The Entire Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois | Page 6

but it contains so many gross
absurdities and indecencies that it is undeserving of attention, and
appears to have been written by some bitter enemy, who has assumed
the character of her husband to traduce her memory.
["Le Divorce Satyrique" is said to have been written by Louise
Marguerite de Lorraine, Princesse de Conti, who is likewise the reputed
author of "The Amours of Henri IV.," disguised under the name of
Alcander. She was the daughter of the Due de Guise, assassinated at
Blois in 1588, and was born the year her father died. She married
Francois, Prince de Conti, and was considered one of the most
ingenious and accomplished persons belonging to the French Court in

the age of Louis XIII. She was left a widow in 1614, and died in 1631.]
M. Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de Brantome, better known by the
name of Brantome, wrote the Memoirs of his own times. He was
brought up in the Court of France, and lived in it during the reigns of
Marguerite's father and brothers, dying at the advanced age of eighty or
eighty-four years, but in what year is not certainly known. He has given
anecdotes--
[The author of the "Tablettes de France," and "Anecdotes des Rois de
France," thinks that Marguerite alludes to Brantome's "Anecdotes" in
the beginning of her first letter, where she says: "I should commend
your work much more were I myself not so much praised in it."
(According to the original: "Je louerois davantage votre oeuvre, si elle
ne me louoit tant.") If so, these letters were addressed to Brantome, and
not to the Baron de la Chataigneraie, as mentioned in the Preface to the
French edition. In Letter I. mention is made of Madame de Dampierre,
whom Marguerite styles the aunt of the person the letter is addressed to.
She was dame d'honneur, or lady of the bedchamber, to the Queen of
Henri III., and Brantome, speaking of her, calls her his aunt. Indeed, it
is not a matter of any consequence to whom these Memoirs were
addressed; it is, however, remarkable that Louis XIV. used the same
words to Boileau, after hearing him read his celebrated epistle upon the
famous Passage of the Rhine; and yet Louis was no reader, and is not
supposed to have adopted them from these Memoirs. The thought is, in
reality, fine, but might easily suggest itself to any other. "Cela est
beau," said the monarch, "et je vous louerois davantage, si vous m'aviez
moins loue." (The poetry is excellent, and I should praise you more had
you praised me less.)]
of the life of Marguerite, written during her before-mentioned retreat,
when she was, as he says ("fille unique maintenant restee, de la noble
maison de France"), the only survivor of her illustrious house.
Brantome praises her excellent beauty in a long string of laboured
hyperboles. Ronsard, the Court poet, has done the same in a poem of
considerable length, wherein he has exhausted all his wit and fancy.
From what they have said, we may collect that Marguerite was graceful
in her person and figure, and remarkably happy in her choice of dress
and ornaments to set herself off to the most advantage; that her height
was above the middle size, her shape easy, with that due proportion of

plumpness which gives an appearance of majesty and comeliness. Her
eyes were full, black, and sparkling; she had bright, chestnut-coloured
hair, and a complexion fresh and blooming. Her skin was delicately
white, and her neck admirably well formed; and this so generally
admired beauty, the fashion of dress, in her time, admitted of being
fully displayed.
Such was Queen Marguerite as she is portrayed, with the greatest
luxuriance of colouring, by these authors. To her personal charms were
added readiness of wit, ease and gracefulness of speech, and great
affability and courtesy of manners. This description of Queen
Marguerite cannot be dismissed without observing, if only for the sake
of keeping the fashion of the present times with her sex in countenance,
that, though she had hair, as has been already described, becoming her,
and sufficiently ornamental in itself, yet she occasionally called in the
aid of wigs. Brantome's words are: "l'artifice de perruques bien
gentiment faconnees."
[Ladies in the days of Ovid wore periwigs. That poet says to Corinna:
"Nunc tibi captivos mittet Germania crines; Culta triumphatae munere
gentis eris."
(Wigs shall from captive Germany be sent; 'Tis with such spoils your
head you ornament.)
These, we may conclude, were flaxen, that being the prevailing
coloured hair of the Germans at this day. The Translator has met with a
further account of Marguerite's head-dress, which describes her as
wearing a velvet bonnet ornamented with pearls and diamonds, and
surmounted with a plume of feathers.]
I shall conclude this