"Tout mon office:" Body politics and family dynamics in the verse epitres of Marguerite de Navarre (*).

"Voyla tout mon office."

--Marguerite de Navarre, Epitre 12 (16) (1)

Among the writings of Marguerite de Navarre, the intimate epitres she exchanged with her mother, Louise de Savoie, and brother, Francois I are relatively unknown. Of moderate literary interest, these poems are most important for the insight they provide into the role of the princess in the complex negotiation of gender and power that was necessary when women sought powers of rule. The epitres reveal a "division of labor" in the representation of femininity: through the symbolism of the family "trinite" the family distanced Louise from the constraints of gender and embodied existence, displacing the physical and symbolic burden of female flesh onto Marguerite.

Literary scholars and historians may have slightly different views of Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549). To one group, she is a crucial Renaissance writer, the author of works such as the Heptameron and the Mirror of the sinful soul. To the other, she is the sister of Francois I (1494-1547), remembered as an advocate of religious tolerance and reform, and perhaps for her work as a diplomat (Marguerite traveled extensively on behalf of the Crown, and participated in the negotiation of a number of treaties important to France). (2) From the standpoint of the twenty-first century however, the nature of Marguerite's talents makes her more than the sum of these two parts. Because her agency and political skill were combined with a literary gift that allowed her to give voice to her exploits, as well as to her deeper feelings on a range of topics, from courtly manners to her spiritual quest, she is a tremendously important figure in the study of the subjectivity of female authority in the early modern era. (3)

This view is only strengthened when one reads the intimate verse epitres Marguerite exchanged with her mother, Louise de Savoie (1476-1531), and brother, Francois. Occasional pieces, often written to accompany a gift, the tone of the epitres is spontaneous, and they are generally less polished than other pieces composed by the family members. Perhaps for this reason they are rarely published, and are often overlooked in discussions of Marguerite s more serious writings. (4)

However, the epitres are of considerable import to scholars interested in the roles played by women in the politics of sixteenth-century Europe, for a number of reasons. Most obviously, the poems contain numerous references to historical events that took place during the early years of Francois's reign. Thus they shed light on the private opinions of Marguerite and Louise regarding political events such as the Spanish captivity of the French princes (1527-1530) and the "Ladies' Peace" of 1529. (5) In addition, poems such as epitre 12 ("Le groz ventre trop pesant et massif"), epitre 13 ("La chose entiere estant inseparable"), epitre 14 ("Ce m'est tel bien de sentire l'amitye") and epitre 9 ("Il m'est advis, Madame, que je offense, "written after the other poems, in 1530 (6)) portray Marguerite's relation to her own femininity in language that is direct, striking, and thus highly unusual in the writing of a woman of her era and rank.

More is to be gleaned from this than enhanced insight into a noblewoman's existence. The epitres prove highly suggestive on the issue of the symbolic fashioning of female authority -- in this case, the authority of Louise, the seemingly all-powerful Madame Mere du Roi and Regent of France (1515-16 and 1523-27). Marguerite situates her reflections on female life in the context of an important symbolic construct, the Valois trinite, or the idea, embraced by Louise, Francois and Marguerite, and elaborated in a rich iconography, that they were one soul joined by Divine love and incarnated in three separate bodies. (7) As she weighs the differences between her mother and herself, Marguerite exposes the degree to which her place in the trinite depended on her ability to embody youthful royal femininity, a role which created a sharp contrast between herself and the imagery through which her mother was portrayed as a latter-day Virgin, the figure of prudence and wisdom. The emphatic nature of the distinction as it is described by Marguerite, considered in the context of the ambition shown by Louise as she steered both Francois towards the throne and herself to broad powers of rule at his side, opens the way towards a new understanding of the trinite symbolism: Not only did it work to exalt the royal family through the links it fashioned between them and the Divine; it also set in place a means to displace associations with the body and sexuality from the Regent onto her daughter. (8) Given the misogynist climate of early modern Europe, one can see why Louise and her advisors would be interested in this. It was essential that women who sought power in sixteenth-century Europe cultivate images of themselves as paragons of chastity and moral prudence, and to offset Louise's continence with the figure of a comely, marriageable princess would have been appealing (and appropriate, since Marguerite was, at least in the early years of the trinite, groomed for marriage as was any noble lady) -- at least to Louise and Francois. Fo r Marguerite, the role as the family's "little corner" came at a cost. The profound, anguished, identification with the body expressed in the epitres speaks to the subjective price she paid to the trinite and the poems therefore shed light on aspects of her other writings: the mortal self-abnegation and the recoil from the body displayed in the religious poetry, for example, or the complex mother-daughter relationships in tales such as Story Ten of the Heptameron. But in allowing us a way in which to think through a role for the princess in the fashioning and display of the authority of a Regent, the epitres may prove to speak beyond the specific circumstances of the early Valois reign, and this is where they are of greatest significance. (9)

MOTHER AND SON

A review of those circumstances might be helpful. Both the Valois dynasty and the Crown were in need of shoring up during the years in which Francois d'Angouleme approached the throne of France. The son of a disgraced cousin of Louis XII (Charles d'Angouleme, who had taken part in the guerre folle against Louis XI in 1487, and who had in any case died in 1496), Francois's ties to the ruling branch of the family were weak. Though Louis XII acknowledged him as Dauphin from 1498, and though the King signed a secret declaration in 1500 that his daughter, Claude of France, would marry Francois despite any other treaties signed to the contrary (such as the agreement to marry Claude to the future Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V of Hapsburg), Louis nevertheless continued efforts to father a male heir until his death. Therefore, although Francois was raised and educated as a potential monarch of France, his ascent was continually threatened by the King himself, as well as by the various nobles who vied to position thems elves for the coming change of power.

Court scheming might be understood to have been all the more acute because France itself was a fragmented and unstable area in 1515. Its eastern and northern borders fluctuated with the fortunes of Louis XII (and, subsequently, with those of Francois in the Hapsburg-Valois wars; moreover, large sections of the country, such as Brittany and Burgundy, were just then making the transition from local to centralized Crown control. Anne of Brittany, second wife of Louis XII, had worked throughout her lifetime to keep her home region independent of France. For this reason, Brittany only became united with the Crown after her death, at the marriage of Francois with Claude, in 1514. The status of Burgundy was more complex: it was claimed as patrimony not only by members of the French nobility (including Louise), but also by the Hapsburg descendants of Mary of Burgundy, and thus the sovereignty of the duchy remained in question until well into the century (10) If one of the symbols of the early Valois reign was "Franco ys qui est tout Francoys," (11) this signified, therefore, more than a play on words. Imbedded in the epithet was the promise that the new monarch would unite and consolidate France.

Louise had begun to position her son for a claim to the throne from 1496. (12) At the death of her husband, she assumed stewardship over the career of her "Cesar." In his will, Charles d'Angouleme had given Louise complete authority over their children. Francois was a potential heir to the throne, however, and though his ascent was at this early point unlikely, his stewardship was viewed as a prize by at least one rival courtier. A challenge was mounted to Charles' will by Pierre de Rohan, the Marshal of Gie, who cited Louise's youth as a reason to deprive her of her rights (at the time she was nineteen). Louise defended herself readily. Although French law stated that a guardian must be at least twenty-one years of age, she pointed out, by Angouleme custom majority was reached at the age of fourteen. Louis XII accepted the argument, and supported Louise. However, he arranged for Gie to occupy the position of Francois's protector, ostensibly to guard his safety, but also, it is widely assumed, to mitigate "so ftening" maternal influence on the possible future King. (13)

