in Du Bartas, in Agrippa d'Aubigné, and in passages of the tragedian
Montchrestien, strikes notes hardly touched elsewhere in French
literature. The _Triomphe de l'Agneau_ displays her at her best in this
respect, and not unfrequently comes not too far off from the apocalyptic
resonance of d'Aubigné himself. Again, the _Bergerie_ included in the
Nativity comedy or mystery, though something of a Dresden _Bergerie_ (to
use a later image), is graceful and elegant enough in all conscience.
But it is on the minor poems, especially the Epistles and the _Chansons
Spirituelles_, that the defenders of Margaret's claim to be a poet rest
most strongly. In the former her love, not merely for her brother, but
for her husband, appears unmistakably, and suggests graceful thoughts.
In the latter the force and fire which occasionally break through the
stiff wrappings of the longer poems appear with less difficulty and in
fuller measure.

It is, however, undoubtedly curious, and not to be explained merely by
the difference of subject, that the styles of the letters and of the
poems, agreeing well enough between themselves, differ most remarkably
from that of the _Heptameron_. The two former are decidedly open to
the charges of pedantry, artificiality, heaviness. There is a great
surplusage of words and a seeming inability to get to the point. The
_Heptameron_ if not equal in narrative vigour and lightness to Boccaccio
before and La Fontaine afterwards, is not in the least exposed to
the charge of clumsiness of any kind, employs a simple, natural, and
sufficiently picturesque vocabulary, avoids all verbiage and roundabout
writing, and both in the narratives and in the connecting conversation
displays a very considerable advance upon nearly all the writers of the
time, except Rabelais, Marot, and Despériers, in easy command of the
vernacular. It is, therefore, not wonderful that there has, at different
times (rather less of late years, but that is probably an accident),