27, Margaret was married with great pomp to Henri d'Albret,
King of Navarre.[227] The match would seem to have been prompted by love
and admiration on her side; for the groom had performed a romantic
exploit in effecting his escape from prison after his capture at
Pavia.[228] In spite of the great disparity between the ages of Margaret
and her husband,[229] the union was congenial, and added greatly to the
power and resources of the latter. The duchies of Alencon and Berry more
than equalled in extent the actual domain of the King of Navarre; for,
from the time when Ferdinand the Catholic (in July, 1512) wrested from
brave Catharine of Foix and her inefficient husband John[230] all their
possessions on the southern slope of the Pyrenees,[231] the authority
of the titular monarch was respected only in the mountainous district of
which Pau was the capital, and to which the names of Bearn or French
Navarre are indifferently applied. The union thus auspiciously begun
lasted, unbroken by domestic contention, until the death of Margaret, in
1549;[232] and the pompous ceremonial attending the queen's obsequies is
said to have been a sincere attestation of the universal sorrow
affecting the King of Navarre and his subjects alike.

[Sidenote: She corresponds with Bishop Briconnet.]

It was through the instrumentality of the Bishop of Meaux that Margaret
of Angouleme was first drawn into sympathy with the reformatory
movement. Unsatisfied with herself and with the influences surrounding
her, she sought in Briconnet a spiritual adviser and guide. The prelate,
in the abstruse and almost unintelligible language of exaggerated
mysticism, endeavored to fulfil the trust. His prolix correspondence
still exists in manuscript in the National Library of Paris, together
with the replies of his royal penitent. Its incomprehensibility may
perhaps forever preclude the publication of the greater part;[233] but
we can readily forgive the bishop's absurdities and far-fetched
conceits, when we find him in his letters leading Margaret to the Holy
Scriptures as the only source of spiritual strength, and enjoining a
humble and docile reception of its teachings.

[Sidenote: Luther's teachings condemned by the Sorbonne.]

On the fifteenth of April, 1521, the University of Paris, whose opinion
respecting Luther's tenets the entire Christian world had for two years
been anxiously expecting, pronounced its solemn decision. It condemned
the writings of