Louise's defense of her position against the initial challenge to her guardianship shows quick-wittedness, political acumen, and courage in facing the attacks of a well-positioned and powerful court favorite (Rohan fell from grace in 1505, but before that he was highly regarded, as his appointment as Francois's protector attests). It also shows that she had some knowledge of the intricacies of French law, which at that point was a complex amalgam of custom and written code. (14) One source of her preparedness could have been her training in the court of Anne of Beaujeu. Daughter of Louis XI, and a powerful regent during the minorities of her brother Charles VIII, and, subsequently of her cousin, Louis XII, (15) Anne was a dedicated educator of women (she was one of the few known female authors of a training manual for young ladies, the Enseignements, dedicated to her daughter Suzanne (16)). Louise spent her formative years in Anne's court, studying a curriculum which almost certainly included the writings of Christine de Pizan, given the ample representation of her writings in the libraries of Anne's Chateau at Moulins and later at Louise's residences in Blois and Amboise. (17) Christine's practical book of advice for women, The Treasury of the City of Ladies (Le Livre des Trois Vertus), emphasizes the importance of a lady's knowing the law and finding the courage to speak our when it comes time to protect her interests:

[Si]... aucun lui vueille faire tort de ce qui lui doit apertenir, si comme souventes fois on fait aux dames vesves -soient grandes ou petites -- elle appellera bon conseil et en usera en gardant et defendant son droit hardiement par droit et raison... (Pizan, 1989a, 84). (18)

Louise seems to have followed this advice, and once her authority over her children was established, she began to consolidate her power: In 1505 Louis XII declared that if he died before Francois reached his majority, Louise would share the regency of Francois and Claude of France with Claude's mother, Anne of Brittany. The order marked a victory for Louise, since Anne generally sided against her at court, and had specifically opposed the marriage between Claude and Francois (she preferred to unite her daughter and Charles of Hapsburg). Louise's elevation to a position equal to that of her opponent shows that her political star was rising. When, in 1514, on her deathbed, Anne gave her full control over Claude and her affairs, Louise's triumph was complete. (19)

Or nearly so. In clearing the way for her regency and rule, Louise still had to cope with the misogynist climate of sixteenth-century France, and in particular with the rumors and slanderous attacks which were leveled at women who sought prerogatives of rule over domains far smaller than those she sought to control. According to Christine de Pizan, a woman's practical knowledge and her courage in facing down misogyny were successful only when they were matched with an extreme circumspection in regard to her image:

... moult faire la sage, avoir contenance rassise, pou parler, et simplement regarder...Il ne lui apertient point a tenir a part regne ne conseil a hommes, qui qu'ilz soient, ne que chevaliers, escuiers, ne aultres frequentent trop ne sans raisonnable achoison environ elle ne en sa chambre, car par telz choses son bien en pourroit estre desavancie et cheoir en aucunes parloes, qui mout tost et a pou d'achoison sont levees. (Pizan, 1989a, 89-90). (20)

Christine's counsel derived from the attacks she herself had sustained as a widowed head of household who sought to maintain charge of her children and her property. A century later, during Louise's era, caricatures of female sexual voracity and the changeability of a nature dictated by the womb drawn from the querelle de femmes were still used to attack female authority. (21) Exempla of licentious and incestuous queens appear in works from Bocaccio's De Claris Mulieribus through the poetry of Louise Labe, while attacks on Catherine de Medicis a generation later show how these images persisted as a cultural stereotype from which to mount an assault on female rule. (22) Thus while Louise's desire for power led her to emphasize her relation to the future King, she needed to represent herself as a stylized abstraction of maternity, as a mother "with a difference," to draw on feminist parlance.

Perhaps for this reason, Louise from early on pursued a careful program of representation that associated her with icons of female virtue and distanced her as much as possible from the materiality and sexuality of her body. (23) Numerous images of her in postures associated with chastity, prudence, and wisdom emphasize her spiritual and intellectual connections to her son. One might anticipate the wealth of illustrations associating her with the Virgin. (24) More interesting, perhaps, is the symbolism that surrounds Louise in a well-known image dating from circa 1506, in which she is depicted as the moral "Compass" to a Francois shown as making his transition from youth to future King (figure. 2). In a detailed reading of this image, Elizabeth McCartney has pointed out that the unimpeded union of mother and son it represents inscribes a justification of regental authority that is an advance from earlier images depicting queen and prince in less immediate relationships (123-24). While this is clearly the case when one looks to the examples McCartney cites (such as the iconography of Blanche of Castile, where framing devices such as columns separate mother from son), I would argue for the importance of a further nuance in the tenor of the connection in the "Compass." The firm grasp with which Louise holds Francois's hand suggests that their link is founded in guidance and authority, not on the tenderness and physical closeness that would be implied by the depiction of, for example, a maternal embrace. Consequently, while the "Compass" updates the relation between mother and son to express the concerns of the sixteenth-century regent, it also works to refashion the biological link between Francois and Louise into a symbolic one, translating their connection from the order of nature into a register of rulership, and suggesting that the qualities a mother transmits to her son are nor purely the stuff of infantile mambournie prescribed by writers such as Vives and Erasmus, but the full-fledged tutoring of a young princ e.

The idea captured in the visual trope of the "Compass" reached its political fulfillment in the wording with which Francois declared his mother's regencies when he set off to war in 1515 and in 1523. In the letter patent of August 12, 1523, for example, Francois assigns Louise full royal powers during his absence at the siege of Milan, justifying his action with reference to the "legitimate and natural affection" with which a mother may be expected to watch over the affairs of her son:

there is no one to whom we may entrust this regime and administration but the person of our most dear and most beloved lady mother ... as much for the good will and singular love and legitimate, natural affection that we know for certain she bears towards us, and also that she has for our aforesaid realm, country and seigneuries, and their good, loyal and obedient subjects, as for the good experience that she has in such things. (25)

Despite the reference to "natural" maternal love in these lines, their wording actually distances Louise from nature, in as much as the word "legitimate" (legitime) brings notions of law, right, and perhaps the ghost of paternity, the authorizing force of Charles d'Angouleme, to bear on the connection between mother and son. (26) The effect is similar to that of the grasped hand in the "Compass." In both cases, the biological is mediated by a triangulation of the mother-son relationship through a third, authorizing force (law, Providence, the mystery of kingship), such that kinship is transformed from the order of nature into symbolic evidence of his worthiness to rule. In the letter patent, this is accomplished through the inscription of legal and patriarchal legitimacy; in the case of the "Compass," the play between the two historical figures depicted in the image (Louise and Francois) and the symbolic dolphin which fills out their number suffuse the scene with an air of preordained inheritance. The mystery of dynasty displaces the biological links between parent and child, and as mother and son move forward under this new aegis their tenuous claim to power is recast as absolute legitimacy, sanctioned by earth and heaven.

THE TRINITE

This triangulated view of authority was not coincidental. As Anne Marie LeCoq has shown, Louise and her councilors drew heavily on the mystical properties of triangular forms, at times elaborating complex, kabbalistic devices to fashion ever-greater fields of symbolic authority for the heirapparent and Madame Mere du Roi (393-433). Yet while much of the iconography of the royal family group makes reference to forms of external authority that exceed the bounds of representation -- to God, for example, or to concepts of dynasty and patriarchy invoked by gesture or allegory -- one symbolic device, the Valois trinite, works slightly differently. The trinite boldly draws on the mystical and the divine, asserting that Louise, Francois, and Marguerite were ordained by Heaven to exist as one spiritual entity distributed in three physical bodies, each bearing the other a mystical and perfect love. The notion is celebrated in works such as the poem "Un seul coeur," by Jean Marot, which speaks of a "... doulx accord, sa ns quelque difference. / D'amour tant enlacez, qu'il semble que nature / les formant ayt chasse dissension, murmure, / Pour nourrir sans discords amoureuse alliance." (27) Apparently elaborating on the theme in a family game, Louise and Marguerite each composed a poem similar to Marot's. (28) Other poets, artists, and would-be recipients of the family's favor who sought to please through elaborations of the "une consentement" composed prayer-books, instructional handbooks and educational treatises illustrated with images imbedded with references to the number three, and to the seamless unity of the family group (figure 3).

As in the case of the "Compass" and the letter patent, the trinite managed to invoke a mystical justification of the ascent of Francois to the throne of France. An image taken from a prayer book produced for Marguerite shows how the concept was used to link the little family with the fleurs de lys (figure 4). A banner proclaiming the "noble trinity" of King, mother and sister, one in desire, is held over the Arms of France by seraphim in a scene presided over by the infant Christ and a host of angels. The presence of the Heavenly figures indicates that the family's position on the throne as both just and divinely sanctioned.

