceration in the gloomy prison in Spain where he was
taken ill, Francis asked for the safe conduct of Marguerite; this
was gladly granted. Ignorant of her future duty in Spain, she wrote:
"Whatever it may be, even to the giving of my ashes to the winds to do
you a service, nothing will seem strange, difficult or painful to me,
but will be only consolation, repose, and honor." So impatient was she
to arrive at her brother's side that she could not travel fast enough.
Her presence only increased his fever and a serious crisis soon came
on, the king remaining for some time "without hearing or seeing or
speaking." Marguerite, in this critical time, implored the assistance
of God. She had an altar erected in her chamber, and all the French of
the household, great lords and domestics alike, knelt beside the
sick man's sister and received the communion from the hands of the
Archbishop of Embrun, who, drawing near the bed, entreated the king to
turn his eyes to the holy sacrament. Francis came out of his lethargy
and asked to commune likewise, saying: "It is my God who will heal my
soul and body; I entreat you that I may receive him." Then, the
Host having been divided in two, the king received one half with the
greatest devotion, and his sister the other half. The sick man felt
himself sustained by a supernatural force; a celestial consolation
descended into the soul that had been despairing. Marguerite's prayer
had not been unavailing—Francis I. was saved.
She then proceeded to visit different cities and royalties,
endeavoring to secure concessions for her brother. From the people in
the streets as well as from the lords in their houses, she received
the most unmistakable proofs of friendly feeling; in fact, her favor
was so great that Charles V. informed "the Duke of Infantado that, if
he wished to please the emperor, neither he nor his sons must speak to
Madame d'Alençon." The latter, unable to secure her brother's release,
planned a marriage between him and Eleanor of Portugal, sister of
Charles V.; her successes at court and in the family of the emperor
furthered this scheme. Brantôme says: "She spoke to the emperor so
bravely and so courteously that he was quite astonished, and she spoke
even more to those of his council with whom she had audience; there
she produced an excellent impression, speaking and arguing with an
easy grace in which she was proficient, and making herself rather
agreeable than hateful or tiresome. Her reasons were found good and
pertinent and she retained the high esteem of the emperor, his court
and council."
Although she failed in her attempts to free the king, she succeeded,
by arranging the marriage, in completely changing the rigorous
captivity to which Charles had subjected him. Finally, by giving his
two eldest sons as hostages, the king obtained his release, and in
March, 1526, he again set foot, as sovereign, on French soil. Thus the
king's life was saved and he was permitted to return to his country,
Marguerite's devotion having accomplished that in which the most
skilled diplomatist would have failed.
All historians agree that Marguerite d'Angoulême was a devout
Catholic, but that she was too broad and liberal, intelligent
and humane, to sanction the unbridled excesses of fanaticism. The
acknowledged leader of moral reform, she protected and assisted those
persecuted on account of their religious views and sympathized with
the first stages of that movement which revolted against abuses, vice,
scandals, immorality, and intrigue. With her, the question was not one
of dogma, but concerned, instead, the religion which she considered
most conducive to progress and reform. It grieved her to see her
religion defile itself by cruel and inhuman persecutions and tortures,
by intolerance and injustice. She felt for, but not with, the heretics
in their errors. "She typifies her age in all that is good and noble,
in artistic aspirations, in literary ideals, in pure politics—in
short,—in humanity; in her is not found the chaotic vagueness which
so often breaks out in license and licentiousness, cruelty, and
barbarism."
During the absence in Spain of Francis I. and Marguerite, the
mother-regent sought to gain the support and favor of Rome by ordering
imprisonments, confiscations, and punishments of heretics; but upon
the return of the king and his sister, the banished were recalled and
tolerance again ruled. When (in 1526) Berquin was seized and tried for
heresy, he found but one defender. Marguerite wrote to her brother,
still at Madrid:
"My desire to obey your commands was sufficiently strong without
having it redoubled by the charity you have been pleased to show poor
Berquin according to your promise; I feel that He for whom I believe
him to have suffered will approve of the mercy which, for His honor,
you have had upon His servant and your own."
