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Everything appeared in France to incline towards peace and joy. The court was at Fontainebleau, where Francis I. and the Duchess of Angoulême, the King and Queen of Navarre, and all the most illustrious of the nobility, had assembled to receive the young Duke of Ferrara, who had just arrived (20th of May, 1528) to marry Madame Renée, daughter of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany. It was a time of rejoicing. Francis I., whose favourite residence was Fontainebleau, had erected a splendid palace there, and laid out ‘beautiful gardens, shrubberies, fountains, and all things pleasant and recreative.’—‘Really,’ said the courtiers, ‘the king has turned a wilderness into the most beautiful residence in christendom—so spacious that you might lodge a little world in it.’651 Foreigners were struck with the magnificence of the palace and the brilliancy of the court. The marriage of the daughter of Louis XII. was approaching: there was nothing but concerts and amusements. There were excursions in the forest, and sumptuous banquets in the palace, and learned men (says Brantôme) discoursed at table on ‘the higher and the lower sciences.’ But nothing attracted the attention of the foreign visitors so much as the Queen of Navarre. ‘I observed her,’ says a bishop, a papal legate, ‘while she was speaking to Cardinal d’Este, and I admired in her features, her expression, and in every movement, an harmonious union of majesty, modesty, and kindness.’652 Such was Margaret in the midst of the court; the goodness of her heart, the purity of her life, and the abundance of her works spoke eloquently to those about her of the beauty of the Gospel.

The princess, who was compelled to take part in every court entertainment, never let an opportunity pass of calling a soul to Jesus Christ. In the sixteenth century there was no evangelist, among women at least, more active than her; this is a trait too important in the French Reformation to be passed by unnoticed. The maids of honour of the Duchess of Angoulême were no longer the virtuous damsels of Queen Claude. Margaret, feeling the tenderest compassion for these young women, called now one and now another to Christ; she conjured her ‘dears’ (as she styled them) not to be ‘caught by pleasure,’ which would render them hateful to God.

Farewell, my dear!

The court I flee

To seek for life

Beneath the tree.

If that my prayer

Could influence thee,

Thou shouldst not linger

After me.

Stay not, my dear,

But come with me,

And seek for life

Beneath the tree.653

Francis I., who loved the chase, would often go into the forest, attended by his young lords, and hunt the boar and deer for days together. These youths took great pleasure in talking of their skill to the ladies of the court, or in challenging one another who could kill the finest stag.... The Queen of Navarre sometimes joined good-naturedly in these conversations; she would smilingly call these gay young lords ‘bad sportsmen,’ and exhort them ‘to go a-hunting after better game.’

Here is one of these conversations of Fontainebleau, which she herself relates:

As a youth was riding one day to the wood,

He asked of a lady so wise and good

If the game he sought for could be found

In the forest that spread so thickly round;

For the young man’s heart with desire beat high

To kill the deer. The dame, with a sigh,

Replied: ‘It’s the season for hunters, ’tis true,

But alas! no hunter true are you.

‘In the wood where none but believers go

Is the game you seek, but do not know;

It is in that bitter wood of the cross

Which by the wicked is counted dross;

But to huntsmen good its taste is sweet,

And the pain it costs is the best of meat.

If that your mind were firmly set

Every honour but this to forget,

No other game would be sought by you....

But ... you are not a hunter true.’

As he heard these words, the hunter blushed.

And with anger his countenance flushed:

‘You speak at random, dame,’ he cried;

‘The stag will I have, and nought beside.’

Margaret.

‘The stag you seek is close in view,

But ... you are not a hunter true.

‘Sit you down by the fountain’s brim,

And in patience wait for him;

There, with soul and body at rest,

Drink of that spring so pure and blest:

All other means but this are nought.

For eager in the toils of your heart to be caught,

The stag will come running up to you;

But ... you are not a hunter true.’

The Young Hunter.

‘Dame, ’tis an idle tale you tell;

Wealth and glory, I know full well,

Are not to be won without toil and care.

Of your water so pure not a drop will I share.

Margaret.

Then the stag will never be caught by you,

For ... you are not a hunter true.’

The young hunter understands at last what is wanted of him, and, after some further conversation with the lady, he exclaims:

‘With earnest faith my heart is filled;

All my worldly thoughts I yield

At the voice of my Saviour Christ Jesu!’

Margaret.

‘Yes, now you are a hunter true!’654

This narrative, and others of a like nature contained in the Marguerites, were in all probability facts before they became poems. The little ballads were circulated at court; everybody wished to read the queen’s ‘tracts,’ and many of the nobility of France, who afterwards embraced the cause of the Reform, owed their first religious sentiments to Margaret.