While the trinite might seem at first to be just another scheme through which to portray the divine selection of Francois as King of France, there are numerous cues by which to understand that its symbolism was directed towards the glorification of Louise, who is raised up from two directions. As has been demonstrated, she shares the special favor of Providence with Francois. In the purely human order of the family, however, Louise is set apart as the sole guide to her children, and she is celebrated, alone, as the figure of virtue and wisdom.

But in celebrating Louise as a mother, the family and their councilors inadvertently brought her image back onto the terrain of female sexuality. The play on body and spirit that lies at the heart of the trinite reinscribes Louise's maternal body in the scheme, even as she and her councilors sought to cover over the biological with an imagery of chastity, prudence, or austere authority. This would seem to be where Marguerite was drawn in to play her part. Celebrated as open, charming and witty, the constant companion of Louise -- while there would seem to be too much evidence to discount as pure propaganda the descriptions of Marguerite as the Valois "pearl" (the French word for "pearl" is "marguerite"), it is nonetheless worthwhile to consider whether these qualities of hers were so widely touted in order to deflect associations with female sexuality from her mother. As Louise and her councilors strove to develop her image as Regent and symbolic mother of France, the libidinal, appetitive engagement with the world that diplomats and courtiers reported Marguerite to have enjoyed may have to some extent been cultivated to deflect gossip and scandalmongering from the older generation.

In the event, enemies of Madame Mare du Roi tended to levy their attacks at her greed. (29) Is it possible to argue that Marguerite served as a sort of "body-double" for Louise? The way would have been prepared for this role by the position of a princess in France. Because women could not inherit the French crown, it was unnecessary to accrue any symbolic authority to Marguerite. In fact, to glorify her in terms of dynasty and Providential will through schemes of representation comparable to those elaborated for her mother and brother might jeopardize the unity of the Crown by lending authority to a husband, and to their children, and thus producing potential rivals for the throne (indeed, these politics were played out dramatically in the subsequent generation, as the marriage of Marguerite's daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, sparked a violent struggle between the young princess, Marguerite, Henri de Navarre and Francois). (30) Thus while it was important that she maintain a reputation for prudent and virtuous beha vior, her sexuality, her marriage, and her future children could be discussed, speculated about, and planned for without damage to the family honor. More importantly, perhaps, given the focus placed in the family iconography on the mother-son pair, the princess's inclusion in the trinite' is something of a, conundrum, unless it is understood in terms of the Regent. From a pragmatic point of view, it was of course Claude who was the crucial "third" figure who assured the family's rule. Her betrothal to Francois assured his position as Dauphin, and their marriage sealed his position as King of France. At the same time, both visual and written representations of the trinite link Marguerite to the body, whether by celebrating her ability to embody those qualities the family most consistently claimed to possess -- prudence, justice, piety and mercy-or, in other instances, through pointed reference to failings attributed to the princess s mortal weakness. Throughout the discourse of the trinite', it is possible to find the pattern: If Francois was the chosen Son, and Louise the contemplative, semi-divine Mother, Marguerite was the family saint, (31) the intercessor and go-between between these august figures and the world. (32)

THE "LITTLE CORNER"

Whether or not because of the pressures placed upon her by the family, it is clear that Marguerite's relation to the discourse of the trinite' was ambivalent. On the one hand, the epitres make frequent reference to the animating effect of the family group on her spirits. In epitre 14, for example, she writes, "la vertu de voz cueurs en moy forte / Vivifiera, vivans, ma vie morte" (80,13-14) But even as Marguerite speaks of the trinite' in terms of sustenance in these lines, this is shadowed by the language of suffering and spiritual alienation in which the sentiment is expressed. This double discourse is evident throughout the epitres. For their part, Louise and Francois celebrated Marguerite as one of their own, but fixed her firmly within the confines of a noblewoman's existence, insisting that she comply with the requirements of her station and sex, and emphasizing her feminine weaknesses and failings.

Epitre 13, written by Francois in 1527 or 1528, provides an example. (34) On first reading, the poem appears to be a simple letter of consolation. The King cajoles his sister to come to terms with her family duties (in this case, "exile" from Louise and himself in the lands of her new husband, Henri de Navarre) through reference to the seamless unity of the family group:

La chose entiere estant inseparable

Rend temoinage a elle trop louable:

L'esprit vivant en ung corps triforme

Est bien heureux en tel temps estre ne.

(77, 1-4) (35)

However, as the poem moves on, Francois reminds Marguerite of the responsibility which she bears to the common welfare. His language belies the notion of the family as tripartite body operating in perfect, inseparable accord. In fact, Francois's words reveal that the most embodied member of the family group is Marguerite, and her resistance to the wishes of her mother and brother brings forth a subtle threat, which he weaves into the discourse of the trinite:

...si l'oeil de ton corps veult plourer,

Arreste-le, faisant le demourer,

En luy disant: O corps! Tu n'as puissance

Rien exercer, Amour t'en faict deffense.

Deux aultres sont qui, sans les offenser,

Tu ne pourroys ung triste ennuy penser

(77, 9-14) (36)

It is a pretty conceit that Marguerite would scold her eye for wishing to shed a tear, yet while the tone of the passage is playful, it also inscribes a biblical passage to which Marguerite would have been alert. "Si l'oeil de ton corps veult plourer" echoes Matthew 5:29, "If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it away. . ." (37) Affectionate as his address may seem, then, Francois implies that Marguerite may find herself "cast out" from her position in the trinite should she continue to protest her removal to Navarre. His poem thus inscribes Marguerite's body as the property and the instrument of the family on two levels. At their most concrete, his words insist that her eyes are not her own to weep; moreover, they remind Marguerite that her proper roles in the family are marital diplomacy and childbearing. The admonition reminds Marguerite of her duty to comply in both registers.

The message was understood. In epitre 14, Marguerite (briefly) recants her protest. The opening of the poem quashes the implication that she might undertake an action on behalf of herself apart from the trinite She describes herself as worthless in the face of her splendid mother and brother, as if to reinstate herself in their favor through acknowledging her subordinate position within the family:

Ce m'est tel bien de sentir I'amytie

Que Dieu a mise en nostre trinite,

Daignant aux deux me joindre pour tiers nombre,

Qui ne suis digne m'en estimer I'ombre,

Que tout mon heur et ma gloire y consiste,

Et le pouvoir dont contre ennuy resiste.

(80, 1-6) (38)

Readers of Marguerite's religious poetry may recognize the abject tone of these lines from expressions in her devotional works. In poems such as the Prisons and the Mirror of the Sinful Soul, Marguerite makes frequent reference to the alternating anguish and hope of the soul imprisoned in the body ("Ma paovre ame, esclave, et prisonniere, / Les piedz liez par sa concupiscence /. . . Esperance de fin ne doy avoir; / Mais la grace que ne puis meriter /. . . Par sa clarte ma tenebre illumine.. ." 168, 26-35), (39) while life lived in the body continually brings Marguerite's speakers to avow their worthlessness before God: ". . . humblement en plorant je confesse / Que, quant a moy, je suis trop moins que riens" (168, 44-45). (40) While the struggle between body and soul was a common topos in the religious thought and writings of Marguerite's reform-minded circle, the epitres suggest that her role in the trinite and her spiritual views informed one another.

