In the second half of the seventeenth century no one but Mme. Cornuel was allowed to use coarse language and be forgiven because of the spicy wit with which she seasoned it. At all times virtuous women must have heard and listened to more than they repeated; but the decisive moment (which needs to be noted) is that when they ceased to say unseemly things and fix them in writing without perceiving that they themselves were lacking in a virtue. This moment is what Queen Marguerite, as a romance-writer and maker of Nouvelles, had not the art to divine.
As a poet she has nothing more than facility. She imitates and reproduces the various forms of poesy in use at that date. It is told how she often employed two secretaries, one to write down the French verses she composed impromptu, the other to transcribe her letters.
Marguerite died at the Castle of Odos in Bigorre, December 21, 1549, in her fifty-eighth year; in yielding her last breath she cried out three times: “Jesus!” She was the mother of Jeanne d’Albret.
Such as I have shown her as a whole, endeavouring not to force her features and to avoid all exaggeration, she deserves that name of gentil esprit [charming spirit] which has been so universally awarded to her; she was the worthy sister of François I., the worthy patron of the Renaissance, the worthy grandmother of Henri IV., as much for her mercy as for her joyousness, and one likes to address her, in the halo that surrounds her, these verses which her memory calls forth and which blend themselves so well with our thought of her:—
“Spirits, charming and lightsome, who have been, from all time, the grace and the honour of this land of France—ye who were born and played in those iron ages issuing from barbaric horrors; who, passing through cloisters, were welcomed there; the joyous soul of burgher vigils and the gracious fêtes of castles; ye who have blossomed often beside the throne, dispersing the weariness of pomps, giving to victory politeness, and recovering your smiles on the morrow of reverses; ye who have taken many forms, tricksome, mocking, elegant, or tender, facile ever; ye who have never failed to be born again at the moment you were said to have vanished—the ages for us have grown stern, reason is more and more accredited, leisure has fled; even our pleasures eagerness has turned into business, peace is without repose, so busy is she with the useful; to days serene come afterthoughts and cares to many a soul;—’tis now the hour, or nevermore, for awakening; the hour to once more grasp the world and again delight it, as, throughout all time, ye have known the way, eternally fresh and novel. Abandon not forever this land of France, O spirits glad and lightsome!”
Saint-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi (1852).
DISCOURSE VII.
OF VARIOUS ILLUSTRIOUS LADIES.[22]
1. Isabelle d’Autriche, wife of Charles IX., King of France [daughter of the Emperor Maximilian II.].
We have had our Queen of France, Isabelle d’Autriche, who was married to King Charles IX., of whom it is everywhere said she was one of the best, the gentlest, the wisest, and most virtuous queens who reigned since kings and queens began to reign. I can say this, and every man who has ever seen or heard of her will say it with me, and not do wrong to others, but with the greatest truth. She was very beautiful, having the complexion of her face as fine and delicate as any lady of her Court, and very agreeable. Her figure was beautiful also, though it was of only medium height. She was extremely wise, and very virtuous and kind, never giving pain to others, no matter who, nor offending any by a single word; and as to that, she was very sober, speaking little, and then in Spanish.