Some days after, she began to feel great pain in the foot, and noticed that the limb was swollen. Physicians were summoned, who, after private consultation, decided that the wound was gangrened, and that amputation was the only practicable means of saving the patient's life. They communicated their decision to Montécut, the princess's confessor, and asked him to break the news to his mistress. She was much surprised, but bore bravely what she must have known to be virtually a sentence of death. The next few days having been passed in confession, absolution, and the settlement of her temporal affairs, she submitted herself to her doctors, who proceeded to administer to their patient so large a dose of opium "that they put her to a sleep so sound that it is not yet ended, and will not end until the Resurrection of all the dead."
Marguerite was buried at Malines, where her body lay for two years, until, her tomb being ready, she was laid, in 1532, according to the express terms of her will, beside her "lord and husband," who was to rest between his mother and his wife.
There you may see her to-day lying, proud and lovely, as in life, her royal face still turned to the man to whose glory, rather than to God's, she had raised those astounding memorials of a woman's devotion. There, in flaming colour upon the purpled panes, in blazoned device upon floor and wall, in a thousand delicate fancies, wrought, with most exquisite art, upon the pale, white marble of the tombs, and altar pieces, you may read the story of her life.
We are now in a position to realize why the church, though built by men, breathes femininity. It was the expression of a woman's mind, the love offering of a lady to her lord. As such, all women's virtues are expressed in it—dignity and grace in the flowing lines of the nave, purity in the whiteness of the marble, wit and ingenuity in the legends and devices, daintiness in the exquisite detail; courage, patience, and devotion, revealed everywhere in the complete unity of the whole.[211] And those women's virtues carried with them women's faults—a certain lack of breadth and vision; over-elaboration of detail, and a love of prettiness that verges upon the petty.[212] All these things are apparent. But the greatest defect of all—the subordination of design to ornament—is as much the fault of the age as of the individual. These were the years of transition.
The old greatness had passed; the new greatness in building was not yet come. In that sense this church is inherently decadent.
When men of the early middle ages reared their mighty fanes to God and to his saints, they lifted vault and roof into echoing airy spaces, where the rapt worshippers, looking upward, might seek haply after God; but here is no upward call. This roof is low, flattened, heavy; threatening, almost, to fall upon the heads bent in prayer. The builders of pure Gothic loved to ornament their churches with the richest sculpture that skilful, reverent hands could carve; and they sought their inspirations in Nature alone, who shapes the tree before she decks it with leaves, and fashions the plant before the flower.
But these later men, losing sincerity, lost truth; they thought of the leaf before the limb, and of blossom rather than of bough. That is why Brou leaves us unsatisfied. Yet, as I have said, we must not blame utterly. Whatever architect and sculptor may have lacked, one thing they did not lack—patience. And if patience were indeed genius, as Buffon says it is, then is genius here, too. Surely, the most fastidious spectator may say with Paradin, the old chronicler of Savoy, "après tout estant léans (à Brou), semble que voyez un songe, et ne savez à quoi premierment addresser vos yeux pour les repaistre, parce qu' une chascune chose se convie á regarder comme un nouveau spectacle."