THE WANING OF THE TRINITE

The expression of unworthiness voiced at the opening of epitre 14 can be traced to another, more immediate source as well. While Marguerite was clearly not "worthless" to her mother and brother, it has already been suggested that her place in the family triangle was at odds with the more conventional family structure of a royal mother, her son and his queen. In the early years of Francios's reign, Queen Claude does not appear to have been a serious rival for the position of family "third." She replaced Marguerite in some versions of the Valois triangle, but the sister remained securely established as the family favorite. (41) In contrast, Marguerite clearly felt rivalry towards her brother's second queen, Eleanor of Toledo. (42) Sister of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Eleanor was an important political ally and, in prospect anyhow, she was an important addition to the family (in the event, Francois is reported to have spent most of the wedding celebrations with the duchesse d'Etampes). (43) But Marguerite's f eeling may also have had to do with the waning of the trinite. By the time that epitres 13 and 14 were written the family was well-established on the throne, and Marguerite had been married, widowed, and married again to Henri of Navarre. Furthermore, as Regent Louise had successfully negotiated a series of hardships in rule, from battles with the Parlement of Paris to the captivity of Francois in Spain. Despite controversies about her management of finances (44), her authority seemed unassailable. Marguerite may have felt her place in the family to be growing redundant as her mother matured into power. Certainly, when the second marriage took place in 1530, Marguerite expressed her fears regarding her place in the trinite. In epitre 9, written to Louise, she paints a portrait of a new family group that excludes her even from the "petit coin et angle," the "little corner" she has called her own. Queen Eleanor occupies the site of the companion and confidante, if not that of spiritual member of the trinite:

Cent foiz le jour je vous contemple et pense

Que vous avez maintenant la presence

De voz troys filz et d'une dame aussi

Que nommeray vostre fille Sanssi,

Me souhaictant en vostre compagnie,

Dont je ne puys d'esprit estre bannye,

En y pensant, a bon droict j'en souspire,

Et, d'un desire tres ardant, je desire

De pouvoir estre, en quelque coing et angle,

Ung petit point de ce parfaict triangle.

(61, 68-91) (45)

The melancholy reference to Eleanor as the daughter "not-so" in these lines (fille sans-ci) belies the trinite's message of their triumphant une consentement. Physically distant, Marguerite views herself as supplanted. As if to recapture her family's loyalty, she lists the sorrows and dangers she has suffered for her mother and brother:

Las! quant je pense a la saison passee,

Tousjours malheur m'a tres fort avancee

Cinq ans y a que vous vyz en ce lieu,

N'ayant secours ne medecin que Dieu,

En maladie, helas! si tres extreme,

Que d'y penser j'en deviens pasle et blesme.

Ung an apres, pour heureux avantaige,

Je fiz d'Espaigne en travail le voyaige,

Ou me faillut comme en paste courir;

Et la trouver su le poinct de mourir

Celluy qui seul, au temps de la misere,

M'estoit mary, pere et tres ayme frere (46)...

(62, 93-105) (47)

But in fact, the era of the trinite is, as Marguerite herself admits, of a past season.

MATERNITY

If Louise, and, to a lesser extent, Francois, felt less of a need for the trinite as the family consolidated its hold on power, changes in Marguerite's own life also affected her relation to the family scheme, particularly as the family daughter became a mother herself, in 1528. In epitre 12, Marguerite paints a striking portrait of the crisis brought about by her maternity. Written to Francois from Navarre, during the final weeks of her first pregnancy (with daughter Jeanne de Navarre), Marguerite contrasts maternity as it is experienced in the "little corner" of the trinite -- a purely physical phenomenon of swelling, of pain and of constrictions both bodily and spiritual -- with the mythic view of motherhood the family elaborated for Louise, only to find that the comparison yields an unthinkable impasse in her ability to view herself as a mother-to-be.

The poem is a short piece, apparently sent to Francois accompanied by a rock, a gift which Marguerite claims as her portrait at a moment of anguish during her "exile" in her husband's lands in Navarre ("Ce dur chaillou, monsieur, je vous envoye, / Que j'ay trouve en ce desert sans voye"; (77, 25-26)). (48) The stone establishes the tone of the communication. As Marguerite meditates on what to write her brother, the physical and psychological barriers presented by her swollen belly, to both movement and the sorts of action she has taken previously on behalf of the Crown, lead her to consider the gulf that separates her experience from that of Louise in her role as Madame Mere du Roi. The result is a curious anecdote about the goddess Ceres and a rock. (49)

The poem opens with a humorous description of Marguerite's belly. It has grown so large, she writes, that it blocks pen from paper:

Le groz ventre trop pesant et massif

Ne veult souffrir, au vray bon cueur naif,

Vous obeyr, complaire et satisfaire,

Ce que surtout ii desire de faire:

Car s'il cuide prandre Ia plume en main,

Ung ma1 de cueur le remect demain,

Et par doulleur souvent et passion

Il oublye sa bonne invention,

(76, 1-8) (50)

Marguerite invokes (and deflates) two common lyric pretexts for the composition of a poem here, the writer's inability to write and the notion of the heart "pregnant" with verse (readers of French literature may recall poem six of Ronsard's Amours de Cassandre, in which the speaker's breast is depicted as, "gros de germe avoit le ventre plein / D'oeufz non formez et deflaires nouvelle;" (10-11). [51] By rewriting the convention of male literary fecundity with the image of a full female womb, Marguerite thus reappropriates a useful literary conceit, but even as she does so she exposes the incommensurability of metaphorical and physical pregnancy: having labored with their wits and quills, male poets deliver themselves of a poem and have done with it. In contrast, once Marguerite completes her epitre she is still pregnant, still frustrated, and still suffering her exile in Navarre. As is the case in many of the epitres, poem 12 contains a dark subtext about the alienation Marguerite endures through her role in the family scheme. Hence in the subsequent passage, she begins to measure the distance that separates her from identification with the maternal, even as she enters the final stages of pregnancy:

Je ne vous puis au long mander ma vie,

De vous donner tel ennuy n'ay envie;

Mais s'il vous plaist scavoir quelle je suis,

Comparaison mieulx bailler ne vous puis

Que du rochier de Ceres, dont racompte

Eurialo, qui d'asseurer n'a honte

Que par douleur la pierre fut contraincte

A recevoir de leurs larmes l'empraincte.

(76, 17-23) (52)

It is not difficult to locate in Marguerite's contrasting images -- Ceres, the paradigm of maternal power, and her counterpart, the shrunken stone -- an association to the princess's own position vis-a-vis Louise in the trinite. Just as the stone selflessly received the tears of the goddess until it became shrunken and broken, so Marguerite has accepted the "fallout" of Louise's image through years of acting as her second, her "little corner." If in both cases the sacrifices are depicted as glorious, each results in a kind of death: the stone shatters, and Marguerite, pregnant poet, reaches a subjective crisis. Unable to think her trope through to its logical conclusion and identify herself with Ceres and with the role of mother, she consigns herself again to a position of sterility, this time as a woman, and not as a writer. By setting in place the parallel between her body and Ceres's rock, she transforms her swollen womb from a symbol of life to a sign of death, the death of her role in the family trinite. Ultimately stranded in her Pyrenean "desert," physically distant from court and the daily affairs of her mother and brother, Marguerite has had plenty of time to reflect on her changing role in the family, and to come to the conclusion that the life of a princess, like war, is hell. In epitre 14, she writes:

C'est ung enfer, croyez-le en verite,

Quant il congnoist son inutilite.

D'ung lieu je suis par trop heureuse nee,

Mais au double m'en sentz infortunee:

Car l'office ne faiz de ma naissance,

Obeyssant au petit corps d'enfance

Qui est en moy, et pour en estre enseincte

De t'esloigner tous deux je suis contrancite

(83, 89-96) (53)

This observation leads to another nuance of the allusion to Ceres in epitre 12: as much as the image of the goddess and her rock in epitre 12 represents Marguerite's view of her impotence against her mother's mythic strength, the poem can also be understood as expressing a desire that things remain the same. In Marguerite's telling, goddess and stone exist in a reciprocal relationship of signification. The broken rock underscores the mythic proportions of the goddess's" maternal sorrow, while Ceres's favor lends special significance to the stone, such that it is distinguished through time by a definite article: it is the rock of Ceres (du rochier de Ceres, line 23). While the poem is a clear expression of Marguerite's self-abnegation in the face of her mother, it also presents a future in which the two are eternally joined in their tandem roles.

But again, this vision flies in the face of the significant changes that were transforming all three members of the family trinite as Francois entered his mature reign. The fractures are evident in-the epitres of Franconis, as well as in those of Marguerite. The subjective and spiritual costs the King of a life lived in the triniti were obviously less than those suffered by his sister; nevertheless, his poems reveal the strains of participating in a representational system organized so definitively around the figure of their mother.

