But there was at the court of Francis I. one soul in particular, which seemed prepared to receive the evangelical influence of the doctor of Etaples and the bishop of Meaux. Margaret, yet hesitating and wavering, in the midst of the depraved society that surrounded her, looked for support, and found it in the Gospel. She turned towards this fresh breath that was reanimating the world, and inhaled it with delight as an emanation from heaven. From some of the ladies of her court she learnt what the new doctors were teaching; they lent her their writings, their little books, called in the language of the time, "tracts;" and spoke to her of the "primitive Church, of the pure Word of God, of worshipping in spirit and in truth, of christian liberty which shakes off the yoke of superstition and traditions of men to bind them closer to God alone."[755] Erelong this princess conversed with Lefevre, Farel, and Roussel; their zeal, their piety, their purity of morals,—all in them struck her imagination; but it was the Bishop of Meaux in particular, who had long enjoyed her friendship, that became her guide in the path of faith.
Thus, in the midst of the brilliant court of Francis I. and of the profligate household of Louisa of Savoy, was accomplished one of those conversions of the heart which, although not thoroughly evangelical, are not the fruit of a mere æsthetical religion. Margaret subsequently recorded in her poems the different movements of her soul at this important period of her life; and in them we may trace the path she then trod. We find that the sense of sin had taken strong hold of her, and that she wept over the levity with which she had treated the scandals of the world. She exclaimed:
Is there a gulf of ill, so deep and wide
That can suffice but e'en a tenth to hide
Of my vile sins?
This corruption, of which she had so long been ignorant, she discovered everywhere, now that her eyes were opened.
Well do I feel within me is the root,
Without are branch and foliage, flower and fruit.[756]
ADORATION.
Yet amidst the alarm caused by the state of her soul, she felt that a God of peace had appeared to her:
My God, thou hast come down on earth to me,—
To me, although a naked worm I be.[757]
And erelong a sense of the love of God in Christ was shed abroad in her heart.