Or, Margaret Of Angouleme Margaret Titular Queen Of Navarre, born in Angouleme April 11, 1492, died at the chateau of Odos, in Bigorre, Dec. 21, 1549. She was the daughter and eldest child of Charles of Orleans, count of Angouleme. and of Louise of Savov. Her father died when she was in her 12th vear. and she was educated by her mother at the court of Louis XII. SheVas married in 1509 to Charles, duke of Alencon, a prince of the blood royal, and the five years immediately following were passed in the duchy of Alencon; but on the accession of her brother to the throne of France as Francis I. (1515), she became attached to his court, and had a large part in the government. She was superior to her brother in ability, spoke several languages fluently, and her learning and wit made her the fit companion of the statesmen of those times. After the defeat and capture of her brother at Pavia. in February, 1525. Margaret aided her mother to carry on the government for some months; but in August she went to Madrid, where Francis was then a prisoner. During this visit she was efficient in negotiating the treaty of January. 1526. which eventually led in 1530 to the marriage between Francis and Eleanor, sister of the emperor, and queen dowager of Portugal. The duke of Alencon, her husband, died in 1525, and in January, 1527, she became the wife of Ilenri d'Albret. count of Beam and titular king of Navarre, whose kingdom was held by Spain. Francis, besides bestowing a liberal portion on Margaret, pledged himself to effect the restoration of her husband to the throne of Navarre, for which Margaret, as her correspondence shows, was anxious; but circumstances baffled his purpose.

In 1529 she and her husband retired to the principality of Beam, where they labored with success for the improvemeut of the country. Margaret also paid much attention to the government of her duchy of Alencon. She sympathized with the reformers, several of whose leaders, and especially Calvin, were protected by her in Beam against their persecutors. How far she favored the new doctrines is unknown, and it has been asserted by adherents of the old faith that she admitted, some time before her death, that she had been in error, and when dying declared that what she had done for the reformers was more from compassion for them than from ill will to Rome. It is certain, however, that the zealous Catholics regarded her as a heretic, and that one of her works. Le miroir de Tame pecheresse (1533), contains Protestant doctrines. The Sorbonne censured it. and it was denounced in other ways. Francis was told that if he wished to destroy the heretics, he must begin with the queen'his sister; but he never would allow her to be injured, and punished some of those by-whom she had been insulted, or who had sought to poison his mind against her. Margaret was a voluminous writer in verse and prose, and one of her works, the Heptameron is an old French classic.

It was published in lans in 1559 (best ed., 1863), and has been translated into English by W. K. Kelly (London. 1855). It is written in imitation* of the Zfecamerone of Boccaccio, but was left incomplete at her death, as it contains but 72 tales, instead of 100 as originally intended. It far an original work, that most of the ad. tures described befell some of the author's contemporaries. She wrote many poems, dramas, poetical epistles, rondeaux, and the like, several of which have been printed, while others remain in manuscript. Her letters her brother Francis were published in Pari-, from the originals, in 1842. On the death of Francis I. (154-7; Margaret, who was much afflicted by his loss, became devout, pass . most of her time in seclusion, and solaced her mind with religious thoughts and literary pursuits. Her daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, who married Antoine de Bourbon, became the mother of Henry of Navarre, afterward Henry IV. of France, and founder of the royalty of the house of Bourbon. The best life of Margaret of Navarre is that by Martha Walker Freer (2 vols.. London. 1854;.