In Marguerite’s own time there were not lacking those who blamed her for the protection she gave to the lettered friends of the Reformation; she found denunciators in the Sorbonne; she found them equally at Court. The Connétable de Montmorency, speaking to the king of the necessity of purging the kingdom of heretics, added that he must begin with the Court and his nearest relations, naming the Queen of Navarre. “Do not speak of her,” said the king, “she loves me too well; she will believe only what I believe; she will never be of any religion prejudicial to my State.” That saying sums up the truth: Marguerite could be of no other religion than that of her brother; and Bayle has very well remarked, in a fine page of his criticism, that the more we show that Marguerite was not united in doctrine with the Protestants, the more we are forced to recognize her generosity, her loftiness of soul, and her pure humanity. By her womanly instinct she comprehended tolerance, like L’Hôpital, like Henri IV., like Bayle himself. From the point of view of the State there may have been some danger in the direction of this tolerance, too confiding and too complete; it so appeared, in Marguerite’s time, at this critical moment when the religion of the State, and with it the constitution of those days, was in danger of overthrow. Nevertheless, it is good that there should be such souls,--in love, before all else, with humanity; who insinuate, in the long run, gentleness into public morals and into laws and justice hitherto cruel; it is good because later, in epochs when severity begins again, repression, while it may be commanded by reasons of policy, is still forced to reckon with that spirit of humanity introduced into customs, and with acquired tolerance. Thus the rigour of present ages, softened and tempered as it now is by general manners and morals, would have been a blessing in past centuries; these are points gained in civil life which are never lost afterwards.