At Blois, Margaret was brought up with boys. A number of pages d’honneur were being educated with the heir-presumptive. Margaret grew to know at an early age a good deal about the temperaments of the other sex, and a good deal about flirtation. At nine years old she went through her first love affairs. No wonder that later she knew, as Brantome put it, more about the art of pleasing (galanterie) than her daily bread.
The playfellow to whom Margaret lost her childish heart was the fascinating Gaston de Foix, but there were several others among her brother’s pages who were momentous in her after existence. There was, for instance, Charles de Montpensier, afterwards Connétable de Bourbon, whom Louise de Savoie, by unduly persecuting—it is said because he refused to marry her—drove to the side of Charles V. Of this Connétable, Henry VIII. of England made a shrewd observation when he saw him at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. “If he was a subject of mine,” he said, “he would not keep his head.” There was also, among the pages at Blois, Anne de Montmorency, for whom Margaret’s friendship continued long after both were grown up. He owed his subsequent position in a large measure to her assistance, but desirous of possessing the supreme influence over Francis himself, he grew to hate the woman who also possessed so much. The unworthy termination of the friendship began in the light-hearted childhood at Blois—it was Montmorency who made the famous remark to Francis: “If your majesty wants to rid the country of heretics, you must begin with your own sister”—which was among the sharpest disillusions of Margaret’s existence.
Alinari
HEAD OF GASTON DE FOIX
But as a child her affection for Montmorency was as nothing to the adoration she felt for the gentle, endearing Gaston, who could do everything well, and whose manners won people’s hearts perpetually. Unfortunately, at ten Margaret was marriageable, and she had no sooner reached that age than Louis XII. tried to arrange a marriage for her with the English Prince of Wales—afterwards Henry VIII. Happily, Henry wanted some one nearer the throne than a cousin, and the little group at Blois remained unbroken. But the question of marriage was always in the air—the sense that the enfolded home life might cease at any moment could never be entirely shaken off. Later, Margaret narrowly escaped another English husband. Henry VII., then an old widower, wanted a second wife. He made a formal proposal for Louise. She refused point-blank, and the ambassador then asked for the daughter. This was accepted, and arrangements were in progress, when Margaret herself suddenly set everybody agape by declining an old and decrepid husband. The marriage came to nothing, though probably not because of the small girl’s protest; there were political reasons against it as well.
Meanwhile, Margaret’s childish lover, Gaston, had left the château at Blois. The modest-mannered boy, known familiarly as “the Dove,” had gone to take up a man’s business, leaving his little weeping friend behind him. But Margaret had grown by now into an interesting-looking girl. Her face, at the age of sixteen, must have been singularly arresting. She had the charm that is rarest of all—the charm of strangeness. Her appearance was not like other people’s. The portrait of her, painted when she was about twenty, leading Francis to the crucified Christ, is full of subtleties. The face is round, with the sweet fulness of young things, but the chin is tiny, lovable, incongruous—the chin of soft assents and surrenders. The nose is long, the over-long nose of Francis I.; the mouth deliciously curved and tender. All the lower half of the face expresses a desire for gentle pleasures and soft and caressing habits. But the eyes belong to a different temperament. They gaze out of the happy face with unexpected wistfulness and mysticism. Their expression is almost tired, as if so many difficult matters had vexed their understanding that they were weary before their time. The preoccupied eyes, the love-needing chin, the long, cold nose, and the charming outline of the head, make an extraordinary combination.
Every contemporary writer agreed that Margaret had the gift of fascination, and she had also in youth the kind of looks that linger in the imagination. It is, consequently, not surprising that while she sighed for the absent Gaston, some one else should have sighed for her. This second love affair is one of the interesting experiences of Margaret’s life; it is rich in information about Margaret, about Louise, about the habits and customs of Margaret’s times. Using fictitious names, she tells it herself, as well as her early affection for Gaston, in the “Heptameron.” Bonnivet was a lieutenant when he first saw Margaret, and he fell in love with her immediately. Immediately also he set himself to try and arouse a corresponding emotion. She was a princess, and he was a simple gentleman of good family; marriage was out of the question. But one could live without marriage, and Bonnivet set to work instantly to realize a plan by which he could remain permanently near his enticing lady. There was a rich and ugly heiress who lived close to the castle of Amboise, and whose parents belonged to the royal circle. Bonnivet made love to her and married her. To further facilitate his own reception at the castle, his brother about this time received a post in Louise’s household. Bonnivet then saw Margaret constantly. The girl considered herself forlorn. Her round blue eyes were plaintive under their first experience of a heartache. Bonnivet, fascinating and determined, became her friend. She confided to him all her innocent little love-story. He took the part of sympathizer. Margaret could never hate any one who liked her, and she was at the age when to be loved easily stirs a vague and evanescent fluttering.
Presently Bonnivet had to go away also—Louis was at war with Italy—and for two years Margaret saw nothing of either Gaston or her newer comrade. When Bonnivet returned he was warmly welcomed at the castle of Amboise. But apparently—it may have been a ruse—he had come back visibly dejected through the weight of some great sorrow. Margaret commenced to ask questions. This was clearly only out of a desire for flirtation, for Bonnivet’s feelings had never known secrecy, and Margaret was more than ordinarily intelligent. One day they leant together at one of the windows of the castle. Bonnivet ceased to talk of Gaston, and confessed the reason of his own melancholy. Having done so, he stated that he must go away. Margaret—to suspect that she enjoyed all this is unavoidable—replied that there was no need, “she trusted utterly in his honour, she was not angry at all;” which last statement, at any rate, strikes one as being unmistakably accurate.