a tutor in the person of Robert Hurault, Baron of Auzay,
great archdeacon and abbot of St. Martin of Autun. (2) This divine
instructed her in Latin and French literature, and also taught her
Spanish and Italian, in which languages Brantome asserts that she became
proficient. "But albeit she knew how to speak good Spanish and good
Italian," he says, "she always made use of her mother tongue for matters
of moment; though when it was necessary to join in jesting and gallant
conversation she showed that she was acquainted with more than her daily
bread." (3)

1 Sainte-Marthe's _Oraison funebre de la Royne de Navarre_,
p. 22. Margaret's modern biographers state that this lady was
Madame de Chastillon, but it is doubtful which Madame
de Chastillon it was. The Rev. James Anderson assumes it was
Louise de Montmorency, the mother of the Colignys, whilst
Miss Freer asserts it was Anne de Chabannes de Damniartin,
wife of James de Chastillon, killed in Italy in 1572. M.
Franck has shown, in his edition of the _Heptameron_, that
Anne de Chabannes died about 1505, and that James de
Chastillon then married Blanche de Tournon. Possibly his
first wife may have been Margaret's governess, but what is
quite certain is that the second wife became her lady of
honour, and that it is she who is alluded to in the
_Heptameron_.

2 Odolant Desnos's _Memoires historiques sur Alencon_,
vol. ii.

3 Brantome's _Rodomontades espagnoles_, 18mo, 1740, vol.
xii. p. 117.

Such was Margaret's craving for knowledge that she even wished to
obtain instruction in Hebrew, and Paul Paradis, surnamed Le Canosse, a
professor at the Royal College, gave her some lessons in it. Moreover,
a rather obscure passage in the funeral oration which Sainte-Marthe
devoted to her after her death, seemingly implies that she acquired
from some of the most eminent men then flourishing the precepts of the
philosophy of the ancients.

The journal kept by Louise of Savoy does not impart much information as
to the style of life which she and her children led in their new abode,
the palatial Chateau of Amboise, originally built by the Counts of
Anjou, and fortified by Charles VII. with the most formidable towers in
France. (1)

1 The Chateau of Amboise, now the private property of the
Count de Paris, is said to occupy the site of a Roman
fortress destroyed by the Norma