at
Alencon to pass unrewarded. He presented his sister with the duchy of
Berry, where she henceforward exercised temporal control, though she
does not appear to have ever resided there for any length of time.
In 1521, when her husband started to the relief of Chevalier Bayard,
attacked in Mezieres by the Imperial troops, she repaired to Meaux with
her mother so as to be near to the Duke. Whilst sojourning there she
improved her acquaintance with the Bishop, William Briconnet, who had
gathered around him Gerard Roussel, Michael d'Arande, Lefevre d'Etaples,
and other celebrated disciples of the Reformation. The effect of
Luther's preaching had scarcely reached France before Margaret had begun
to manifest great interest in the movement, and had engaged in a long
correspondence with Briconnet, which is still extant. Historians are
at variance as to whether Margaret ever really contemplated a change of
religion, or whether the protection she extended to the Reformers was
simply dictated by a natural feeling of compassion and a horror of
persecution. It has been contended that she really meditated a change
of faith, and even attempted to convert her mother and brother; and this
view is borne out by some passages in the letters which she wrote to
Bishop Briconnet after spending the winter of 1521 at Meaux.

Whilst she was sojourning there, her husband, having contributed to the
relief of Mezieres, joined the King, who was then encamped at Fervacques
on the Somme, and preparing to invade Hainault. It was at this juncture
that Clement Marot, the poet, who, after being attached to the person
of Anne of Brittany, had become a hanger-on at the Court of Francis I.,
applied to Margaret to take him into her service. (1)

1 Epistle ii.: _Le Despourveu a Madame la Duchesse
d'Alencon_, in the _OEuvres de Clement Marot_, 1700, vol. i.
p. 99.

Shortly afterwards we find him furnishing her with information
respecting the royal army, which had entered Hainault and was fighting
there. (1)

1 Epistle iii.: _Du Camp d' Attigny a ma dite Dame d'
Alencon, ibid._, vol. i. p. 104.

Lenglet-Dufresnoy, in his edition of Marot's works, originated the
theory that the numerous poems composed by Marot in honour of Margaret
supply proofs of an amorous intrigue between the pair. Other authorities
have endorsed this view; but M. Le Roux de Lincy asserts that in the
pieces referred to, and others in which Marot incidentally