[162] Marguerite was born at Angoulême on April 11th, 1492; married the feeble Duke of Alençon in 1509; was a widow in 1525; married Henri d’Albret, King of Navarre, in 1527; died in 1549. Her only child was Jeanne d’Albret, the heroic mother of Henry of Navarre, who became Henri IV. of France. When she was the Duchess of Alençon, her court at Bourges was a centre for the Humanists and Reformers of France; when she became the Queen of Navarre, her castle at Nérac was a haven for all persecuted Protestants. The literature about Marguerite is very extensive: it is perhaps sufficient to mention—Génin, Lettres de Marguerite d’Angoulême, reine de Navarre (published by the Société de l’Histoire de France, 1841-42); Les idées religieuses de Marguerite de Navarre, d’auprès son œuvre poétique; A. Lefranc, Les dernieres poésies de Marguerite de Navarre (Paris, 1896); Becker, “Marguerite de Navarre, duchesse d’Alençon et Guillaume Briçonnet, évêque de Meaux, d’aprés leur correspondance manuscrite, 1521-24” (in the Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme française, xlix. Paris, 1890); Darmesteter, Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (London, 1886); Lavisse, Histoire de France, v. i.; Herminjard, Correspondance, etc., vol. i., which contains sixteen letters written by her, and twelve addressed to her.
[163] Louise de Savoie, Journal, 1476-1522 (in Michaud et Poujoulat, Collection, etc. v.).
[164] Lefranc, “Marguerite de Navarre et le platonisme de la Renaissance” (vols. lviii. lix. Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, 1897-98).
[165] Herminjard, Correspondance, etc. i. 67.
[166] Heptameron, Preface.
[167] Ibid., Nouvelle xxxiii.
[168] Briçonnet belonged to an illustrious family. He was born in 1470, destined for the Church, was Archdeacon of Rheims, Bishop of Lodève in 1504, 1507 got the rich Abbey of St. Germain-des-Près at Paris, and became Bishop of Meaux in 1516. He at once began to reform his diocese; compelled his curés to reside in their parishes; divided the diocese into thirty-two districts, and sent to each of them a preacher for part of the year.
[169] Cf. K. H. Graf, “Jacobus Faber Stapulensis,” in the Zeitschrift für die historische theologie for 1852, 1-86; Doumergue, Jean Calvin, i. 79-112; Herminjard, Correspondance, i. 3 n.
[170] Herminjard, Correspondance, i. 78, 84, 85 n.
[171] It does not seem to be generally known that Lefèvre travelled to Germany in search of manuscripts of some of the earlier mystical writers, and that he published in 1513 the first printed edition of Hildegard of Bingen’s Liber Quoscivias (Peltzer, Deutsche Mystik und deutsche Kunst (Strassburg, 1899), p. 35), under the title Liber trium virorum et trium spiritualium virginum (Paris, 1513).