and in dancing, it was admitted that no lady of the court was her equal, whether to slow, or stately, or lovely measures. In fact, her elegant dancing was so famous, that Don John of Austria, the illegitimate brother of Philip the Second, made a journey incognito from Brussels to Paris, for the sole purpose of seeing this princess dance a minuet at some court gala. At this time she was in the first bloom of her beauty; her complexion was clear and animated, her hair of the finest black, and her bright hazel eyes full of alternate fire and languor; her person was above the common height, slender, yet beautifully rounded; and the majestic grace of her movements, spoke the princely line from whence she sprung.

A biography of this last princess of the house of Valois would not be complete, if confined to the enumeration of the many virtues of the generous and beneficent kind that she possessed. It must be confessed that there is in existence a document which would impute to her profligacy so unprincipled, that charity itself could not extenuate it; yet at the same time it must be owned, that the most respectable of her contemporaries speak of her with the admiration due to the most exalted of her sex. The document here alluded to is still to be seen in the Vatican-it was drawn up at the time when Henry the Fourth was soliciting the divorce from this lady. The charges against her are of the most atrocious and scandalous nature, and it was certainly presented to the pope by the ambassador of Henry; yet we shall prove that, in all probability, Henry lived and died in perfect ignorance of the existence of such a paper. In this part of the memoir, it is only necessary to mention some of the imputations cast on the character of Marguerite. The first is, that she was guilty of licentious conduct at the age of eleven or twelve years old; yet any errors committed by an infant of that tender age, must have been the fault of those who had the care of her, and her attendants only ought to be accountable for the wrong. When she was a little older, the Prince of Martiques is mentioned as her favoured lover, on the proof that she had worked him a gay scarf that he wore every where, and had given him a beautiful little dog, which he carried on his arm, and often hugged and kissed in

public! Yet should guilt be attached to a princess, who might give a lapdog and a scarf to a cousin without intending any harm? Many other charges succeed these puerile ones, perhaps with as little foundation; for the paper is evidently a gathering of court scandal. That era was the one in which printing, becoming common, had given rise to all sorts of secret memoirs and political falsehoods: party malice left few characters unscathed in that age of civil and religious warfare.

There is one charge which, from some corresponding passages in history, and in the written memoirs she has left, may be concluded was certainly true; this is a criminal intimacy with the Duke of Guise. Yet, if mutual affection and a vowed betrothment, from which the lovers were torn by violence, offers any excuse, that excuse may be pleaded for Marguerite and Guise. An ardent love had for many years subsisted between the Duke of Guise and this princess. Although Guise and his whole family supported the crown and the catholic religion with all their might; yet a jealous hatred subsisted between the French kings of the house of Valois and the princes of the house of Lorraine. Those of the line of Lorraine were distinguished for their talents and beauty; and above all, for that lofty and majestic presence, which made emperors and kings look as plebeians in comparison with them. The dukes of Lorraine were lineal descendants from Charlemagne, while the kings of France only claimed the throne from the successful usurpation of their ancestor, Hugh Capet; and though these princes appeared to conduct themselves as subjects to the established family, still there was that conscious dignity in their bearing, which served to remind their sovereigns that the princes of Lorraine were by right their masters, and that they were no unfit representatives, either in grandeur of mind or person, of the majestic Charlemagne. To the most heroic of this lordly line had Marguerite plighted her faith, when the envious hatred of her brother, the Duke of Anjou, who afterwards murdered the Duke of Guise, and the crooked policy of her mother, Catherine de Medicis, forced the plighted lovers to break their engagement, and obliged the princess to give her hand to her cousin, the King of

Navarre, afterwards the great Henry the Fourth of France, son of the heiress of the titular kingdom of Navarre, Jane, the daughter of Marguerite de Valois, sister of Francis the First, and Henry d'Albert, king of Navarre.

Jane married Antony, duke de Bourbon, who, in the exclusion of female heirs from the crown of France, was the next male heir of the Valois line, although of such antiquity, that the surname was different.

The marriage of the daughter of Catherine de Medicis and Henry of Navarre was the treacherous lure to the unhappy protestants, of whom Henry was the acknowledged leader. They were then struggling in an unequal civil war for their religious freedom; and they were led to believe that this alliance was the pledge of peace and good-will from the reigning family, while it was only meant to throw them off their guard, that the massacre of St. Bartholomew might be effected more completely. The affection that Marguerite cherished for Guise made her a most unwilling victim; while Henry seems to have been perfectly contented with the bride given him-indeed, he well might, for she was then in her twentieth year, and the beauty of the court.

Davila enumerates with great exactness every circumstance relating to these inauspicious nuptials. The Cardinal de Bourbon, uncle to the bridegroom, performed the marriage ceremony, in presence of the whole court, accompanied with a royal magnificence. Davila expressly declares, that when the Princess Margaret was asked, whether she would take the King of Navarre for a husband, she remained obstinately silent.

