MARESIUS, SAMUEL. See Des Marets, Samuel.

MARGARET OF NAVARRE: Daughter of Duke Charles of Orléans-AngoulSme, duchess of Alengon, and later Queen of Navarre, patron of the Reformation in France; b. at Angoul@me Apr. 11, 1492; d. at the chiteau of Odos, near Tarbes, Dec.

21, 1549. After her father's death, Social she was sent by her mother, the witty Position; and ambitious Louise of Savoy, to the Patronage court of Louis XII., her guardian, of Letters. where she received an excellent education. Endowed with rare mental qualities, including eagerness for knowledge and a warm appreciation of everything beautiful, she studied philosophy and theology in addition to the living and dead languages. On Dec. 1, 1509, she married Charles, last Duke of Alencon, and on the accession of Francis I. in 1515, was introduced to the court. The king was very fond of his sister, for whose intellect he had a high esteem, and often asked her advice in difficult matters. Like him, she was the patron of many scholars and men of letters, who clustered about her at her court at N6rac. Among them were some of a serious turn of mind, who spoke to her of religion, such as Lefèvre d'Etaples (see Faber Stapulensis, Jacobus) and his friend Gérard Roussel (q.v.), Michel d'Arande, Clement Marot (q.v.), and Guillaume Briconnet, bishop of Meaux (q.v.), who with the help of D'Arande, of Evangelical tendencies, was trying to awaken in his diocese a religious life that would lead to a study of the Bible. Between 1521 and 1524 she kept up a correspondence with Briqonnet, through which she became acquainted with "the wisdom of learned ignorance," the art of contemplating God without intermediary (neglecting all scholastic deductions and even the use of the sacraments) and finding union with him only through an intense faith and increasing love.

These letters also discuss the need of reform in the Church. In his reforming zeal Brigonnet had chosen Lefèvre d'Etaples as his vicar-general, and sent Michel d'Arande to Margaret as her chaplain.

The latter expounded the Scriptures Attitude in private to Margaret and her brother Toward and mother, who, she says, often exReform. pressed the wish to reform the Church; and she mentions the spreading of the idea that "divine truth is not heresy." It was on suspicion of heresy, however, that the Franciscans arraigned Brigonnet before the Parlement of Paris

178

in 1524: He was coerced into giving up his re forming projects; but Michel d'Arande, Lef�vre d'Etaples, and Gerard Roussel remained in the private circle of the princess. In 1525 her hus band died, and she spent the first period of her widowhood at Lyons, where D'Arande preached before large audiences. During the captivity of Francis I. the persecution of the Huguenots began. When Louise of Savoy was regent, although she had seemed unfriendly to the monastic orders and favorable to reforming ideas, she allowed the in troduction into France of the Inquisition. LeMvre and Roussel, abandoned by Briponnet, took refuge at Strasburg, whither Michel d'Arande soon fol lowed them. On June 24, 1527, Francis gave his sister in marriage to Henri d'Albret, king of Navarre, eleven years her junior. In her new position Margaret remained faithful to her Evangelical convictions, which were shared by her husband. With his assent she tried to reform the Church in their little kingdom. Gerard Roussel was made abbot of Clairac and later bishop of Oloron. Through her influence with Francis I., Lefèvre was appointed librarian of the chateau of Blois, and when he was persecuted by the Sorbonne, she had him brought under her protection at Nerac. In Strasburg, where Lefevre and Roussel had praised her dispositions, great things were expected of her for the cause of reform in France. In 1527 Sigismund von Hohen lohe, dean of the cathedral there, imbued with Lu theran ideas, entered into communication with her, expressing the desire to come to France to help the cause. In May, 1528, Capito dedicated to her his commentaries on Hosea, saying "All eyes are turned toward you; you are the hope of all Re formers." As duchess of AlenQon, she had done much in that neighborhood for the revival of let ters and for reform in religion. In the duchy of Berry, which she had ruled since 1518, the univer sity of Bourges flourished under her protection, and it was here that Calvin and Beza were inclined toward Protestantism under Wolmar's teaching. She intended to found a college in Bearn, to which Sturm and Latomus were to be called (1533); but her plan was not destined to be realized until her daughter Jeanne d'Albret founded the Academy of Orthez. Staying in Paris with her husband in 1533, she caused Gerard Roussel to preach the Evangelical doctrine in the chapel of the Louvre, and his boldness of speech raised a storm not only against him but against his patroness: The Miroir de lame p9cherease (see bibliography) was condemned and prohibited by the Sorbonne, because it made no mention of the saints or of purgatory. . Francis, ex asperated by the insults directed against his sister, banished several of the most prominent reactionary clergy. By the help of his confessor Guillaume Petit, bishop of Senlis, he opened a process before the University of Paris for the reversal of the condemnation of the Miroir, and the sentence of the Sorbonne was annulled. To allay the popular excitement, Francis ordered both Roussel and his antagonists to keep silence on controverted points. Margaret took a lively share in her brother's correspondence with Melanchthon and Butzer with the view of working out a plan which might promote the reunion of

Christendom by mutual concessions. When, however, Francis definitely took the side of the persecutors, Margaret lost all her influence over him in religious matters, and retired in disgust to Navarre, where she and her husband devoted themselves to promoting the cause of reform.