THE DEBATE OVER ANCHISES 

Francois's ambivalence about the shadow cast by Louise emerges in an amusing skirmish that occurs between Marguerite and himself in epitres 13 and 14. As has already been seen, epitre 13 opens with reference to the trinite, and to Marguerite's position in it. Slightly later, Francis takes up Marguerite's comparison:

Tu diz Ceres avoir en son malheur

Tant fort pleure, que sa grande douleur

A eu pouvoir les pierres entamer,

Monstrant combien peult un parfaict aymer?

Et toy, estant entre rochiers divers

Tout convertie, escripre piteulx vers?

Mais quelle exemple a moy sera propice

Pour declarer quel est le myen office?

Vien doncque, Enee, qui portes le pitie

En secourant paternelle amytie

Portans les ans lesquelz t'avoient faict naistre

Dessus ton col, te donnant heureulx estre;

Dis-moy comment ne quel moyen trouvas

Qui dieux, et pere, femme et enfans saulvas?

(78, 27-40) (54)

In keeping with their roles within the trinite, Francois accepts Marguerite's self-inscription as the rock, while he identifies himself with Aeneas. The association was conventional for the era: Aeneas was a common figure of reference among sixteenth-century rulers, including rivals Henry VIII of England and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Appropriated by Francois, it maps neatly onto the image of "Francoys qui est tout Francoys" and the imperial ambitions to which Francois still clung, even as Charles V won election as Holy Roman Emperor and bested him in the Italian wars. But just as the trinite informs the view Marguerite offers of herself in epitre 12, so Franco is's invocation of Aeneas here is colored by family dynamics, as he portrays the erstwhile father of Rome in domestic and dynastic terms, as the pious son who bears his aged father on his back (35-38), and as the hero who is unable to protect those he loves from the devastations of war (39-40).

Historical context provides a framework in which to read these lines. Francois's references to disaster, war, and particularly his children had a grounding in fact. Epitre 13 was composed while his two sons were being held captive in Spain (1526- 1530), the price of their father's release after he was taken prisoner by forces loyal to Charles V in the battle of Pavia, in 1525. Publicly, Francois put a good face on the exchange. A diplomat present in the French court during this period described Francois as "regardless of his sons" remaining three or four years in Spain, because he knows they will be well-treated, and, being lads, will learn the language and form friendships which one day or other may be of use to them." (55) Privately, as is evident in the epitre, the situation was a source of humiliation and chagrin. The query addressed to Aeneas in line 39, "Dis-moy comment ne quel moyen trouvas," can be read to as self-recrimination in the face of what Francois and his councilors (including Louise) felt to be an intractable problem: the price set on the princes' heads in the Treaty of Madrid was one neither he nor the Parlement of Paris was willing to pay, namely, the cession of Burgundy to Hapsburg control.

Context might explain the reference to the burden of an aging parent, as well. The Battle of Pavia and its aftermath marked the pinnacle of the career of Madame Mere du Roi. From the start of the ill-fated Milanese campaign, in 1523, until the return of Francois from captivity in 1526, Louise served as Regent of France. She was a strong and able ruler, staring down challenges to her authority mounted by the Parlement of Paris, arranging for the payment of the disgruntled soldiers who were streaming back into the country after the Pavian rout, and holding together a country devastated by the loss of an illustrious list of nobles who were killed in the course of the war. (56) At the time in which epitre 13 was composed, Francois was back on the throne; however, Louise was working busily through diplomatic channels to secure the boys' release. If at this point the result of her negotiations was doubtful, we can nonetheless say that Francois's role in the fiasco was not a heroic one, while Louise's clearly was, a nd that despite serious bouts of illness (in 1527 and 1528), the Regent was hardly Vergil's demoralized patriarch, "hated by the gods and useless in my years," as Anchises describes himself in Book II of the Aeneid ("invisus divis et inutilis annos," II; 647). On the contrary: it seems more likely that in associating her with this faded image, Francois was engaging in some wishful thinking. At this point he might have hoped that Louise would recede into the background and allow him to recoup his honor in the heroic, authoritative terms of his choosing.

Epitre 13 prompts gentle, but pointed corrections from Marguerite on grounds of both religion and gender. By invoking the Aeneid, Francois not only links himself to myths of empire-building and the heroic travails of the son; he also substitutes a patriarchal legend for the female-centered myth of Ceres and trinite. Marguerite is quick to challenge him on both points. Comparisons of Francois to Aeneas and Louise to Anchises are inappropriate, she asserts, because Aeneas' false gods led to his suffering. She counsels her brother not to mistake cowardice for piety:

Dieux et pere porta facillement Cest Eneas, fuyant mort et tourment; Mais tu cherches ce que tu doibz hair,

Peine et labeur, pour a Dieu obeyr;

Et comme luy, que est mort pour les siens,

Tu ne crainctz point nul danger pour les dens

Les bras ne sont, de ce pere fort vieulx,

Corbez-ne las por porter ses faulx dieux;

(82, 53-61) (57)

Marguerite then advises Francois to reconsider the texts by which he fashions his worldview, and to trade Christian myths for Vergil's dubious morals. As a model, she suggests their mother: "Mais regarde ce qu'a sostenu celle / De qui le nom ung seul hon cueur ne celle. (82, 61-62)." (58) The importance of gender is underscored the repetition of the word celle in lines 61 and 62. The word "surrounds," textually speaking, the image of the good heart ("bon cueur," 62), reappropriating it from a heroic bravery based on false gods into a scheme of filial piety based on a female exemplum of Christian endurance. In lines 63-66, Marguerite further corrects the pagan-epic scenario summoned by her brother, arguing that a Christian name best serves the valor shown by both himself and Louise, and is truer to the nature of their family group. The terms of her challenge reinstate the image of Louise as the pious widow and virtuous mother whose capacity for self-sacrifice outshines all the feats and trials of her children:

A-elle eu peur de ma1, de mort, de guerre,

Comme Anchises que delaissa sa terre?

Non: chascun scait que sa seure constance

De son pays fur la seulle deffence

Pour dire vray, nous ferions une histoire

Si toy et moy avons bonne memoire,

De tous les faictz que pour nous elle a faictz,

Seulle portant, nous soullageant le faitz.

Et mantenant qu'elle est faible et toy fort,

Tu la soustiens comme son reconfort,

Non moins souffrant par ta compassion Qu'elle endure de mal et passion.

(82, 63-74) (59)

End rhymes in lines 78-79, and internal ones in elle, seulle and soullageant, establish a subtext of gender, reinforcing an association between those qualities championed in other areas of the family iconography, courage (63-64), constancy (65-66), patience (73-74), and the feminine and maternal. In light of Louise's self-sacrifice, Marguerite concludes, Francois's care for her is not an act of pagan filial piety, but rather one of Christian submission to the cycle of the generations as they proceed according to divine providence:

Or faict chascun de vous deux son devoir, Par vraye amour...

(75-76) (60)

MERE OFFICE

Though Marguerite and Francois associate themselves with the mythic and the legendary in epitres 12-14, exchanges such as the one over Anchises remind us that the epitres are ultimately family poems, intimate communications between a brother and a sister as they mark the passage of time and history, both within their family and within Francois's reign. The theme comes to fruition in epitre 9, which Marguerite wrote in 1530, just over a year before Louise's death in September of 1531. The poem sounds the major themes of epitre 12 -- again, Marguerite is barred from joining her mother and brother because of childbirth (her son Jean of Navarre was born 1530), and again she measures herself against Louise, and finds herself to be the weaker figure, the mortal woman -- but the shift of emphasis, from woeful introspection to a celebration of Louise, reveals the emotional distance traveled by the anguished princess of epitre 12.

