The first, adopted after her dismissal from the Court of France by Charles VIII., was a windswept mountain, with the motto, "Perflant altissimo venti." The second, taken after the death of John Castille, and her child by him, was a fruit tree split by lightning.
This enigmatic device has been variously deciphered, but two contemporary authors agree in interpreting it "Fortuna infortunat fortiter unam," which means "Fortune tries cruelly a woman." Murray's guide gives incorrectly, "Fortune infortune forte une," meaning "Here is a woman strong in fortune or in misfortune."
[207] Beaux's "Eglise de Brou," p. 57.
The fabric, however, does not seem to have suffered as much from the quarrels of the builders, as from the extraordinary failure of the architect to provide efficiently for carrying away the roof water, with the result that heavy rains nearly destroyed the building before even it was finished. Loys had probably forgotten structural soundness in his efforts to satisfy his employer's passion for decorative effect.
Matthew Arnold's poem, "The Church of Brou," is marred by a number of unnecessary inaccuracies. Philibert was not slain by a boar, he died of pleurisy. Marguerite's Tomb is at the "Crossing East of the Choir," and not in the nave, moreover, the poet seems so uncertain whether the Church is in the mountain or in the valley, that one is led to doubt whether he really knew.
[210] "Description Historique de la belle église et du couvent royal de Brou." Quoted Beaux pp. 126-8.