the petty state of Navarre was a Protestant, and Catherine was
the most fanatical of Catholics, she made this marriage a pretext
for welding the two houses; but actually it seems to have been
a snare to lure him to Paris, for it was at this precise time
that the bloody Massacre of St. Bartholomew's day was ordered.
Henry himself escaped--it is said, through the protection of
Marguerite, his bride,--but his adherents in the Protestant party
were slain by the thousands. A wedded life begun under such
sanguinary auspices was not destined to end happily. Indeed, their
marriage resembled nothing so much as an armed truce, peaceable,
and allowing both to pursue their several paths, and finally
dissolved by mutual consent, in 1598, when Queen Marguerite was
forty-five. The closing years of her life were spent in strict
seclusion, at the Castle of Usson, in Auvergne, and it was at
this time that she probably wrote her _Memoirs_.

In the original, the _Memoirs_ are written in a clear vigorous
French, and in epistolary form. Their first editor divided them into
three sections, or books. As a whole they cover the secret history
of the Court of France from the years 1565 to 1582--seventeen years
of extraordinary interest, comprising, as they do, the Massacre of
St. Bartholomew, already referred to, the formation of the famous
League, the Peace of Sens, and the bitter religious persecutions
which were at last ended by the Edict of Nantes issued after Henry
of Navarre became Henry IV. of France. Besides the political
bearing of the letters, they give a picturesque account of Court
life at the end of the 16th century, the fashions and manners
of the time, piquant descriptions, and amusing gossip, such as
only a witty woman--as Marguerite certainly was--could inject
into such subjects. The letters, indeed, abound in sprightly