satellites,--as they enjoyed their lives.

Very valuable are the data regarding Mary Stuart's departure from France
in 1561. Brantome was one of her suite, and describes her grief when
the shores of France faded away, and her arrival in Scotland, where on
the first night she was serenaded by Psalm-tunes with a most villainous
accompaniment of Scotch music. "He! quelle musique!" he exclaims, "et
quel repos pour la nuit!"

But of all the gay ladies Brantome loves to dwell upon, his favorites
are the two Marguerites: Marguerite of Angouleme, Queen of Navarre, the
sister of Francis I., and Marguerite, daughter of Catherine de' Medici
and wife of Henry IV. Of the latter, called familiarly "La Reine
Margot," he is always writing. "To speak of the beauty of this rare
princess," he says, "I think that all that are, or will be, or have ever
been near her are ugly."

Brantome has been a puzzle to many critics, who cannot explain his
"contradictions." He had none. He extolled wicked and immoral characters
because he recognized only two merits,--aristocratic birth and hatred of
the Huguenots. He is well described by M. de Barante, who
says:--"Brantome expresses the entire character of his country and of
his profession. Careless of the difference between good and evil; a
courtier who has no idea that anything can be blameworthy in the great,
but who sees and narrates their vices and their crimes all the more
frankly in that he is not very sure whether what he tells be good or
bad; as indifferent to the honor of women as he is to the morality of
men; relating scandalous things with no consciousness that they are
such, and almost leading his reader into accepting them as the simplest
things in the world, so little importance does he attach to them;
terming Louis XI., who poisoned his brother, the _good_ King Louis,
calling women whose adventures could hardly have been written by any pen
save his own, _honnetes dames_."

Brantome must therefore not be regarded as a chronicler who revels in
scandals, although his pages reek with them; but as the true mirror of
the Valois court and the Valois period.

* * * * *

THE DANCING OF ROYALTY

From 'Lives of Notable Women'

Ah! how the times have changed since I saw them together in the
ball-room, expressing the very spirit of the dance! The King always
opened the grand ball by leading out his sister, and each equaled the
other in majesty and grace. I h