munificence, and the many instances in which her religious zeal found expression in those durable memorials which to this day commemorate her enterprising spirit, and her noble name. In our more enlightened times it is perhaps more congenial with the spirit which pervades our modes of thought and expression, to speak of the Lady Margaret as a devotee, and an ambitious woman. But when the circumstances and the character of the period in which this lady lived are considered, the fact of her being a devotee becomes but another mode of describing a religious woman, deeply and solemnly impressed with the importance of divine things, and with her own imperative duty to assign to them their true pre-eminence; while her ambition assumes the most legitimate form, being centred in her only son, whose claims she might well be pardoned for maintaining; and to both these elements of character united, we are perhaps indebted for much that was munificent in the encouragement of art and letters, as well as for those majestic edifices which still bear the name of the Lady Margaret.

VI.

MOTHER OF FRANCIS I.

We are now entering upon the life of a woman whose character has recently been exhibited in a work of much patient research, and with all the advantages of impartial and judicious treatment.* We have no holy mother now to contemplate, no prayerful and devoted Christian, solicitous above all things for the eternal welfare of her child. But yet we have, in the mother of a king of France, to whom is generally assigned the distinction of greatness, a woman so noteworthy, so really remarkable in her maternal capacity, as to illustrate the skilful exercise of a mother's power and influence more forcibly than has been the case with many women whose virtues were better worthy of imitation.

Had the almost unrivalled loveliness of the daughter's character been the subject of consideration, we should have had a happier task, as is already shown by the interesting work alluded to. Nor is it possible to study the life of Marguerite d'Angoulême, without some leaning to the idea that the mother of such a woman must have been, in some of her own virtues, as she

* Life of Marguerite d'Angoulême, by Miss Freer.

undoubtedly was in her intellectual endowments, far above the average of those by whom she was surrounded. There must, we think, have been something redeeming about her, which history would not improbably fail to record, because the more retired and private merits of women were at that time but little valued. Louisa of Savoy was also one of those in whom are united the greatest extremes of character; with whom the force of passion, whether in the form of love, hate, ambition, or even vice itself, when displayed in a conspicuous situation, is such as to make their eccentricities apparent to general observation, and thus these passions not unfrequently find a place in history, after the milder and more endearing attributes of such a nature are forgotten.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature in connexion with Louisa's naturally bold and ambitious character, was her power of self-government, displayed especially before she had attained the possession of power over others. Here also was her strength, and her commanding and enduring influence. It would seem more consonant with the nature of such passions as those by which she was too often governed, that she should have been rash, impulsive, violent; and hence that she should have been always liable to defeat her own ends. But no, she could be still when she chose to be so, could remain obscure, conform,-nay, even obey, when the object to be ultimately gained was worth this subjugation of herself, with all her jealousies, her hatreds, her inborn love of power, and her strong determination for her children, as well as for herself, that they should both possess and enjoy it.

It is not necessary here to go far back into the history of Louisa's ancestry; but simply to state that she was the daughter of Philip Duke of Savoy and of Marguerite de Bourbon, who died when she was seven years old. From her father she experienced but little either of care or kindness, so that she was the better prepared to welcome, with respectful regard, the entrance into his neglected family of a second mother, the Princess Claude of Penthièvre; and it is one of the best traits in Louisa's character that, with the children of this second marriage, she always maintained the most cordial and friendly intercourse, faithfully defending their rights, when herself in the enjoyment of all she could ever have desired of dignity and power.

Indeed, there seems to have been little in Louisa's early life which the most rigid moralist could have condemned. On the other hand, there was much to approve and commend; much even that gave promise of a rational and well-ordered life in the future. Married at the age of fifteen to the Count d'Angoulême, a man much older than herself, the young wife appears to have had no difficulty in conforming to the retired and simple mode of life which past experience of a calamitous and depressing nature had rendered most congenial to his feelings. The Count was at that time thirty-five, he had known the bitterness of disappointed hopes, the defeat of ambitious projects, and he had the good sense and right feeling to prefer the repose of a dignified retirement, to any open contest with those in power, who had every disposition to make him feel how entirely he was

discarded from royal favour. Notwithstanding the difference of age, however, the Count d'Angoulême was one of those men who find no difficulty in inspiring feelings of mingled love and reverence in the young and ardent mind of woman. His universal kindness and courtesy, combined with deep learning and knowledge, may account, in some measure, for the tone thus probably imparted to the tastes of his young wife, who ever afterwards distinguished herself amongst the ladies of that age, by her delight in the society of persons remarkable for their learning and accomplishments, as well as by her own studies and attainments. Well would it have been for Louisa, and for all around her, if she had drawn the standard of her moral life from the same high model, imitating her husband in those nobler and purer virtues by which he engaged the love and veneration of all who came within the circle of his influence, so as to leave behind him an almost unblemished name.

To conform to the habits and tastes of such a man, could scarcely have been an unwelcome task to any wife so tenderly beloved as Louisa appears to have been; and though but a child at the time of her marriage, she had the good sense to see and appreciate the advantages of her position. It is true her latent powers and passions were at that time undeveloped, perhaps unsuspected even by herself; for what can be so restraining, so softening, so purifying to youth, as to live always in an atmosphere of wisdom and virtue, when combined with love? Louisa had been prepared, too, for the full enjoyment of this exalted happiness by the severe discipline of her early years.