She spared no pains in reading anything that took her fancy. I saw her once, having embarked at Blaye to go and dine at Bourg, reading the whole way from a parchment, like any lawyer or notary, a procès-verbal made on Derbois, favourite secretary of the late M. le connétable, as to certain underhand dealings and correspondence of which he was accused and for which imprisoned at Bayonne. She never took her eyes off it until she had read it through; and there were more than ten pages of parchment. When she was not hindered, she read herself all letters of importance, and frequently with her own hand made replies; I saw her once, after dinner, write twenty long letters herself. She wrote and spoke French very well, although an Italian; and even to persons of her own nation she usually spoke it, so much did she honour France and its language; taking pains to exhibit its fine speech to foreigners, grandees, and ambassadors, who came to visit her after seeing the king. She always answered them very pertinently, with great grace and majesty; as I have also seen and heard her do to the courts of parliament, both publicly and privately; often controlling the latter finely when they rambled in talk or were over-cautious, or would not comply with the edicts made in her privy council and the ordinances issued by the king and herself. You may be sure she spoke as a queen and made herself feared as one. I saw her once at Bordeaux when she took her daughter Marguerite to her husband, the King of Navarre. She had commanded that court of parliament to come and be spoken to,--they not being willing to abolish a certain brotherhood, by them invented and maintained, which she was determined to break up, foreseeing that it would bring some results in the end which might be prejudicial to the State. They came to meet her in the garden of the Bishop’s house, where she was walking one Sunday morning. One among them spoke for all, and gave her to understand the fruitfulness of this brotherhood and the utility it was to the public. She, without being prepared, replied so well and with such apt words, and apparent and appropriate reasons to show it was ill-founded and odious, that there was no one present who did not admire the mind of the queen and remain confused and astonished when, as her last word, she said: “No, I will, and the king my son wills that it be exterminated, and never heard of again, for secret reasons that I shall not tell you, besides those that I have told you; and if not, I will make you feel what it is to disobey the king and me.” So each and all went away and nothing more was said of it.