The occasion for the poem was Louise's final triumph, the fulfillment of the terms of the Treaty of Cambrai, or the so-called "Ladies Peace," which had been negotiated in 1529. The moment represented a significant diplomatic victory for France. The new Treaty stipulated the exchange of the

French princes for a cash ransom, and not for Burgundy as had been required in the Treaty of Madrid. Hence the Peace restored, from the French point of view, the honor lost in the defeat and capture of Francois at Pavia in 1525. Marguerite had accompanied Louise to Cambrai, and had attended her at the negotiations there. By the time the ransom was raised and the details of the exchange worked out, however, she had given birth to her son and was suffering the after-effects of a difficult labor. In epitre 9 she sends her apologies to Louise for her absence at the event, and congratulates her on her day of victory.

The terms in which she does so will by this point seem familiar. As in epitre 12, epitre 9 contrasts Louise's private and political roles as mother of a dynasty and mother of the state with Marguerite's impotence as she lies victim of her ungovernable body, and of the boisterous infant who has waged war on it. Yet the tone is lighter in this poem. Marguerite puns as she writes of how,"...pour garder que je n'en face approche, / Un seul enfant m'a faict telle escarmouche, / Qu'il a fallu, a moy et a ma bande, / Gangner ce fort..." (62, 112-115). (61) Like their father in 1526, the royal grandsons were delivered back to the French on the river Bidassoa, near Fuenterrabia, Spain. Louise probably awaited at Roquefort-de-Marsan (Roquefort), the castle near the French-Spanish border where Francois greeted his new wife, Eleanor, two days later. (62) The lines thus expand on Marguerite's conceit of childbirth as battle, drawing in a reference to Louise's location.

Wordplay aside, the overall tone of epitre 9 shows Marguerite to be more at peace with both her mother and herself than she has been in earlier pieces. Where epitre 12 emphasized a personal toll--the alienation and the threatened sense of self the princess suffered in her first pregnancy, in epitre 9 Marguerite rests more easily with the difference between her own path and the "office" of mother exercised by Louise, to whom she now turns for counsel on how to manage her conflicting desires: "Helas! madame, ou puis-je avoir recours, / Sinon a vous, mon seul et seur secours" (63, 124-25). (63) True, Marguerite draws an exasperated distinction between the portentous national sorrows experienced by her mother and her own, purely physical, suffering,

C'est grand ennuy, certes a un hon cueur,

Qui a ete immuable vainqueur,

Quant est force a la fin qu'ung enfant

Soit de sa gloire er de luy triumphant.

(63, 120-123) (64)

And true, also, that this is the poem of the "fille Sannsi," and a reiteration of Marguerite's sorrow at having been displaced in the trinite. But as has already been observed, epitre 9 sets the intimacies of the family triangle in a "past season," and shows that much of the sorrow of that era has been laid to rest as well. As Marguerite looks beyond her own cares and towards those of Louise, she expresses her understanding that the self-styled role as symbolic mother of France has produced its own types of burden:

Que vous tenez, apres divers alarmes,

En bonne paix vos filz de tant de larmes,

Qui vous feront, maulgre fortune amere,

Nommer partout tres heureuse grant mere.

Mere, je diz, qu'on a veu tant souffrir

Pour same vie a ses enfans aifrir

(76, 52-57) (65)

This "suffering" is well-documented. Letters and diplomatic reports from the era of the princes' captivity detail how the Regent grieved for her grandsons, particularly as the conditions of their incarceration grew increasingly austere during the worsening of relations between Francois and Charles V in 1527-1528. (66) But Marguerite was certainly aware that this "maternal" anguish had been leavened by Louise's political pragmatism: both Regent and princess had a hand in negotiating the treaty by which Francois was exchanged for his sons, and Louise supported Francois in 1528 when he recommenced the wars for Burgundy and Milan, abjuring the terms of his release and thus risking the boys's welfare. Whatever spiritual trials the grantmere had endured through the absence of her grandchildren, Madame Mere du Roi was willing to suffer them for the greater good of France. Marguerite acknowledges the paradox of her mother's position, and praises Louise's ability to execute the office of mother "en tous lieux" (in all ways):

Mesmes cognu que toute vostre exercice

Est en tous lieux faire de mere office.

Vous l'avez fait si bien sur la Garonne,

Que toute France en a seurete bonne

Faictes aussi que le fictive de Loyre

En donne foy d'eternelle memoire

(63, 128-133) (67)

Despite the links the family and their councilors tried to forge between Louise and the eternal, she died in 1531. And because rivers are rivers, while it is the poets who write of them, it is Marguerite's poem, not the valley of the Loire, which bears the most nuanced testament to the complexity of "mere office" as Louise fulfilled it. But what is to be said, ultimately, of the "office" of Marguerite, now that she was neither young, nor the "little corner" of the trinite? At her lowest moment, in epitre 12, Marguerite envisioned for herself a new official duty: "qui pis est, ne vous faisant service / Fors prier Dieu, voyla tout mon office" (76, 15-16). (68) In fact, her pessimism was proven false by events. Marguerite continued to accompany her brother at court, though with less frequency than she had in earlier years; she also traveled on behalf of the Crown, although her loyalties became increasingly conflicted as difficulties arose between Francois and Henri de Navarre.

Yet as the verse epitres show, the historical record of Marguerite's participation in events pertinent to the Valois reign provides only a partial view of the role she played in the family's rise to power. In the complex cultural field in which royal authority was fashioned and displayed in early modern Europe, it was arguably Marguerite's labor in the symbolic domain, the role she played in the "little corner" of the trinite, that proved most valuable to her mother and brother. Her ability to set off and, and thus enhance, the portrait of female prudence, wisdom, virtue, and chastity that was Madame Mere du Roi, her embrace of the role of family "third," its fallen, mortal member, its daughter, its saint, well into the era of her own adulthood, reflect a will to self-sacrifice which ultimately proved that the woman who viewed herself as the mere "shadow" of her mother and brother triumphed, in all ways, in the office of princess.

(*.) The research and writing of this article were carried out with the support of an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities in the Department of Comparative Literature at Stanford University. I am grateful to the Mellon Foundation, to the Department, and to members of the scholarly community at Stanford, particularly Susan Groag Bell, for their help on early versions of this project. I would also like to thank the coordinators and participants of "The Prerogatives of Rule" conference held at Amherst College, November, 1999 for their comments and encouragement, and Timothy Hampton, Laura Scattschneider, Michael B. Allen and the anonymous readers for Renaissance Quarterly who offered valuable suggestions on earlier drafts of the piece. This article is dedicated to the memory of Professor Leah Ruth Middlebrook, NYU Dept. of English, 1929-1971, and tres heureuse grant-mere.

(1.) The poems cited in this essay are taken from the 1970 Slakine reprint of the volume of collected poetry and correspondence of Francois Ier originally published by Champollion-Figeac in 1847. Numbers in parentheses refer to page number, followed by line number. References to the compendium of documents pertaining to the Battle of Pavia and the subsequent captivity of Francois in Spain, also edited and published by Champollion-Figeac in 1847 (Captivite de Francois Ier), will be identified as Champollion-Figeac, ed., 1847, followed by the page number. All translations are my own, unless otherwise indicated.

(2.) Such as the Treaty of Madrid and the so-called "Ladies' Peace," or the Treaty of Cambrai of 1529. Both of these will be discussed further, below. On female diplomacy in the sixteenth century, and on the roles of Marguerite de Navarre and Louise de Savoie specifically, see Russell, chap. 3.

(3.) Of the numerous books and articles written on Marguerite de Navarre, the study of her life and work by Jourda remains the most comprehensive. Discussions of her life and career by Knecht and LeCoq are also relevant to this essay. On the education of Marguerite de Navarre, see Blaisdell. On her religious poetry, see Cottrell, and Ferguson, 1992.