Searching the Scriptures, she became far more advanced, in all that concerned dogma, than her teachers D'Arande, Roussel, and even Lefèvre d'Etaples. This is manifest in her book Les Marguerites de la Marguerite, and in her last verses, Dia-

logue de Momme et de Dieu and Les Favoring Prisons. She adopted Calvin's doo- of the Ref- trines of salvation and the sacraments, ormation in and rejected confession, indulgences, Navarre. and prayer to the saints. As to the external forms of religion, which appeared to her non-essential, she kept up at the same time most of the old rites, because, although opposed to clerical abuses, she had always hoped for a reform without a complete breach with Rome. But she did not wish to retain unity at the cost of renouncing the newly recovered truths or of employing compulsion. She ordered that justification by faith should alone be preached in the kingdom of Navarre. The service was held,, and the psalms were sung, in the vernacular. Many monastic abuses were reformed, and only godly and Evangelical priests appointed to parishes. These improvements, established by Margaret in the churches of Bearn and later introduced by Roussel in his diocese of 0leron, paved the way for a more thoroughgoing reform which was made later by Jeanne d'Albret, and explains the latter's success. The little mountain kingdom became the refuge of persecuted Protestants, for all of whose needs Margaret provided. As long ago at Alengon she had sheltered Saints-Marthe, who had escaped from the gallows at Grenoble, so now she begged mercy from Francis I. for persecuted heretics, such as Louis de Berquin, Etienne Dolet, and the Waldenses of Provence. She spent most of her time either at Nerac with her court around her, or in the convent of Tusson, whither she retired during her mourning after Francis L's death (1547), and set an example of Christian virtue. At all critical conjunctures she prayed without ceasing. From this period of her life date most of her religious poems, many of which were printed in the Marguerdtea de la Marguerite des princesses, while some remain in manuscript in the BibliotMque Nationale.

But her whole time was not given up to religious pursuits. She was by nature a lover of mirth and gaiety. She had comedies performed Other at Nerac and at Mont de Marsan by Interests Italian players, and wrote a series of in Life. lively tales entitled Heptameron des

nouvelW, in the style of Bomeeiols Decameron, in which she drew from the example of human frailty the moral lesson that one can not rely on one's own strength but should have recourse in all circumstances to God. During the last illness of Francis I. she went to him, and her presence seemed to revive him; but scarcely had she returned to Nerac when she heard of his death

(Mar. 31, 1547). The income of 24,000 livrcs which

179

he granted her was used largely for charity. In 1538 she established a foundling asylum under the name of "Hospice des enfants de Dieu le P6re," commonly known from the costume of the inmates as "Les enfants rouges." On Oct. 20, 1548, she unwillingly gave her decidedly Protestant daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, in marriage to the vain and untrustworthy Antoine de Bourbon. Little more than a year later, after a long illness, she died, and was lamented and eulogized by native and foreign poets, as she well deserved to be.

G. Bonet-Maury.

Bibliography: Her works include: Le Miroir de lame pecheresae, au quel site recongnoiat see faultea et pechez, ausai les grdees et benefloea h wile faietz par Jesus Christ son eapoux, Alengon, 1531, and elsewhere often, e.g., Paris, 1533, Lyons, 1538, Eng. transl. by Princess Elizabeth, A Godly Medytacion of the Christen Sowle, London (7), 1548; Poesies et dialogue entre Marguerite de France et . . Char lotte de France, Alengon, 1533; Les Marguerites, ut sup., 2 vols., Lyons, 1547; L'Heptameron, Paris, 1559, and else where in innumerable editions and translations. Her letters are scattered in Letters di xiii. Huomini illuetrt, Venice, 1564 J. C. Wibel, Lebensgeschichte des . . . Siegmung von Hohenlohe, Nuremberg, 1748; Genin, Lettres de Mar guerite d'Angouleme, Paris, 1841; A. Champollion, Cap tiviM de Francois 1., ib. 1842, and in A. L. Herminjard, Correspondance des reformateura, Paris, 1878-97. The moat authoritative biography is in F. Frank's ed. of Les Marguerites de to Marguerite des princeaees, Intro duction, 4 vols., Paris, 1873. Consult: P. de Bour deilles, Seigneur de Brant6me, Vie des dames illuatree, dis oours v., ib. 1665-66; V. Durand, Marguerite de Navarre, 2 vols., ib. 1849; Miss M. W. Freer, Life of Marguerite, Queen q/ Navarre, 2 vols., London, 1857; H. A, Blind, Marguerite de Navarre dons ses rapporta avee la reforms, Strasburg, 1858; H. de la Ferribre Percy, Marguertted'An pouleme, Paris, 1862; V. Lfiro, Marguerite d' Angoul?me, ib. 1866; P. Albert, Litteralure franCaiae au xvi. siMe, ib. 1881; J. Bonnet, in Bulletin de to societe du protestan tisme francaia, xxxvii. 109-114; F. Lotheissen. Königin Margareth von Navarra; sin Kulturbiild sue der . . . (ranzbeischen Reformation, Berlin, 1885; Mary Robinson Margaret of Angoultrne, London, 1886; A. Lefrane, Les 1deea religieuses de Marguerite de Navarre, Paris, 1898; P. A. Becker, Marguerite . . . et G. Brigonnet, ib. 1901; E. Sichel, Women and Men of the French Renaissance, 1498 1547, London, 1901; Lichtenberger, BSR, viii. 679 sqq.