Marguerite had saved Berquin and had even taken him into her service.
Her letter to the constable, Anne de Montmorency, shows her esteem of
men of genius and especially of Berquin:
"I thank you for the pleasure you have afforded me in the matter of
poor Berquin whom I esteem as much as if he were myself; and so you
may say you have delivered me from prison, since I consider in that
light the favor done me."
When on June 1, 1528, a statue of the Virgin was thrown down and
mutilated by unknown hands, a reversion of feeling arose immediately,
and even Marguerite was not able to save poor Berquin, and he was
burned at the stake. Upon learning of his imminent peril, she wrote to
Francis from Saint-Germain:
"I, for the last time, very humbly make you a request; it is that
you will be pleased to have pity upon poor Berquin, whom I know to be
suffering for nothing other than loving the word of God and obeying
yours. You will be pleased, Monseigneur, so to act that it be not
said that separation has made you forget your most humble and obedient
sister and subject, Marguerite."
Encouraged by their success in that instance, the intolerant party
began furious attacks upon her, one monk going so far as to say from
the pulpit that she should be put into a sack and thrown into the
Seine. Upon her publication of a religious poem, _Miroir de l'âme
pécheresse_, in which she failed to mention purgatory or the saints,
she was vigorously attacked by Beda, who had the verses condemned
by the Sorbonne and caused the pupils of the College of Navarre to
perform a morality in which Marguerite was represented under the
character of a woman quitting her distaff for a French translation
of the Gospels presented to her by a Fury. This was too much even for
Francis, and he ordered the principal and his actors arrested; it was
then that Marguerite showed her gentleness, mercy, and humanity by
throwing herself at her brother's feet and asking for their pardon.
After but a short respite the persecution broke out anew, and with
the full sanction of the king, who, upon finding at his door a placard
against the mass, went even so far as to sign letters patent ordering
the suppression of printing (1535). While away from the soothing
influence of his sister, Francis I. was easily persuaded to sign, for
the Catholic party, any permit of execution or cruelty. The life
of Marguerite herself was constantly in danger, but in spite of
persistent efforts to turn brother against sister, the king continued
to protect and defend the latter; and though she gradually drew closer
to Catholicism, she continued to protect the Protestants. She founded
nunneries and showed a profound devotion toward the Virgin; although
realizing the dangers and follies of the new doctrine, she had too
much humanity to encourage cruelty.
The husband whom the king forced upon her was twelve years her junior,
poor, and subsidized by Francis; by him she had a daughter, Jeanne
d'Albret, who became the champion of Protestantism. Her married life
at Pau, where she had erected beautiful buildings and magnificent
terraces, was not happy; the subjects of love that formerly had amused
her had lost their charm; and the incurable disease with which her
brother was stricken caused her constant worry and mental suffering.
When banquets, the chase, and other amusements no longer attracted
Francis, he summoned Marguerite to comfort and console him; her
devotion and goodness never failed. Unable to recover from the grief
caused by his death in 1547, she expressed her sorrow in the most
beautiful poems.
She gave the remainder of her life to religion and charity, abandoning
her literary ambitions and plans. "The life after death gave her much
trouble and many moments of perplexity and uneasiness. She survived
her brother only two years, dying in 1549; the helper and protector
of good literature, the defence, consolation, and shelter of the
distressed, she was mourned by all France more than was any other
queen." Sainte-Marthe says: "How many widows are there, how many
orphans, how many afflicted, how many old persons, whom she pensioned
every year, who now, like sheep whose shepherd is dead, wander hither
and thither, seeking to whom to go, crying in the ears of the wealthy
and deploring their miserable fate!" Poets, scholars, all learned and
professional men, commemorated their protectress in poems and funeral
orations. France was one large family in deep mourning.
