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 Français, 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 Brantôme 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