amongst the rest, are written in verse; but their verses are
devoid of poesy; they are prose, often long-winded and frigid, and
sometimes painfully labored. There is, however, a distinction to be made
between the two correspondents. In the letters and verses of Marguerite
there is seen gleaming forth here and there a sentiment of truth and
tenderness, a free and graceful play of fancy. We have three collections
of her writings: 1. her _Heptameron, ou les Sept Journees de la Reine de
Navarre,_ a collection of sixty-eight tales more or less gallant,
published for the first time in 1558, without any author's name; 2. her
_OEuvres poetiques,_ which appeared at Lyons in 1547 and 1548, in
consequence of her being alive, under the title of _Les Marguerites de la
Marguerite des Princesses_ (the Pearls of the Pearl of Princesses), and
of which one of her grooms of the chamber was editor; in addition to
which there is a volume of _Poesies inedites,_ collected by order of
Marguerite herself, but written by the hand of her secretary John Frotte,
and preserved at Paris amongst the manuscripts of the Bibliotheque
nationale; 3. the Collection of her Letters, published in 1841, by M. F.
Genin. This last collection is, morally as well as historically, the
most interesting of the three. As for Francis I. himself, there is
little, if anything, known of his posies beyond those which have been
inserted in the _Documents relatifs a sa Captivite a Madrid,_ published
in 1847 by M. Champollion-Figeac; some have an historical value, either
as regards public events or Francis I.'s relations towards his mother,
his sister, and his mistresses; the most important is a long account of
his campaign, in 1525, in Italy, and of the battle of Pavia; but the
king's verses have even less poetical merit than his sister's.

Francis I.'s good will did more for learned and classical literature than
for poesy. Attention has already been drawn to the names of the
principal masters in the great learned and critical school which devoted
itself, in this reign, to the historical, chronological, philological,
biographical, and literary study of Greek and Roman antiquity, both Pagan
and Christian. It is to the labors of this school and to their results
that the word Renaissance is justly applied, and that the honor is
especially to be referred of the great intellectual progress made in the
sixteenth century. Francis I. contributed to this progress, first by the