Marguerite d'Angoulême must first be considered as the real power
behind the supreme authority of her period, her brother the king;
secondly, as a furtherer of the development and encouragement of
good literature, good taste, high art, and pure morals; thirdly, as
a critic of importance. She is entitled to the first consideration by
the fact that as the confidential adviser of Francis I. she moulded
his opinions and checked his evil tendencies: the affairs of the
kingdom were therefore, to a large extent, in her hands. She collected
and partly organized the chaotic mass of material thrown upon the
sixteenth-century world, leaving its moulding into a classic
French form to the next century; and by her spirit of tolerance she
endeavored to further all moral development: thus is she entitled to
the second consideration. Gifted with rare delicacy of taste, solidity
of judgment, and the ability to select, discriminate, and adapt, she
set the standards of style and tone: therefore, she is entitled to the
third consideration.
The love of Marguerite for her brother, and her unselfish devotion to
his interests, is a precedent unparalleled in French history until
the time of Madame de Sévigné. In all her letters we find the same
tenderness, gentleness, passion, inexhaustible emotion, sympathy, and
compassion that distinguished her actions.
In her _Contes_ (the _Heptameron_) _de la Reine de Navarre_ we have
an accurate representation of society, its manners and style of
conversation; in it we find, also, remnants of the brutality and
grossness of the Middle Ages, as well as reflections of the higher
tendencies and aspirations of the later time. In having a thorough
knowledge of the tricks, deceits, and follies of the professional
lovers of the day, and of their object in courting women, Marguerite
was able to warn her contemporaries and thus guard them against
immorality and its dangers. In her works she upheld the purity of
ideal love, exposing the questionable and selfish designs of the
clever professional seducers. A specimen may be cited to show her
style of writing and the trend of her thought:
"Emarsuite has just related the history of a gentleman and a young
girl who, being unable to be united, had both embraced the religious
life. When the story is ended, Hircan, instead of showing himself
affected, cries: 'Then there are more fools and mad women than there
ever were!' 'Do you call it folly,' says Oisille, 'to love honestly
in youth and then to turn all love to God?' ... 'And yet I have the
opinion,' says Parlemente, 'that no man will ever love God perfectly
who has not perfectly loved some creature in this world.' 'What do you
by loving perfectly?' asks Saffredant; 'do you call perfect lovers
who are bashful and adore ladies from a distance, without daring
to express their wishes?' 'I call those perfect lovers,' replies
Parlemente, 'who seek some perfection in what they love—whether
goodness, beauty or kindness—and whose hearts are so lofty and honest
that they would rather die than perform those base deeds which honor
and conscience forbid; for the soul which was created only to return
to its Sovereign Good cannot, while it is in the body, do otherwise
than desire to win thither; but because the senses, by which it can
have tidings of that which it seeks, are dull and carnal on account
of the sin of our first parents, they can show it only those visible
things which most nearly approach perfection; and the soul runs after
them, believing that in visible grace and moral virtues it may find
the Sovereign Grace, Beauty and Virtue. But without finding whom it
loves, it passes on like the child who, according to his littleness,
loves apples, pears, dolls and other little things—the most beautiful
that his eye can see—and thinks it riches to heap little stones
together; but, on growing larger he loves living things, and,
therefore, amasses the goods necessary for human life; but he knows,
by the greatest experiences, that neither perfection nor felicity is
attained by possessions only, and he desires true felicity and the
Maker and Source thereof.'"
In her writings, much apparent indelicacy and grossness are
encountered; but it must be remembered for whom she was writing, the
condition of morality and the taste of the public at that time, and
that she aimed faithfully to depict the society that lay before her
eyes. It is argued by some critics that these indecencies could not
have emanated from a pure, chaste woman; that Marguerite must have
experienced the sins she depicted; but such reasoning is not sound.
The expressions used by her were current in her time; there
was greater freedom of manners, and coarseness and drastic
language—examples of which are found so frequently in the writings of
Luther—were very common.
Marguerite was less remarkable for what she did than for what she
aspired to do. "She invoked, against the vices and prejudices of her
epoch, those principles of morality and justice, of tolerance and
humanity, which must be the very foundation of all stable society. She
wished to make her brother the protector of the oppressed, the support
of the learned, the crowned apostle of the Renaissance, the promoter
of salutary reforms in the morals of the clergy; in politics, he was
to follow a straight line and methodically advance the accomplishment
of the legitimate ambitions of France."
