of the Queen of Navarre, and I may here add a
statement of my strong conviction that the accusation is altogether
groundless which ascribes a sinister meaning to the strong
expressions of sisterly affection so frequent in her correspondence
with Francis the First (see M. Genin, Supplement a la notice sur
Marg. d'Angouleme, prefixed to the second volume of the Letters).
Nor do I make any account of the vague statement of that mendacious
libertine, Brantome, who doubtless imagined himself to be paying
the Queen of Navarre the most delicate compliment, when he said,
that "of gallantry she knew more than her daily bread."

But, whatever the purity of Margaret's own private life, the fact
which cannot be overlooked is that a book of a decidedly immoral
tendency was composed and published under her name. Her most
sincere admirers would hail with gratification any satisfactory
evidence that the Heptameron was written by another hand.
Unfortunately, there seems to be none. On the contrary, we have
Brantome's direct testimony to the effect that the composition of
the book was the employment of the queen's idle hours when
travelling about in her litter, and that his grandmother, being one
of Margaret's ladies of honor, was accustomed to take charge of her
writing-case (Ed. Lalanne, viii. 126). Equally untenable is the
view taken by the historian De Thou (liv. vi., vol. x. 508), who
makes the fault more venial by representing the Heptameron to have
been composed by the fair author in her youth. (So, too, Soldan, i.
89.) I am sorry to have to say that the events referred to in the
stories themselves belong to a period reaching within a year or two
of Margaret's death.

The facts, then, are simply these: The tales of Boccaccio's
Decameron were read with great delight by Margaret, by Francis the
First, and by his children. They resolved, therefore, to imitate
the great Italian novelist by committing to writing the most
remarkable incidents supplied by the gossip of the court (see the
Prologue to the Heptameron). Francis and his children, finding that
Margaret greatly excelled in this species of composition, soon
renounced the unequal strife, but encouraged her to pursue an
undertaking promising to afford them much amusement. Apportioning,
after the example