the Bible and books of piety, together with the works of the best authors
she could procure. Brantome assures us that Marguerite spoke the Latin
tongue with purity and elegance; and it appears, from her Memoirs, that
she had read Plutarch with attention.

Marguerite has been said to have given in to the gallantries to which the
Court of France was, during her time, but too much addicted; but, though
the Translator is obliged to notice it, he is far from being inclined to
give any credit to a romance entitled, "Le Divorce Satyrique; ou, les
Amours de la Reyne Marguerite de Valois," which is written in the person
of her husband, and bears on the title-page these initials: D. R. H. Q.
M.; that is to say, "du Roi Henri Quatre, Mari." This work professes to
give a relation of Marguerite's conduct during her residence at the
castle of Usson; but it contains so many gross absurdities and
indecencies that it is undeserving of attention, and appears to have been
written by some bitter enemy, who has assumed the character of her
husband to traduce her memory.

["Le Divorce Satyrique" is said to have been written by Louise Marguerite
de Lorraine, Princesse de Conti, who is likewise the reputed author of
"The Amours of Henri IV.," disguised under the name of Alcander. She was
the daughter of the Due de Guise, assassinated at Blois in 1588, and was
born the year her father died. She married Francois, Prince de Conti,
and was considered one of the most ingenious and accomplished persons
belonging to the French Court in the age of Louis XIII. She was left a
widow in 1614, and died in 1631.]

M. Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de Brantome, better known by the name
of Brantome, wrote the Memoirs of his own times. He was brought up in
the Court of France, and lived in it during the reigns of Marguerite's
father and brothers, dying at the advanced age of eighty or eighty-four
years, but in what year is not certainly known.

[The author of the "Tablettes de France," and "Anecdotes des Rois de
France," thinks that Marguerite alludes to Brantome's "Anecdotes" in the
beginning of her first letter, where she says: "I should commend your
work much more were I myself not so much praised in it." (According to
the original: "Je louerois davantage votre oeuvre, si elle ne me louoit
tant.") If so, these letters were addressed to Brantome, and not to the
Baron de la Chataigneraie, as mentioned in the Preface to the French
edition. In Lett