She expressed the most modern ideas on the rights of woman,
particularly on her relative rights in the married state:
"It is right that man should govern us as our head, but not that he
should abandon us or treat us ill. God has so well ordered both man
and woman, that I think marriage, if it is not abused, one of the most
beautiful and secure estates that can be in this world, and I am sure
that all who are here, no matter what pretense they make, think as
much or more; and as much as man calls himself wiser than woman, so
much the more grievously will he be punished if the fault be on his
side. Those who are overcome by pleasure ought not to call themselves
women any longer, but men, whose honor is but augmented by fury and
concupiscence; for a man who revenges himself upon his enemy and slays
him for a contradiction is esteemed a better companion for so doing;
and the same is true if he love a dozen other women besides his wife;
but the honor of woman has another foundation: it is gentleness,
patience, chastity."
Désiré Nisard says that Marguerite d'Angoulême was the first to write
prose that can be read without the aid of a vocabulary; in verse, she
excels all poets of her time in sympathy and compassion; her poetry
is "a voice which complains—a heart which suffers and which tells us
so." "It is not so much her own deep sentiment that is reflected, but
her emotion, which is both intellectual and sympathetic, volitional
and spontaneous." Her letters were epoch-making; nothing before
her time nor after her (until Madame de Sévigné) can equal them in
precision, purity of language, sincerity and frankness of expression,
passion and religious fervor.
In spite of what may be said to the contrary, her life was an
ideal one, an example of perfect moral beauty and elevation; noble,
generous, refined, pious, and sincere, she possessed qualities which
were indeed rare in her time. She was attacked for her charity, and is
to-day the victim of narrow sectarian and biased devotees. Her act of
renouncing all gorgeous dress, even the robes of gold brocade so much
worn by every princess, in order to give all her money to the poor;
her protection of the needy and persecuted; her court of poets and
scholars; her visits to the sick and stricken; even her untiring love
for her brother and her acts of clemency—all have frequently been
misinterpreted.
The greatest poets and men of letters of the sixteenth century
were encouraged financially and morally or protected by Marguerite
d'Angoulême—Rabelais, Marot, Pelletier, Bonaventure-Desperiers,
Mellin de Saint-Gelais, Lefèvre d'Etaples, Amyot, Calvin, Berquin.
Charles de Sainte-Marthe says: "In seeing them about this good lady,
you would say it was a hen which carefully calls and gathers her
chicks and shelters them with her wings."
Many critics believe that her literary work was imitative rather than
original; even if this be true, it in no measure detracts from her
importance, which is based upon the fact that she was the leading
spirit of the time and typified her environment. Her followers, and
they included all the intellectual spirits, looked up to her as
the one incentive for writing and pleasing. Her disposition was
characterized by restlessness, haste—too great eagerness to absorb
and digest and appropriate all that was unfolded before her. She
imitated the _Decameron_ and drew up for herself a _Heptameron_; her
poetry showed much skill and great ease, but little originality.
Her extreme facility, her wonderfully active mind, her power of
_causerie_, and her ability to discuss and write upon philosophical
and religious abstractions, won the deep admiration and respect of her
followers, who were not only content to be aided financially by her,
but looked to her for guidance and counsel in their own work, though
she never imposed her ideas and taste upon others. By her tact,
she was able practically to control and guide the entire literary,
artistic, and social development of the sixteenth century. Every form
of intellectual movement of this period is impregnated with the spirit
of Marguerite d'Angoulême.
With her affable and loving manners, her refined taste and superior
knowledge, she was able to influence her brother and, through him,
the government. Just as her mother controlled in politics, so
did Marguerite in arts and manners. In her are found the main
characteristics to which later French women owed their influence—a
form of versatility which included exceptional tact and enabled the
possessor to appreciate and sympathize with all forms of activity, to
deal with all classes, to manage and be managed in turn.
