ary. Only the tales of the first four days are complete, and on
folio 259 begins a long poem called Les Prisons, the work probably of
William Filandrier, whom Queen Margaret protected. On the first folio of
the volume is the inscription, in sixteenth-century handwriting: _Pour
ma sour Marie Philander_. The poem _Les Prisons_ is quoted on pp.
xxxviii.-ix. vol. i. of the present work. It concludes with an epitaph
on Margaret, dated 1549.

X. (No. 1524). A folio vol. from Colbert's library, bound in red and
yellow morocco, on which is painted, on a blue ground, a vine laden with
grapes twining round the trunk of a tree. On either side and in gold
letters is the device, _Sin e doppo la morte_ (until and after death).
Following the title-page, on which the work is called "The Decameron of
the most high and most illustrious Princess, Madame Margaret of France,"
is a curious preface signed "Adrian de Thou," and dated "Paris, August
8, 1553." This Adrian de Thou, Lord of Hierville and canon of Notre Dame
de Paris, counsellor and clerk of the Paris Parliament, was the fourth
son of Augustine de Thou and uncle to James Augustus de Thou, the
historian. He died in October 1570. His MS. of the _Heptameron_, a
most beautiful specimen of caligraphy, contains a long table of various
readings and obscure passages; this was consulted in preparing the text
for the present translation. The titles to the tales have also been
borrowed from this MS.; they were composed by De Thou himself, and
figure in no other MS. copy.

XI. (No. 1525). A small folio, calf, from Colbert's library, very
incomplete and badly written, but containing the _Miroir de Jesu Crist
crucifie_, the last poem Queen Margaret composed (see _ante_, vol. i. p.
lxxxvi.).

XII. (No. 2155). A small quarto, red morocco, from the library of
Mazarin, whose escutcheon has been cut off. The text, which is
complete and correct, excepting that a portion of the prologue has been
accidentally transposed, is followed by an epitaph on the Queen. The
handwriting throughout is that of the end of the sixteenth century.

The other MSS. of the _Heptameron_ are the following:--

XIII. (Orleans town library, No. 352). A folio vol. of 440 pp. It is
doubtful whether this MS. is of the sixteenth or seventeenth century.
It bears the title _L'Heptameron des Nouvelles, &c_. There are numerous
deficiencies in the text.

XIV. (Vatican library, No. 929; from the library of Queen Christina of
Swe