. Against concealed treachery she could
not contend. She died suddenly at the court of France in 1572, as it
was strongly suspected, by poison.

This queen possessed a vigorous and cultivated understanding; was
acquainted with several languages, and composed with facility both in
prose and verse. Her needlework, the amusement and solace of her
leisure hours, was designed by her as "a commemoration of her love
for, and steadiness to, the reformed faith." It is thus described by
Boyle: "She very much loved devices, and she wrought with her own hand
fine and large pieces of tapestry, among which was a suit of hangings
of a dozen or fifteen pieces, which were called THE PRISONS OPENED; by
which she gave us to understand that she had broken the pope's bonds,
and shook off his yoke of captivity. In the middle of every piece is a
story of the Old Testament which savours of liberty--as the
deliverance of Susannah; the departure of the children of Israel out
of Egypt; the setting Joseph at liberty, &c. And at all the corners
are broken chains, shackles, racks, and gibbets; and over them in
great letters, these words of the third chapter of the second Epistle
to the Corinthians, UBI SPIRITUS IBI LIBERTAS.

"To show yet more fully the aversion she had conceived against the
Catholic religion, and particularly against the sacrifice of the mass,
having a fine and excellent piece of tapestry, made by her mother,
Margaret, before she had suffered herself to be cajoled by the
ministers, in which was perfectly well wrought the sacrifice of the
mass, and a priest who held out the holy host to the people, she took
out the square in which was this history, and, instead of the priest,
with her own hand substituted a fox, who turning to the people, and
making a horrible grimace with his paws and throat, delivered these
words, DOMINUS VOBISCUM."

We are told that Anne of Brittany, the good Queen of France, assembled
three hundred of the children of the nobility at her court, where,
under her personal superintendence, they were instructed in such
accomplishments as became their rank and sex, but the girls, most
especially, made accomplished needlewomen. Embroidery was their
occupation during some specified hours of every day, and they wrought
much tapestry, which was presented by their royal protectress to
different churches.

Her daughter Claude, the queen of Francis I., formed her court on the
same model and maintained the same practice;