The writings of Marguerite are quite numerous, consisting of six
moralities or comedies, a farce, epistles, elegies, philosophical
poems, and the _Heptameron_, her principal work—a collection of prose
tales in which are reflected the customary conversation, the morals of
polite society, and the ideal love of the time. They are a medley of
crude equivocalities, of the grossness of the _fabliaux_, of Rabelais,
and of the delicate preciosity of the seventeenth century. Love is
the principal theme discussed—youth, nobility, wealth, power, beauty,
glory, love for love, the delicate sensation of feeling one's self
loved, elegant love, obsequious love; perfect love is found in those
lovers who seek perfection in what they love, either of goodness,
beauty, or grace—always tending to virtue.
Thoroughly to appreciate Marguerite d'Angoulême's position and
influence and her contributions to literature, the conditions existing
in her epoch must be carefully considered. It was in the sixteenth
century that the charms of social life and of conversation as an art
were first realized; all questions of the day were treated gracefully,
if not deeply; woman began to play an important part, to appear
at court, and, by her wit and beauty, to impress man. From the
semi-barbaric spirit of the Middle Ages to the Italian and Roman
culture of the Renaissance was a tremendous stride; in this cultural
development, Marguerite was of vital importance. In intellectual
attainments far in advance of the age, among its great women she
stands out alone in her spirit of humanity, generosity, tolerance,
broad sympathies, exemplary family life, and exalted devotion to her
brother.
Of the other literary women of the sixteenth century, mention may be
made of two who have left little or no work of importance, but who are
interesting on account of the peculiar form of their activity.
Mlle. de Gournay, _fille d'alliance_ of Montaigne, is a unique
character. Having conceived a violent passion for the philosopher
and essayist, she would have no other consort than her honor and good
books. She called the ladies of the court "court dolls," accusing
them of deforming the French language by affecting words that had
apparently been greased with oil in order to facilitate their flow.
She was one of the first woman suffragists and the most independent
spirit of the age. In 1592, to see the country of her master, she
undertook a long voyage, at a time when any trip was fraught with the
gravest dangers for a woman.
She is a striking example of the effect of sixteenth-century sympathy,
admiration, and enthusiasm; she was protected by some of the greatest
literary men of the age—Balzac, Grotius, Heinsius; the French Academy
is said to have met with her on several occasions, and she is said
to have participated in its work of purifying and fixing the French
language. Her adherence to the Montaigne cult has brought her name
down to posterity.
M. du Bled relates a droll story in connection with her meeting
Richelieu. Mlle. de Gournay was an old maid, who lived to the ripe age
of eighty. Being a pronounced _féministe_, she—like her sisters of
to-day—cultivated cats. The story runs as follows:
"Bois-Robert conducted her to the Cardinal, who paid her a compliment
composed of old words taken from one of her books; she saw the point
immediately. 'You laugh over the poor old girl, but laugh, great
genius, laugh! everybody must contribute something to your diversion.'
The Cardinal, surprised at her ready wit, asked her pardon, and said
to Bois-Robert: 'We must do something for Mlle. de Gournay. I give
her two hundred écus pension.' 'But she has servants,' suggested
Bois-Robert. 'Who?' 'Mlle. Jamyn (bastard), illegitimate daughter
of Amadis Jamyn, page of Ronsard.' 'I will give her fifty livres
annually.' 'There is still dear little Piaillon, her cat.' 'I give her
twenty livres pension, on condition that Piaillon shall have tripes.'
'But, Monseigneur, she has had kittens!' The Cardinal added a pistole
for the little kittens."
A woman of large fortune, she spent it freely in study, in her
household, and especially in alchemy. Her peculiar ideas about love
kept her from falling prey to the wealth-seeking gallants of the time.
She was one of the few women who made a profession of writing; she
compiled moral dissertations, defences of woman, and treatises on
language, all of which she published at her own expense; while they
are of no real importance, they show a remarkable frankness and
courage.
