Brodeau, and many other men of letters, while she protected Rabelais, E. Dolet, &c. For a time her influence with her brother, to whom she was entirely devoted, and whom she visited when he was imprisoned in Spain, was effectual, but latterly political rather than religious considerations made him discourage Lutheranism, and a fierce persecution was begun against both Protestants and freethinkers, a persecution which drove Des Périers to suicide and brought Dolet to the stake. Marguerite herself, however, was protected by her brother, and her personal inclinations seem to have been rather towards a mystical pietism than towards dogmatic Protestant sentiments. Nevertheless bigotry and the desire to tarnish the reputation of women of letters have led to the bringing of odious accusations against her character, for which there is not the smallest foundation. Marguerite died at Odot-en-Bigorre on the 21st of September 1549. By her first husband she had no children, by her second a son who died in infancy, and a daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, who became the mother of Henry IV. Although the poets of the time are unwearied in celebrating her charms, she does not, from the portraits which exist, appear to have been regularly beautiful, but as to her sweetness of disposition and strength of mind there is universal consent. Her literary work consists of the _Heptameron_, of poems entitled _Les Marguerites de la marguerite des princesses_, and of _Letters_. The _Heptameron_, constructed, as its name indicates, on the lines of the _Decameron_ of Boccaccio, consists of seventy-two short stories told to each other by a company of ladies and gentlemen who are stopped in the journey homewards from Cauterets by the swelling of a river. It was not printed till 1558, ten years after the author's death, and then under the title of _Les Amants fortunés_. Internal evidence is strongly in favour of its having been a joint work, in which more than one of the men of letters who composed Marguerite's household took part. It is a delightful book, and strongly characteristic of the French Renaissance. The sensuality which characterized the period appears in it, but in a less coarse form than in the great work of Rabelais; and there is a poetical spirit which, except in rare instances, is absent from _Pantagruel_. The _Letters_ are interesting and good. The _Marguerites_ consist of a very miscellaneous collection of poems, mysteries, farces, devotional poems of considerable length, spiritual and miscellaneous songs, &c. The _Dernières poésies_, not printed till 1896 (by M. A. Lefranc), are interesting and characteristic, consisting of verse-epistles, _comédies_ (pieces in dramatic form on the death of Francis I., &c.), _Les Prisons_, a long allegorical poem of amorous-religious-historical tenor; some miscellaneous verse chiefly in dizains, and a later and remarkable