for a considerable time. Her husband is said to have regretted her dead
more than he loved her living, and her literary admirers, such of them
as death and exile had spared, were not ungrateful. _Tombeaux_, or
collections of funeral verses, were not lacking, the first being in
Latin, and, oddly enough, nominally by three English sisters, Anne,
Margaret, and Jane Seymour, nieces of Henry VIII.'s queen and Edward
VI.'s mother, with learned persons like Dorât, Sainte-Marthe, and Baïf.
This was re-issued in French and in a fuller form later.

Some reference has been made to an atrocious slur cast without a shred
of evidence on her moral character. There is as little foundation for
more general though milder charges of laxity. It is admitted that she
had little love for her first husband, and it seems to be probable that
her second had not much love for her. She was certainly addressed in
gallant strains by men of letters, the most audacious being Clement
Marot; but the almost universal reference of the well-known and
delightful lines beginning--

"Un doux nenny avec un doux sourire,"

to her method of dealing not merely with this lover but with others,
argues a general confidence in her being a virtuous coquette, if
somewhat coquettishly virtuous. It may be added that the whole tone of
the _Heptameron_ points to a very similar conclusion.

Her literary work was very considerable, and it falls under three
divisions: letters, the book before us, and the very curious and
interesting collection of poems known by the charming if fantastic title
of _Les Marguerites de la Marguerite des Princesses_, a play on the
meanings, daisy, pearl, and Margaret, which had been popular in the