This perversity on the part of the bride produced an ominous pause in the ceremony, when the King of France, her brother Charles, putting his hand on the back of her neck, forced her to bow her head, whether she would or no. This was taken as an assent by the cardinal, who proceeded with the marriage; although the bride, at the conclusion, protested vehemently that to be deprived of the Duke of Guise, to whom she had given her promise, and to be married to his enemy, were things to which her mind could never be reconciled. The young King of Navarre manifested no resentment at the alienation of his bride's affections, but showed every mark of attention to win her good graces. One should

pause at the contemplation of such events, on the habits of the times, to prevent the disgust which naturally follows their description. In this marriage, the artful sacrifices that were made to the King of Navarre's protestant prejudices are worthy of remark. Charles the Ninth, says Le Grain, was resolved that the marriage should not be celebrated in a manner conformable to either religion, and, as it was to be deprived of the sacramental rites of the Romish church, it could not be performed in the cathedral of Nôtre Dame. A great scaffold was erected before the gate of the cathedral, on which Henry and Marguerite were betrothed and married the same day. This done, the bridegroom went to a calvinist meeting to hear a sermon, and the bride entered the cathedral to assist at a high

mass.

Sully does not dwell on these illfated nuptials-his intimate friendship with both bride and bridegroom makes this silence a point of delicacy-he merely says that it was foretold that the bridal favours would be crimson at that wedding; but first they were black, for Jane, queen of Navarre, the mother of Henry, died a few hours afterwards, and the whole court went into the deepest mourning for her death. There was a suspicion that she was poisoned, but without the slightest foundation.

Six days after this marriage, the dreadful massacre of St. Bartholomew's anniversary was perpetrated. It would swell this memoir into a volume, if half the extraordinary incidents connected with the various personages of the French court that have only been mentioned here were detailed; but, leaving Sully, Henry, Guise, Catherine, and Charles the Ninth to history, it suffices to mention the romantic adventures in which Marguerite was concerned, which she relates with great spirit in her memoirs.

There never was written a more interesting autobiography than that left by this princess; the scene she depicts descriptive of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, not only ranks highly as an historical document of first-rate authenticity, but is told so simply with such entertaining naivété, that it is a real treat to the reader.

On the evening preceding the massacre, Margaret was at her queen-mother's coucher, who ordered her to retire :

"As I made my courtesy (says she),

my sister of Lorraine (Princess Caude of France, married to the Duke of Lorraine,) took hold of my arm, and, stopping me, burst into tears. My God!' said the princess; do not go, sister.' This frighted me extremely. The queen, my mother, perceived it, and calling my sister to her, reprimanded her very severely, forbidding her to say any thing to me. I saw plainly that they were arguing together, but could not hear their words, and the queen commanded me rudely a second time to go to bed. My sister, melting into tears, bade me good night, without daring to say any thing else; and I went out all trembling and terrified, without being able to imagine what I had to fear."

Marguerite had been married but six days, and on retiring to her chamber, she found the King of Navarre, her husband, in bed; but there were forty or more Huguenot lords in her apartment surrounding the bed, and talking earnestly to Henry on the subject of the wound just received by Admiral Coligny, and on the troublous aspect of affairs in France. All night these guests continued in the royal chamber. Till at daybreak the king rose. Queen Marguerite now continues,

"My husband rose early in the morning to play at tennis, before he should see the king. He and his gentlemen left me. I, perceiving it was day, and supposing that the danger my sister had predicted was over, worn out for want of sleep, told my old nurse to shut the door, that I might rest without interruption. About an hour afterwards, I was awakened out of a profound sleep by hearing the door knocked at very loudly with hands and feet, and a man cry out, Navarre! Navarre! My nurse, thinking, it was the king, my husband, who wished to come in, ran to the door, and opened it immediately. The person, however, that knocked thus violently, was a Monsieur de Tejan, who was wounded in the elbow with a sword, and had another wound in the arm with a halbert; he was closely pursued by three archers of the king's guard, who altogether bounced into my chamber. Tejan, in the struggle for his life, threw himself on my bed, and seized me round the waist. I had never seen him in my life before, and in my terror did not know which was intended to be killed, him or me. At last, however, it pleased God, that Monsieur de Nancy, captain of the king (my brother's) guards, hearing our cries, came in, and finding me in this situation (although he was a man of great humanity), he could not forbear from laughing heartily, then storming at the soldiers for their insolent intrusion, he drove them out, and granted me the life

of the poor wounded gentleman, who never left hold of me, even after the danger was past. I made De Nancy summon my attendants, and ordered them to dress De Tejan's wounds, and make up a bed for him in my closet, where he was safe."

