Marguerite was less remarkable for what she did than for what she aspired to do. "She invoked, against the vices and prejudices of her epoch, those principles of morality and justice, of tolerance and humanity, which must be the very foundation of all stable society. She wished to make her brother the protector of the oppressed, the support of the learned, the crowned apostle of the Renaissance, the promoter of salutary reforms in the morals of the clergy; in politics, he was to follow a straight line and methodically advance the accomplishment of the legitimate ambitions of France." She expressed the most modern ideas on the rights of woman, particularly on her relative rights in the married state: "It is right that man should govern us as our head, but not that he should abandon us or treat us ill. God has so well ordered both man and woman, that I think marriage, if it is not abused, one of the most beautiful and secure estates that can be in this world, and I am sure that all who are here, no matter what pretense they make, think as much or more; and as much as man calls himself wiser than woman, so much the more grievously will he be punished if the fault be on his side. Those who are overcome by pleasure ought not to call themselves women any longer, but men, whose honor is but augmented by fury and concupiscence; for a man who revenges himself upon his enemy and slays him for a contradiction is esteemed a better companion for so doing; and the same is true if he love a dozen other women besides his wife; but the honor of woman has another foundation: it is gentleness, patience, chastity." Désiré Nisard says that Marguerite d'Angoulême was the first to write prose that can be read without the aid of a vocabulary; in verse, she excels all poets of her time in sympathy and compassion; her poetry is "a voice which complains--a heart which suffers and which tells us so." "It is not so much her own deep sentiment that is reflected, but her emotion, which is both intellectual and sympathetic, volitional and spontaneous." Her letters were epoch-making; nothing before her time nor after her (until Madame de Sévigné) can equal them in precision, purity of language, sincerity and frankness of expression, passion and religious fervor. In spite of what may be said to the contrary, her life was an ideal one, an example of perfect moral beauty and elevation; noble, generous, refined, pious, and sincere, she possessed qualities which were indeed rare in her time. She was attacked for her charity, and is to-day the victim of narrow sectarian and biased devotees. Her act of renouncing all gorgeous dress, even the robes of gold brocade so much worn by every princess, in order to give all her money to the poor; her protection of the needy and persecuted; her court of poets and scholars; her visits to the sick and stricken; even her untiring love for her brother and her acts of clemency--all have frequently been misinterpreted.