The Tales of the Heptameron, Vol. I | Page 2

gracefulness.
It is from the authentic text furnished by M. Le Roux de Lincy that the present translation has been made, without the slightest suppression or abridgment. The work moreover contains all the more valuable notes to be found in the best French editions of the Heptameron, as well as numerous others from original sources, and includes a résumé of the various suggestions made by MM. Félix Frank, Le Roux de Lincy, Paul Lacroix, and A. de Montaiglon, towards the identification of the narrators of the stories, and the principal actors in them, with well-known personages of the time. An Essay on the Heptameron from the pen of Mr. George Saintsbury, M.A., and a Life of Queen Margaret, are also given, as well as the quaint Prefaces of the earlier French versions; and a complete bibliographical summary of the various editions which have issued from the press.
It may be supposed that numerous illustrated editions have been published of a work so celebrated as the Heptameron, which, besides furnishing scholars with a favourite subject for research and speculation, has, owing to its perennial freshness, delighted so many generations of readers. Such, however, is not the case. Only two fully illustrated editions claim the attention of connoisseurs. The first of these was published at Amsterdam in 1698, with designs by the Dutch artist, Roman de Hooge, whose talent has been much overrated. To-day this edition is only valuable on account of its comparative rarity. Very different was the famous edition illustrated by Freudenberg, a Swiss artist--the friend of Boucher and of Greuze--which was published in parts at Berne in 1778-81, and which among amateurs has long commanded an almost prohibitive price.
The Full-page Illustrations to the present translation are printed from the actual copperplates engraved for the Berne edition by Longeuil, Halbou, and other eminent French artists of the eighteenth century, after the designs of S. Freudenberg. There are also the one hundred and fifty elaborate head and tail pieces executed for the Berne edition by Dunker, well known to connoisseurs as one of the principal engravers of the Cabinet of the Duke de Choiseul.
The Portrait of Queen Margaret placed as frontispiece to the present volume is from a crayon drawing by Clouet, preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
Ernest A. Vizetelly.
London,
1893.

Explanation of the Initials appended to the Notes.
B.J...Bibliophile Jacob, i.e. Paul Lacroix.
D.....F. Dillaye.
F.....Félix Frank.
L.....Le Roux de Lincy.
M.....Anatole de Montaiglon.
Ed....E. A. Vizetelly.

MARGARET OF ANGOULêME, QUEEN OF NAVARRE.

I.
Louise of Savoy; her marriage with the Count of Angouleme-- Birth of her children Margaret and Francis--Their father's early death--Louise and her children at Amboise--Margaret's studies and her brother's pastimes--Marriage of Margaret with the Duke of Alen?on--Her estrangement from her husband-- Accession of Francis I.--The Duke of Alen?on at Marignano-- Margaret's Court at Alen?on--Her personal appearance--Her interest in the Reformation and her connection with Clement Marot--Lawsuit between Louise of Savoy and the Constable de Bourbon.
In dealing with the life and work of Margaret of Angouleme (1) it is necessary at the outset to refer to the mother whose influence and companionship served so greatly to mould her daughter's career.
1 This Life of Margaret is based upon the memoir by M, Le Roux de Lincy prefixed to the edition of the Heptameron issued by the Société des Bibliophiles Fran?ais, but various errors have been rectified, and advantage has been taken of the researches of later biographers.
Louise of Savoy, daughter of Count Philip of Bresse, subsequently Duke of Savoy, was born at Le Pont d'Ain in 1477, and upon the death of her mother, Margaret de Bourbon, she married Charles d'Orléans, Count of Angoulême, to whom she brought the slender dowry of thirty-five thousand livres. (1) She was then but twelve years old, her husband being some twenty years her senior. He had been banished from the French Court for his participation in the insurrection of Brittany, and was living in straitened circumstances. Still, on either side the alliance was an honourable one. Louise belonged to a sovereign house, while the Count of Angoulême was a prince of the blood royal of France by virtue of his descent from King Charles V., his grandfather having been that monarch's second son, the notorious Duke Louis of Orleans, (2) who was murdered in Paris in 1417 at the instigation of John the Bold of Burgundy.
1 The value of the Paris livre at this date was twenty sols, so that the amount would be equivalent to about L1400.
2 This was the prince described by Brant?me as a "great débaucher of the ladies of the Court, and invariably of the greatest among them."--Vies des Dames galantes (Disc. i.).
Louise, who, although barely nubile, impatiently longed to become a mother, gave birth to her first child after four years of wedded life. "My daughter Margaret," she writes in the journal recording the principal events of her career,