The reference already made to the habits of the times is peculiarly necessary here; although there is little doubt of the character given of the sweet-tempered, generous, young woman, feeling for the miseries of her fellow-creatures, and nobly protecting the oppressed protestants, although her own religion and prejudices were on the contrary side, and her inclinations had been sacrificed in her marriage with Henry.*

But her alarms were not over with the expulsion of the murderous soldiers from her bed-chamber :—

"When I had changed my night-dress (she says), for it was drenched with blood from the wounds of poor Tejan, M. de Nancy came again, and informed me that the king, my husband, was in the apartment of the king, my brother, and that not a hair of his head should be touched. Then en

veloping me in a large wrapping gown, he conducted me to the apartments of my sister Lorraine, which I entered more dead than alive. For as I was passing through the ante-room (the doors of which were all open), I saw a gentleman of the name of Bourse, in endeavouring to escape some soldiers that were pursuing him, fall down dead at my feet, run through with a halbert. I fell down at the same time in a swoon, in the arms of M. de Nancy, firmly persuaded that the same thrust of the halbert had run us both through. Recovering, however, I made the best of my way to my sister's bedchamber, where I found M. de Meossins, first gentleman of the bed-chamber to the king, my husband, and Armagnac, his first valet-de-chambre, who came running up to me, entreating me to save their lives. I then hastened to pay my respects to the king and queen, and, falling on my knees, by my tears and prayers, prevailed on them to spare these unhappy gentlemen."

Catherine de Medicis, her mother, whose purpose was effected of lulling the Huguenots into security by the marriage of her daughter, Marguerite, with Henry of Navarre, would now have broken that union by a divorce; but Marguerite, who knew that the murder of Henry would instantly follow this disunion, positively refused to part with the husband they had given her. This con

Here one cannot fail to remark a certain coincidence with the fate of Rizzio and Mary, queen of Scots.

duct was the more generous, as it has been seen that the princess was a complete sacrifice in this union, and that the death of the husband, forced upon her, would have left her free to marry the great Duke of Guise, by whom she was still passionately beloved, and who had made the first impression on her heart; but the generous girl thought that this much-desired union was too dearly bought at the price of the blood of her gallant cousin of Navarre, whom she esteemed as a friend and relative, but from whom she separated herself as soon as she could, not caring to live with a husband whose habits were any thing but connubial, and who could not possess her undivided affections.

One of Shakspeare's earliest productions, the comedy, or rather mask, of Love's Labour Lost, was certainly written in allusion to the union of the King of Navarre with the Princess of France. There is no historical likeness, indeedno part of the plot has a shadow of historical foundation, and, like all poems or dramatic pieces, got up to suit passing or recent events: it is inferior in construction to his more independent dramas, still it is replete with interest, if we consider that the gallant King of Navarre, with his merry lords, Biron and Longueville, were meant to recal to an English contemporary audience Henry of Navarre, and his brave Biron and Longueville-indeed, the very introduction of these French names, so popular as the partisans of Henry, plainly indicate who Shakspeare alludes to; since the haughty names of Biron and Longueville would have been rather attached to the French court than to the cortège of such a shadowy kingship as that of Navarre, if Shakspeare had not meant to designate the hero who was then filling Europe with his renown, and whose political situation in regard to France, when he was only King of Navarre, caused the proudest of the French nobility to rally round him. The Princess of France, with all her sprightly coquetries, her quips, maskings, &c., in alliance with the mad-cap Rosaline and other of her maidens, ready to all purposes of merry mischief, to plague and tantalise their lovers-forms a portrait as like the witty Marguerite of Valois as the pen of history or biography ever drew. At the time Love's Labour Lost was first repre

sented, Marguerite was still the wife of Henry, although both were impatient of the chain, and struggling at either end of it with all their might: yet, as Love's Labour Lost was certainly one of the earliest written productions of Shakspeare, it is possible that it was written before the nuptial infelicity of Henry the Fourth and Marguerite of Valois was generally known in England; since the court scandals of Europe had not in those days, even with their new progress by the press, easy and speedy conveyances to circulation as at present.

To return to this somewhat bewildered story-Henry of Navarre and Marguerite de Valois had scarcely been united a few weeks before they began to quarrel, it is very evident that Marguerite would have commenced hostilities much sooner, had she not been fearful that Henry's life would have been sacrificed immediately, had she manifested her disinclination to live with him, in the midst of the murderous frenzy that possessed the leaders of the massacre of St. Bartholomew; and the generous girl seems to have acted as if she had been an attached and anxious wife while the danger lasted, for the purpose of saving the life of her cousin, whom she regarded with a very sincere sisterly friendship, although the thought of marriage to a prince of such habits, besides her own predilection, was exceedingly repugnant to her.

It has been seen that her mother and brother forced her into this union, even without the appearance of consent; yet, as soon as she was married, they treated her with all the estrangement of an alien that was inimical to their interests. Marguerite was a zealous, though not a cruel, Roman Catholic: her dislike to her marriage, and the difference of religion, kept her separate from her husband; and yet her family were as jealous and suspicious of her, as if she had been the bosom counsellor and beloved wife of Henry of Navarre.

In 1583, Sully mentions a visit to Vincennes, where Henry of Navarre then held his court. He expected that the king would have introduced him to the Queen of Navarre; but Henry told him that, after a good deal of disagreement, Marguerite had left him, and returned to the court of France, where Henry the Third, her brother, had quarrelled with her, and confined her to the Louvre.