owd by
magnificence and splendour. In a portrait executed about this period,
her dark-coloured dress is surmounted by a wimple with a double collar
and her head covered with a cap in the Bearnese style. This portrait (1)
tends, like those of a later date, to the belief that Margaret's beauty,
so celebrated by the poets of her time, consisted mainly in the
nobility of her bearing and the sweetness and liveliness spread over her
features. Her eyes, nose, and mouth were very large, but although she
had been violently attacked with small-pox while still young, she had
been spared the traces which this cruel illness so often left in those
days, and she even preserved the freshness of her complexion until late
in life. (2)

1 It is preserved at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris,
where it will be found in the _Recueil de Portraits au
crayon par Clouett Dumonstier, &c_, fol. xi.

2 Referring to this subject, she says in one of her letters:
"You can tell it to the Count and Countess of Vertus, whom
you will go and visit on my behalf; and say to the Countess
that I am sorely vexed that she has this loathsome illness.
However, I had it as severely as ever was known. And if it
be that she has caught it as I have been told, I should like
to be near her to preserve her complexion, and do for her
what I did for myself."--Genin's _lettres de Marguerite
d'Angouleme_, Paris, 1841, p. 374.

Like her brother, whom she greatly resembled, she was very tall. Her
gait was solemn, but the dignified air of her person was tempered by
extreme affability and a lively humour, which never left her. (1)

1 Sainte-Marthe says on this subject: "For in her face, in
her gestures, in her walk, in her words, in all that she did
and said, a royal gravity made itself so manifest and
apparent, that one saw I know not what of majesty which
compelled every one to revere and dread her. In seeing her
kindly receive every one, refuse no one, and patiently
listen to all, you would have promised yourself easy and
facile access to her; but if she cast eyes upon you, there
was in her face I know not what of gravity, which made you
so astounded that you no longer had power, I do not say to
walk a step, but even to stir a foot to approach her."--
_Oraison-funebre, &c_, p. 53.

Francis I. did not allow the magnificent reception accorded to him