(4.) The epitres have received little critical attention, beyond a brief discussion in Jourda: "Les recueils de Champollion-Figeac, -- la Captivite de Francois Ier, les Poesies de Francois Ier, -- contiennent six epitres que auraient pu etre de simples letters en prose. Ici la duchesse d'Alecon prie son frere, de la rejoindre; la, devenuei Reine, elle exprime son regret d'etre loin de son frere, et s'excuse sur une grossesse de ne pouvoir lui ecrire . . . Tout lui est pretexte a rimer . . . Le caractere essentiel de ces pieces est un laisser-aller qui ne va pas sans quclque maladresse. Les trois dernieres pourtant marquent de reels progress . . . Levocation qu'elle fait en certain endroit des tristesses passees et des joies que va gouter la famille royale en fin reunie est developpee avec une pointe de melancolie qui la rend touchante. . ." vol. 1,501. On the poem in question, epitre 12. see below, 22-23.

(5.) These events will be discussed to some extent later in this essay. For more detailed treatment of Francois's capture at the Battle of Pavia and his eventual exchange for his sons Francois and Henri, see Knecht, 11-13. On the Treaty of Cambrai, the so-called "Ladies' Peace," see also Russell

(6.) The numeration of these poems is misleading, since the historical events described in epitre 9 (the return of the Princes of France as a result of the Ladies' Peace of 1529) occurred after those mentioned in epitres 13 and 14 (Francois's failures at the Battle of Pavia in 1525, and the birth of Marguerite's daughter Jeanne, in 1528).

(7.) On the trinite, see LeCoq, chap. 11, and below.

(8.) There is precedent for such an interpretation in a number of recent studies chat show Louise's sophisticated grasp of the importance of image and display. See, in particular, Anne Marie LeCoq's comprehensive study of the iconography of Francois's reign, which gives ample attention to the representation of Louise, and McCartney, who focuses on Louise in the context of regency and female rulership in France, and suggests that her reign be understood as a forerunner of that of Catherine des Medicis. Knecht gives a well-researched overview of Louise's role in the ascent of Francois (Chapter 1), and of the matters she handled during her regencies (Chapters 11-13)

(9.) The view Marguerite presents of the trinite, and of her place in it, brings to mind the reciprocal relationship of "prince and poet" described by Louis Adrian Montrose, who has written of the "dynamic principle" by which "both the subject and his discourse are shaped by ...the whole field of cultural meanings personified in [the Queen]-so they also reshape the Queen by the very process of addressing and representing her." Montrose asserts that "it is in such linkages and exchanges that the relations of power between sovereign and subject, between prince and poet, are inscribed and negotiated." (303). Substituting the word "Regent" for "Queen," one can make the case that Louise and Marguerite engaged in, and were themselves engaged by, just such a process, with the added refinement that Marguerite was Louise's daughter, as well as her poet.

(10.) Knecht, 201-03.

(11.) LeCoq, 53-68.

(12.) Or perhaps before. Louise is thought to have named Francois in honor of Francis of Paola, a royal soothsayer who had assured her that she would bear the future king of France. See Knecht, 3.

(13.) The specifics of the incident are described in Knecht, 4. McCartney elaborates on this struggle and its place within shifting views of female regency in the medieval period, 118-119.

(14.) On the complex of canon and custom that governed rulings on female authority in French law in the early sixteenth-century, see Hanley. On French law and regental prerogatives, see McCartney.

(15.) Anne and Pierre de Beaujeu ruled France as regents for Charles VIII from the death of Louis XI in 1483 until 1491. It is generally agreed that Anne was in charge of government, and that Pierre was a figurehead. Through the 1480's and 1490's Anne oversaw the youth of not only her male charges, but also of a number of young ladies who would exercise varying degrees of political power in the coming generation. Louise, Margaret of Austria (aunt of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and regent of the Netherlands), and, some years later, Diane de Poitiers each spent formative years in her court. On Anne as educator, see Willard, 59-70.

(16.) Willard cites only two extant versions of the Enseignements, one a manuscript in Leningrad, the other a printed version edited by A. M. Chazaud, now available only at the library in Lyons (Les Enseignements d'Anne de France, duchesse de Bourbonnois et d'Auvergne a sa fille Susanne de Bourbon. Moulins: C. Desrosiers, Imprimeur-editeur, 1878). Willard, 70, note 1.

(17.) Three copies of Livre des Trois Vertus are known to have been held in the library at Moulins, the chateau occupied by Anne and Pierre de Beaujeu. On the libraries used by Louise and Marguerite and their likely readings, see Jourda, vol. 1, 20-25. See also Willard, and Blaisdell.

(18.) "[If] ... someone wants to wrong her by claming what should be hers -- as often happens to widows of both the exalted and the humble -- she will ... protect and ... defend her rights boldly, through justice and reason ..." (Pizan, l989b, 120).

(19.) Louise describes the occasion in her Journal: "me laissa d'adminstration de ses biens, de sa fortune et de ses filles; mesmement de madame Claude, reine de France et femme de mon fils, laquelle j'ai honorablement et amiablement conduite." (she left to me the administration of her estate, of her fortune and of her daughters; also of madam Claude, queen of France and wife of my son, which I have undertaken with honor and kindness), 394.

(20.) "she must conduct herself discreetly, with tranquil face, speaking little, wearing an air of innocence....Speaking with men in private is not suitable for her, whoever they may be, knights, squires or otherwise. She must not be found in their company too frequently, nor should they be around her, especially in her bedroom. Such things could easily turn to her disadvantage and cause slanderous talk in bad season, even with little cause." (Pizan, 1989b, 124).

(21.) On Christine and the querelle des femmes, see Kelly, 65-109.

(22.) Labe's First Elegy portrays a grotesque of Semiramis, in love with her own son: "Alors de fard et eau continuelle / Elle essayoit se faire venir belle / voulant chasser le ride labourage, / Que l'aage avoir grave sur son visage. / Sur son chef gris elle avoit empruntee / Quelque perruque...:/ Et plus estoit a son gre bien fardee, / De son Ami moins estoit regarded" (So with paints and perfumes / She strove to make herself beautiful, / Seeking to chase out those furrowed wrinkles / Age had engraved upon her face. / Upon her grey head, she placed / A wig...:/ The more she was in her view well-adorned, / The lesser she seemed in the eyes of her beloved. 99-106). However, as Julia L. Hairston has recently shown in these pages, the female body was at times mobilized in a discourse of vertu, in discourse which might be understood as indirectly defending a woman's authority and rule. On Catherine de Medicis and regental authority see ffolliott.

(23.) Epitre 6 provides an interesting exception. The poem was written in response to a reproach by Marguerite that Francois had abandoned her, but most especially Louise, for the battlefield. In defending himself, Francois refers directly to the common womb brother and sister once shared. Francois admonishes, "that body so esteemed by you, / that bore us, is no less loved by me" ("... le corps de toy tant estime. / Qui nous porta, n'est de moy moins ayme" -- lines 11-12). As a reference to the natural laws that form the ground of their divine union, epitre 6 is consistent with the family discourse. Nevertheless, in keeping with what has already been said regarding Louise's maintenance of her image, references to her womb are rare.

(24.) LeCoq, 333-40.

(25.) "... ne pourrions pourveoir a ung tel regime et administracion que de la personne de nostre tres chere et tres aimee dame et mere ... tant pour le bon zelle et singuliere amour et affection legitime et naturelle que scavons certainement qu'elle porte a nous, et aussi qu'elle a nos dict royaulme pais et seigneuries, bons, loyaulx et obeissans subjects d'iceulx, que pour la bonne experience qu'elle a en telles matieres." (Champollion-Figeac, ed., 1847, 3).

(26.) This wording had historical precedent in edicts issued by Philip IV, Charles V, and Charles VI of France. McCartney points out that Philip cited "his faith in the superiority of maternal love" as a justification for assigning powers of regency to his wife, Jeanne of Navarre, in the case of his death before the majority of their son (124).

(27.) "sweet accord, with difference none. / So enlaced by love, that it seems that nature, / in forming them, chased dissent, murmur, / to nourish loving alliance, without discord." See Champollion-Figeac, ed., 1970, 80, note 1.

(28.) See ibid., 17-18, 21. Rondeau 3 is by Marguerite, rondeau 8 by Louise.

(29.) With the notable exception of a rumored love affair with the traitorous Duc de Bourbon. Knecht provides an even-handed review of both the rumors and the evidence for the supposed affair, though his results are inconclusive (205).