Mlle. de Gournay was, possibly, the first woman to demand the
acceptance of woman on an equal status with man; for she wrote two
treatises on woman's condition and rank, insisting upon a better
education for her, though she herself was well educated. Following the
events of the day with a careful scrutiny and interpreting them in her
writings, she showed a remarkable gift of perspective and deduction
and an intimate knowledge of politics. The fact that she was severely,
even spitefully, attacked in both poetry and prose but proves that her
writings on women were effective.
Some writers claim that the founding of the French Academy had its
inception at her rooms, where many of the members met and where, later
on, they discussed the work of the Academy. Her one desire for the
language was to have it advance and develop, preserving every word,
resorting to old ones, accepting new ones only when necessary. Thus,
among French female educators, Mlle. de Gournay deserves a prominent
place, because of her high ideals and earnest efforts in the study of
the language, for the courage with which she advanced her convictions
regarding woman, and for the high moral standard which she set by her
own conduct.
In Louise Labé—_La Belle Cordière_—we meet a warrior, as well as a
woman of letters. The great movement of the Renaissance, as it swept
northward, invaded Lyons; there Louise Labé endeavored to do what
Ronsard and the Pléiade were doing at Paris. A great part of her youth
she passed in war, wearing man's apparel and assuming the name of
"Captain Loys"; at an early age, she left home with a company of
soldiers passing through Lyons on the way to lay siege to Perpignan,
where she showed pluck, bravery, and skill. Upon her return, she
married a merchant ropemaker, whence her sobriquet—_La Belle
Cordière_.
She soon won a reputation by gathering about her a circle of men, who
complimented her in the most elegant language and read poetry with
her. Science and literature were discussed and the praises of love
sung with passionate, inflamed eloquence. In this circle of congenial
spirits, "she gave rise to doubts as to her virtue." As her husband
was wealthy, she was able to collect an immense library and to
entertain at her pleasure; she could converse in almost any language,
and all travellers stopped at Lyons and called to see her at her
salon. Her writings consisted of sonnets, elegies, and dialogues in
prose; her influence, being too local, is not marked. Her greatest
claim to attention is that she encouraged letters in a city which was
beyond the reach of every literary movement. Such were the women of
the sixteenth century; in no epoch in French history have women played
a greater rôle; art, literature, morals, politics, all were governed
by them. They were active in every phase of life, hunting with men,
taking part in and causing duels, intriguing and initiating intrigues.
"In the midst of battle, while cannon-balls and musket-shots rained
about her, Catherine de' Medici was as brave and unconcerned as the
most valiant of men. Diana of Poitiers was called the most wondrous
woman, the woman of eternal youth, the beautiful huntress; it was
she whom Jean Goujon sculptured, nude and triumphant, embracing with
marble arms a mysterious stag, enamoured like Leda's swan."
In general, the women of that century "liked better to be feared
than loved; they inspired mad passions, insensate devotions, ecstatic
admirations. The epoch was one in which life counted for little, when
balls alternated with massacres; when virtue was befitting only
the lowly born and ugly (Brantôme recommends the beautiful to be
inconstant because they should resemble the sun who diffuses his light
so indiscriminately that everybody in the world feels it). It was the
age of beauty—a beauty that fascinated and entranced, but the glow
of which melted and killed; but this glow also reacted upon them
that caused it and they became victims of their own passions—through
either jealousy or their own weaknesses. No age was ever more
luxurious, pompous, elegant, brilliant, and wanton, yet beneath all
the glitter there were much misery and bitter repentance; amongst the
violent wickedness there were noble and pure women such as Elizabeth
of Austria and Louise de Vaudemont."
The whole century seemed to be afire and to tingle with that spirit of
liberty, imitation, and experimentation, which, so often abused, led
to much disaster. In spite of that unsettled and excited condition,
the sixteenth century attained greater development, had more avenues
of intellectual activity opened to it, imitated, thought and imagined
more and produced as much as any other century; in every field,
we find the names of its masters. As M. Faguet says, the sixteenth
century was, in France, the century _créateur par excellence_; and in
this, woman's part was, above all, political, her social, moral, and
literary influence being less marked.