It is to be lamented that Briçonnet did not die in the contest. Yet he was then full of zeal. Philiberta of Nemours, respected by all for her sincere devotion, her liberality towards the poor, and the great purity of her life, read with increasing interest the evangelical writings transmitted to her by the Bishop of Meaux. "I have all the tracts that you have sent me," wrote Margaret to Briçonnet, "of which my aunt of Nemours has her part, and I will forward her the last; for she is in Savoy at her brother's wedding, which is no slight loss to me; wherefore I beseech you have pity on my loneliness." Unhappily Philiberta did not live long enough to declare herself openly in favour of the Reformation. She died in 1524 at the castle of Virieu le Grand, in Bugey, at the age of twenty-six.[801] This was a severe blow to Margaret. Her friend, her sister, she who could fully comprehend her, was taken from her. There was perhaps only one individual, her brother, whose death would have occasioned her more sorrow than this:
Such floods of tears fall from my eyes,
They hide from view both earth and skies.[802]
THE ONE AND ONLY SOLITUDE.
Margaret, feeling her inability to resist her grief and the seductions of the court, entreated Briçonnet to exhort her to the love of God, and the humble bishop replied:—
"May the mild and gentle Jesus, who wills, and who alone is able to effect what he mightily wills, in his infinite mercy visit your heart, exhorting you to love him with your whole being. Other than he, madam, none has the power to do this; you must not seek light from darkness, or warmth from cold. By attracting he kindles; and by warmth he attracts to follow him, enlarging the heart. Madam, you write to me to have pity on you, because you are alone. I do not understand that word. Whoso lives in the world and has his heart there, is alone; for many and evil go together. But she whose heart sleeps to the world, and is awake to the meek and gentle Jesus, her true and loyal husband, is truly alone, for she lives on the one thing needful; and yet she is not alone, not being forsaken by him who fills and preserves all things. Pity I cannot, and must not, such loneliness, which is more to be esteemed than the whole world, from which I am persuaded that the love of God has saved you, and that you are no longer its child......Abide, madam, alone in your only One......who has been pleased to suffer a painful and ignominious death and passion.
"Madam, in commending myself to your good graces, I entreat you not to use any more such words as in your last letters. Of God alone you are the daughter and bride: other father you should not seek......I exhort and admonish you, that you will be such and as good a daughter to him, as he is a good Father to you......and forasmuch as you cannot attain to this, because the finite cannot correspond to infinity, I pray that he will vouchsafe to increase your strength, that you may love and serve him with your whole heart."[803]
THE STRAY SHEEP—THE FOREST.
Notwithstanding these exhortations, Margaret was not consoled. She bitterly regretted the spiritual guides whom she had lost; the new pastors forced upon her to bring her back did not possess her confidence, and whatever the bishop might say, she felt herself alone in the midst of the court, and all around her appeared dark and desolate. "As a sheep in a strange country," wrote she to Briçonnet, "wandering about, not knowing where to find its pasture, through lack of knowing its new shepherds, naturally lifts its head to catch the breeze from that quarter where the chief shepherd was once accustomed to give her sweet nourishment, in such sort am I constrained to pray for your charity......Come down from the high mountain, and in pity regard, among this benighted people, the blindest of all thy fold.
"Margaret."[804]
The Bishop of Meaux, in his reply, taking up the image of the stray sheep under which Margaret had depicted herself, uses it to describe the mysteries of salvation under the figure of a wood: "The sheep entering the forest, led by the Holy Ghost," said he, "is immediately enchanted by the goodness, beauty, straightness, length, breadth, depth, and height, and the fragrant and invigorating sweetness of this forest......and when it has looked all around, has seen only Him in all, and all in Him;[805] and moving rapidly through its depths, finds it so pleasant, that the way is life, and joy, and consolation."[806] The bishop then shows her the sheep searching in vain for the limits of the forest (an image of the soul that would fathom the mysteries of God), meeting with lofty mountains, which it endeavours to scale, finding everywhere "inaccessible and incomprehensible infinity." He then teaches her the road by which the soul, inquiring after God, surmounts all these difficulties; he shows how the sheep in the midst of the hirelings finds "the cabin of the great Shepherd," and "enters on the wing of meditation by faith;" all is made smooth, all is explained; and she begins to sing: "I have found him whom my soul loveth."