an.'" (1)

Besides writing verses and framing devices, Margaret, as Brantome tells
us, "often composed comedies and moralities, which were in those days
styled pastorals, and which she had played by the young ladies of her
Court." (2)

1 _OEuvres de Brantome_, 8vo, vol. vii. p. 567.

2 _Ibid._, 8vo, vol. v. p. 219.

Hilarion de Coste states, moreover, that "she composed a tragi-comic
translation of almost the whole of the New Testament, which she caused
to be played before the King, her husband, having assembled with this
object some of the best actors of Italy; and as these buffoons are only
born to give pleasure and make time pass away, in order to amuse the
company they invariably introduced _rondeaux_ and _virelais_ against the
ecclesiastics, especially the monks and village priests." (1)

1 M. Le Roux de Lincy points out that this statement is
exaggerated, for Margaret, instead of turning the whole of
the New Testament into verse, merely wrote four Mysteries
which mainly dealt with the childhood of Christ.

These performances took place at the Chateau of Pau, which Margaret and
her husband seem to have preferred to that of Nerac, though political
reasons often compelled them to fix their abode at the latter. Pau,
however, possessed the advantage of a mild climate, necessary for
Margaret's health, besides being delightfully situated on the Bearnese
Gave, the view from the chateau extending over a fertile valley limited
by the snow-capped Pyrenees. There had been a chateau at Pau as early
as the tenth century, but the oldest portions of the structure now
subsisting date from the time of Edward III., when Pau was the capital
of the celebrated Gaston-Phoebus. The chateau was considerably enlarged
and embellished in the fifteenth century, but it was not until after
Margaret's marriage with Henry d'Albret that the more remarkable
decorative work was executed. Upon leaving Nerac to reside at Pau,
Margaret summoned a number of Italian artists and confided the
embellishment of the chateau to them.(1)

It was not, however, merely the chateau which Margaret beautified
at Pau. Already at Alencon she had laid out a charming park, which a
contemporary poet called a terrestrial paradise,(2) and upon coming
to reside at Pau she transformed the surrounding woods into delightful
gardens, pronounced to be the finest then existing in Europe.(3)

1 Some of the doors and windows of the chate