For the moment, the great thought that occupied every mind at Fontainebleau was the marriage of the ‘very prudent and magnificent Madame Renée.’ The gentlemen of France and of Ferrara appeared at court in sumptuous costumes; the princes and princesses glittered with jewels; the halls and galleries were hung with rich tapestry.

Dance and rejoice, make holiday

For her whose love fills every heart.655

All of a sudden, on the morrow of Pentecost, a message fell into the midst of this brilliant and joyous company which excited the deepest emotion. A letter was handed to the king, and the effect it produced was like that occasioned by a clap of thunder in a cloudless sky. Francis, who held the letter in his hand, was pale, agitated, almost quivering, as if he had just received a mortal insult. His anger exploded in an instant, like a mountain pouring out torrents of lava. He gave way to the most violent passion, and swore to take a cruel revenge. Margaret, terrified by her brother’s anger, did not say a word, but withdrew, in alarm, to silence and prayer: she scarcely ventured an attempt to calm her brother’s emotion. ‘The incensed king,’ says the chronicler, ‘wept hard with vexation and anger.’656 The court fêtes were interrupted: the courtiers, joining in unison with their master, called loudly for violent measures, and Francis departed suddenly for Paris. What had caused all this commotion?

The festival of Pentecost (Whitsunday) had been celebrated with great pomp on the 30th of May, 1528; but the devotionists, neglecting the Father, the Son, and above all the Holy Ghost, had thought of nothing all the day long but of worshipping the Virgin and her images. In the quarter of St. Antoine, and at the angle still formed by the streets Des Rosiers and Des Juifs, at the corner of the house belonging to the Sire Loys de Harlay, stood an image of the Virgin holding the infant Jesus in her arms. Numbers of devout persons of both sexes went every day to kneel before this figure. During the festival the crowd was more numerous than ever, and, bowing before the image, they lavished on it the loftiest of titles: ‘O holy Virgin! O mediatress of mankind! O pardon of sinners! Author of the righteousness which cleanses away our sins! Refuge of all who return unto God!’657 These observances had bitterly grieved those who remembered the old commandment: Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

On the Monday morning, the morrow after the festival, some passers-by fancied they observed something wrong in the place where the image stood: they could not see either the head of the Virgin or of the child. The men approached, and found that both the heads had been cut off; they looked about for them, and discovered them hidden behind a heap of stones close by; they picked up in the gutter the Virgin’s robe, which was torn and appeared to have been trampled under foot. These persons, who were devout catholics, felt alarmed; they respectfully took up the two heads and carried them to the magistrate. The news of the strange event quickly spread through the quarter. Monks and priests mingled with the crowd, and described the injury done to the image. Men, women, and children surrounded the mutilated figure—some weeping, others groaning, all cursing the sacrilege. A ‘complaint’ of the times has handed down to us the groans of the people:

Alas! how great the woe,

And crime that cannot pardoned be!...

To have hurt Our Lady so,

Lady full of charity,

And to sinners ever kind!658 ...

Such were the sentiments of the good catholics who, with tearful eyes and troubled hearts, looked upon the mutilated image.

Who were the authors of this mutilation? It was never known. It has been said that the priests, alarmed at the progress of the Reformation and the disposition of the king, had perpetrated the act, in order to use it as a weapon against the Lutherans. That is possible, for such things have been done. I am, however, more inclined to believe that some hot-headed member of the evangelical party, exasperated at hearing that attributed to the Virgin which belongs only to Christ, had broken the idol. Be that as it may, the fanatical party resolved to profit by the sacrilege, and they succeeded.

Francis I., the most susceptible and most irritable of princes, considered this act of violence as an outrage upon his dignity and authority. As soon as he reached Paris, he did everything in his power to discover the guilty party. For two whole days heralds paraded the streets, and stopping at the crossways summoned the people by sound of trumpet and proclaimed: ‘If any one knows who has done this, let him declare it to the magistrates and the king; the provost of Paris will pay him a thousand gold crowns, and if the informer has committed any crime, the king will pardon him.’ The crowd listened and then dispersed; but all was of no use. Nothing could be learnt about it. ‘Very well, then,’ said the king, ‘I will order commissioners to go and make inquiry at every house.’ The commissioners went and knocked at every door, examining one after another all the inhabitants of the quarter; but the result was still the same: ‘No one knew anything about it.’

The priests were not satisfied with these proclamations. On Tuesday the 2nd of June, and during the rest of the week, the clergy of Paris set themselves in motion, and constant processions from all the churches in the city marched to the scene of the outrage. A week after, on Tuesday the 9th of June, five hundred students, each carrying a lighted taper, with all the doctors, licentiates, and bachelors of the university, proceeded from the Sorbonne. In front of them marched the four mendicant orders.