But further: if she knows how to speak, she knows also how to write; and the beautiful letters we have seen from her attest it. They are the finest, the best couched, whether they be serious or familiar, and such that the greatest writers of the past and present may hide their heads and not produce their own when hers appear; for theirs are trifles near to hers. No one, having read them, would fail to laugh at Cicero with his familiar letters. And whoso would collect Queen Marguerite’s letters, together with her discourses, would make a school and training for the world; and no one should feel surprised at this, for, in herself, her mind is sound and quick, with great information, wise and solid. She is a queen in all things, and deserves to rule a mighty kingdom, even an empire,--about which I shall make the following digression, all the more because it has to do with the present subject. When her marriage was granted at Blois to the King of Navarre, difficulties were made by Queen Jeanne [d’Albret, Henri IV.’s mother], very different then from what she wrote to my mother, who was her lady of honour, and at this time sick in her own house. I have read the letter, writ by her own hand, in the archives of our house; it says thus:-- [Illustration: _Henry IV_] “I write you this, my great friend, to rejoice and give you health with the good news my husband sends me. He having had the boldness to ask of the king Madame, his young daughter, for our son, the king has done him the honour to grant it; for which I cannot tell you the happiness I have.”