and, as a further retribution, several of her
children were born without noses, the wolf having bitten off her nose.
As Marie concludes, with triumphant rejoicing in the punishment of the
wicked even unto the third and fourth generation, "'tis true, indeed,
noseless were they born, and noseless did they live."

This paraphrase of Marie's work can, of course, give no idea of its
literary value; but the tale itself will serve as a sample of what the
first woman in French literature wrote. We have from her also a
translation of the famous legend of _Saint Patrick's Purgatory_, of how
a knight journeyed into the lower regions and came back to warn the
world of the punishments in store for the wicked. Marie represents but a
beginning--and yet it is a beginning--of the writing in their mother
tongue, which was to make famous many women as well as men of France. In
her day, indeed, it was a distinction to write in the mother tongue, for
among the classes which we should call literary Latin was considered the
only proper vehicle for their wisdom. Long after her day, indeed, Latin
still kept French from its birthright, and it will be two centuries
before we come to another woman who writes in French. Though the great
Heloise and her letters, written not long before Marie's time, take
their place in literature, it is in the literature of scholastic Latin,
not of old French.

CHAPTER IV

WOMEN IN THE AGE OF SAINT LOUIS

WHILE romance has preserved many memories, and history not a few facts,
of Eleanor of Guienne, the records concerning two other notable women,
her contemporaries, are very scanty. Whatever her faults, Eleanor was a
great and commanding personality, one that could not be overlooked
because, whether for good or ill, she was always powerful. The two
unhappy queens of Philippe Auguste, Ingeburge de Danemark and Agnes de
Meranie, though they were the innocent causes of much distress in
France, are yet hardly known to us as personalities.

The first queen of Philippe Auguste was Isabelle de Hainault; after her
death he sought the hand of a Danish princess, Ingeburge, sister of Knut
IV. The marriage was one contracted for political reasons; Philippe was
at the time engaged in his lifelong struggle against the power of the
Plantagenets, and desired an ally against Richard Coeur de Lion. At
Amiens, on Assumption eve, 1193, Ingeburge was married to the King of
France; the next day she was crowned Queen of France b