The castle which she thus compares to Noah’s ark, and which some of her panegyrists, convinced that she who lived there was given to celestial contemplations, compare to Mount Tabor, was regarded as a Caprea and an abominable lair by enemies, who, from afar, plunged eyes of hatred into it. It is very certain, however, that Queen Marguerite lost nothing in that retreat of the delicate nicety of her mind, for it was there that she undertook to write her Memoirs in a few afternoons, in order to come to Brantôme’s assistance and correct him on certain points. We will follow her, using now and then some contemporary information, without relying too much upon either, but endeavouring to draw with simple truth a singular portrait in which there enters much that was enchanting and, towards the end, fantastic. Marguerite, born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, May 14, 1553, was six years old when her father, Henri II., was killed at that fatal tournament which ruined the fortunes of the house of Valois. She tells us several anecdotes of herself and her childish repartees which prove a precocious mind. She takes great pains to call attention to a matter which in her is really a sign, a distinctive note through all excesses, namely: that as a child and when it was the fashion at Court to be “Huguenot,” and when all those who had intelligence, or wished to pass for having it, had withdrawn from what they called “bigotry,” she resisted that influence. In vain did her brother, d’Anjou, afterward Henri III., fling her Hours into the fire and give her the Psalms and the Huguenot prayers in place of it; she held firm and preserved herself from the mania of Huguenotism, which at that date (1561) was a fancy at Court, a French and mundane fashion, attractive for a time to even those who were soon to turn against it and repress it. Marguerite, in the midst of a life that was little exemplary, will always be found to have kept with sincerity this corner of good Catholicism which she derived from her race, and which made her in this respect and to this degree more of an Italian than a Frenchwoman; however, that which imports us to notice is that she _had it_. Still a child when the first religious wars began, she was sent to Amboise with her young brother, d’Alençon. There she found herself in company with several of Brantôme’s female relations: Mme. de Dampierre, his aunt, Mme. de Retz, his cousin; and she began with the elder of these ladies a true friendship; with the younger, the cousin, the affection came later. Marguerite gives the reason for this very prettily:-- “At that time the advanced age of your aunt and my childish youthfulness had more agreement; for it is the nature of old people to love children; and those who are in the perfection of their age, like your cousin, despise and dislike their annoying simplicity.”