The Queen of Navarre, sister of François I., has of late years frequently occupied the minds of literary and learned men. Her Letters have been published with much care; in the edition given of the Poems of François I. she is almost as much concerned as her brother, for she contributes a good share to the volume. At the present time [1853] the Société des Bibliophiles, considering that there was no correct edition of the tales and _Nouvelles_ of this princess,--because, from the first, the early editors have treated the royal author with great freedom, so that it was difficult to find the true text of that curious work, more famous than read,--have assumed the task of filling this literary vacuum. The Society has trusted one of its most conscientious members, M. Le Roux de Lincy, with compiling an edition from the original manuscripts; and, moreover, wishing to give to this publication a stamp of solidity, that air of good old quality so pleasing to amateurs, they have sought for old type, obtaining some from Nuremberg dating back to the first half of the eighteenth century, and have caused to be cast the necessary quantity, which has been used in printing the present work, and will serve in future for other publications of this Society. The _Nouvelles de la Reine de Navarre_ are presented, with a portrait of the author and a fac-simile of her signature, in a grave, neat, and elegant manner. Let us therefore thank this Society, composed of lovers of fine books, for having thus applied their good taste and munificence, and let us come to the study of the personage whom they have aided us to know. Marguerite de Valois, the first of the three Marguerites of the sixteenth century, does not altogether resemble the reputation made of her from afar. Born at the castle of Angoulême, April 11, 1492, two years before her brother, who will in future be François I., she received from her mother, Louise de Savoie, early a widow, a virtuous and severe education. She learned Spanish, Italian, Latin, and later, Hebrew and Greek. All these studies were not made at once, nor in her earliest youth. Contemporary of the great movement of the Renaissance, she shared in it gradually; she endeavoured to comprehend it fully, and to follow it in all its branches, as became a person of lofty and serious spirit, with a full and facile understanding and more leisure than if she had been born upon the throne. Brantôme presents her to us as “a princess of very great mind and ability, both by nature and power of acquisition.” She continued to acquire as long as she lived; she protected with all her heart and with all her influence the learned and literary men of all orders and kinds; profiting by them and their intercourse for her own advantage,--a woman who could cope with Marot in the play of verses as well as she could answer Erasmus on nobler studies.