People may blame me sometimes for exaggerating; but I ought to be readily pardoned, because I do not know the art of writing. Our Queen Marie of Hungary was very beautiful and agreeable, though she was always a trifle masculine; but in love she was none the worse for that, nor in war, which she took as her principal exercise. The emperor, her brother, knowing how fitted for war and very able she was, sent for her to come to him, and there invested her with the office which had belonged to her Aunt Marguerite of Flanders, who had governed the Low Countries with as much mildness as her successor now showed rigour. Indeed, so long as Madame Marguerite lived King François never turned his wars in that direction, though the King of England urged it on him; for he said that he did not wish to annoy that honest princess, who had shown herself so good to France and was so wise and virtuous, and yet so unfortunate in her marriages; the first of which was with King Charles VIII., by whom she was sent back very young to her father’s house; another with the son of the King of Arragon named Jean, by whom she had a posthumous child who died as soon as he was born, and the third was with that handsome Duc Philibert of Savoie, by whom she had no issue; and for this reason she bore for her device the words _Fortune infortune, fors une_. She lies with her husband in that beautiful convent at Brou, which is so sumptuous, near the town of Bourg in Bresse, where I have seen it.[23] Queen Marie of Hungary was of great assistance to the emperor, for he stood alone. It is true he had Ferdinand, king of the Romans, his brother; but he was forced to show front against that great Sultan Solyman; also he had upon his hands the affairs of Italy, which were then in combustion; of Germany, which were little better because of the Grand Turk; of Hungary; of Spain, which had revolted under M. de Chièvres; besides the Indies, the Low Countries, Barbary, and France, the greatest burden of all. In short, I may say the whole world almost. He made this sister Marie, whom he loved above everything, governor-general of all his Low Countries, where for the space of twenty-two or three years she served him so well that I know not how he could have done without her. For this he trusted her with all the affairs of the government, so that he himself, being in Flanders, left all to her, and the Council was held by her in her own house. It is true that she, being very wise and clever, deferred to him, and reported to him all that was done at the Council when he was not there, in which he took much pleasure.