Thus, at fourteen, in the Louvre, before Henry II, Catherine de Medici,
and the whole court, she delivered a discourse in Latin of her own
composition, in which she maintained that it becomes women to cultivate
letters, and that it is unjust and tyrannical to deprive flowery of their
perfumes, by banishing young girls from all but domestic cares. One can
imagine in what manner a future queen, sustaining such a thesis, was
likely to be welcomed in the most lettered and pedantic court in Europe.
Between the literature of Rabelais and Marot verging on their decline,
and that of Ronsard and Montaigne reaching their zenith, Mary became a
queen of poetry, only too happy never to have to wear another crown than
that which Ronsard, Dubellay, Maison-Fleur, and Brantome placed daily on
her head. But she was predestined. In the midst of those fetes which a
waning chivalry was trying to revive came the fatal joust of Tournelles:
Henry II, struck by a splinter of a lance for want of a visor, slept
before his time with his ancestors, and Mary Stuart ascended the throne
of France, where, from mourning for Henry, she passed to that for her
mother, and from mourning for her mother to that for her husband. Mary
felt this last loss both as woman and as poet; her heart burst forth into
bitter tears and plaintive harmonies. Here are some lines that she
composed at this time:--

"Into my song of woe, Sung to a low sad air, My cruel grief I throw, For
loss beyond compare; In bitter sighs and tears Go by my fairest years.

Was ever grief like mine Imposed by destiny? Did ever lady pine, In high
estate, like me, Of whom both heart and eye Within the coffin lie?

Who, in the tender spring And blossom of my youth, Taste all the
sorrowing Of life's extremest ruth, And take delight in nought Save in