(30.) See Jourda, vol. 1, chap. 9, as well as the biography of Jeanne d'Albret by Nancy Lyman Roelker.

(31.) Church reformer Guillaume Briconnet reflects the family's view of Marguerite when he admonishes her to act as St. Cecilia towards her mother and brother, "Soiez la bonne saincte Cecile que gaigna mary, freres et plusicurs aultres. Vous aurez a faire qu Roy et Madame que Dieu par sa bonte a touchez de grandes et excellentes graces et ja sont vavrez au coeur pour l'honneur de Dieu." Briconnet, cited in LeCoq, 395.

(32.) In addition, it should be noted that Louise in fact served as "mother" to a larger family group. Antoinette de Polignac, a former mistress of Charles d'Angouleme, Souveraine, their daughter, and two of his daughters by another mistress lived with Louise, Marguerite and Francois in what was by all reports a harmonious existence. Louise is known to have looked after the interests of the children, providing for them in her household and arranging a marriage for Souveraine with a minor nobleman (Knechr, 3). The exclusion of the illegitimate family from representation, while Marguerite was publicly embraced within the scheme of the trinite, suggests her role was in part to serve as a reminder of the core group's patriarchal legitimacy, distinguishing mother, son and daughter as the official family of Charles d'Angouleme, the bearers not only of his blood, but of his affection legitime et naturelle, with the ties to the throne that this position entailed.

(33.) "the strength of your hearts, great within me / Will bring to life, living, my living death."

(34.) On the dating of the epitres, see note 6.

(35.) "That the entity entire is inseparable / Bears witness to its praiseworthiness: / The spirit that lives in the tripartite body / Rejoices to have been born in such times."

(36.) "... if the eye of your body wishes to cry / Arrest it, causing it to desist, / By saying: O body! You have not the power / To act, Love prevents from this, / For there are two others, without offending them, / You may think not even one sad thought."

(37.) I am grateful to Timothy Hampton for calling the biblical allusion to my attention.

(38.) "Such a boon it is to me to feel that friendship / Which God has set in our trinity / Allowing that I join as a third name those two / I, who am not worthy to esteem myself as a shadow / My hour and my glory consists in that, / And all my strength, by which I resist care."

(39.) "My poor soul, a slave, a prisoner, / feet bound by concupiscence /.. . I should have no hope of an end, / But grace, which I cannot merit /.. . With its light, shines upon my darkness."

(40.) "humbly, in tears, I confess / that I, for my part, am much less than nothing."

(41.) On Claude in the trinite, see LeCoq, 400. Claude's frequent absences from court are generally explained with reference to the ill-health and pregnancies that kept her from traveling with the court and participating in their entertainments; it may also have had to do with what I have been arguing of Marguerite's role vis-a-vis Louise: The period in which Claude was married to Francois (1514 - 1524) were the years in which Louise consolidated her authority as regent and ruler, and she generally kept her daughter near to assist and accompany her, and perhaps to provide the contrasting image that would set off her own austerity. Jourda describes the numerous events at which Marguerite replaced Claude at court and in official gatherings and ceremonies. See particularly, for this essay, vol. 1, 43-60. On the role played by Marguerite during Louise's Great Regency, see vol. 1, chap. 5.

(42.) Knecht cites a conversation between Marguerite and the Duke of Norfolk in which she spoke cheerfully about the miseries of the marriage, saying that while Francois continued to enjoy his mistresses, he refused to sleep with the Queen, who was not pleasing to his appetite; "'...nor when he doth lie with her, he cannot sleep; and when he lieth from her no man sleepeth better ... She is very hot in bed ... and desireth to be too much embraced,' whereupon she fell into a great laughter, saying 'I would not for all the good in Paris that the king of Navarre were not better pleased to be in my bed...'" (289).

(43.) Ibid.

(44.) "L'an 1515, 1516, 1517, 1518, 1519, 1520, 1521, 1522 ... mon fils et mois feusmes continuellement desrobes par les gens de finances;" (In the years 1515, 1516, 1517, 1518, 1519, 1520, 1521, 1522 ... my son and I were continually robbed by men of finance); Journal, 90.

(45.) "A hundred times a day I contemplate you, and I think / On how you now have the presence / Of your three sons and of a lady, as well, / Whom I will call your daughter, Not so..../Wishing myself in your company / Whence I cannot be banished in spirit, / Thinking on this, rightly I sigh, / And, with a burning desire I desire / To be able to be, in some corner or angle, / A tiny point of that perfect triangle."

(46.) Lines such as this one have given rise to speculation on the possible incestuous nature of the relationship between Francois and Louise. LeCoq raises and dismisses the notion in her discussion of the trinite (394). Such speculation ignores the passionate language Marguerite and her circle used in speaking of the soul's relationship to Christ. Her language in epitre 9 is similar to that used in the Mirror of the Sinful Soul. See especially lines 220-224.

(47.) Alas! When I think on the past season, / And how ill fortune came strong upon me, always /.... / It was five years ago that you were in that place, / With no remedy or medicine but God, / In your illness, alas! which was so extreme / That when I think of it I grow pale and faint. / One year after, by fortunate chance, / I made the difficult voyage to Spain, / Where it was necessary to fly like the post; / There to find, on the brink of death / He who alone, in times of such trouble, / Was to me husband, father and beloved brother.

(48.) "Sir, I send you this hard stone, / which I have found in this bleak desert."

(49.) Ceres was the classical goddess of the harvest and the mother of Proserpine. When Proserpine was stolen away by Pluto to become his bride in the underworld, Ceres's anger and sorrow brought about the season of winter. The text Marguerite draws upon here is lost, but it seems to be a telling of the myth of that includes a scene in which the goddess's tears at having lost her daughter cause a stone to crack open.

(50.) "My great womb is too heavy and large I To suffer that this good, innocent heart, /Obey, please and satisfy you/That which it desires above all to do: I For if it tries to take pen in hand, /A sickness of heart puts the task off to the morrow, / And for frequent pains and suffering! It becomes forgetful of witty invention."

(51.) "great seed, its womb was full I of eggs unformed and new affairs;" on the use of the topos in the English tradition, see Maus.

(52.) "I cannot send you the tale of my life at great length, / I do not desire to so tire you; / But if it pleases you to know who I am, / I can send no better comparison / Than the rock of Ceres, that of which Euralio / Speaks, unashamed to aver / That the stone was shrunken by grief / As it received the imprint of their tears."

(53.) "Truly, it is a hell, believe it, / When one knows how useless one is. / On one part, I am born too happy, / Yet on the other, I fed unfortunate: / For I do not fill the office to which I was born, / Obeying this small body of the infant / That is inside me, and because I am pregnant / am forced to be far from both of you."

(54.) "You speak of Ceres, who in her misfortune / Cried so much, that her great pain / Was able to bend the rocks, / To show that which perfect love can achieve? / And you, changed thus, amid those different rocks, / Write your pitiful lines? / But what example is fitting to me / To dedare which is my office? / Come now, Aeneas, you who now bear the grief/ Succoring that paternal friend, I Carrying those years by which you were born, / That gave you joyous life, upon your neck, / Tell me how you could not find the means I By which gods, father, wife and children might be saved?"

(55.) Calendar, 535.

(56.) The list of the dead is reproduced in Champollion-Figeac, ed., 1847, 85-88. Knecht provides a thorough evaluation of the policies pursued by Louise during her regencies, and also discusses the challenges made by the Parlement of Paris to her authority (227-248).

(57.) "Gods and father he carried with ease, / This Aeneas, as he fled death and torment. I But you seek out that which you should shun, / Pain and labor, to obey God; / And like he who died for his own, / You fear no danger, not at all, for your own. / The arms of this father are not very strong; / Do not bend them to bear his false gods...."

(58.) "Look to that which has sustained that lady / From whose name no good heart will hide."

(59.) "Had she fear of harm, of death, of war, / Like Anchises, who fled his land? / No: everyone knows that her sure constancy / Was the only defense for her country. / Verily, we could tell a tale / If you and I remember well, / Of all the deeds she has done for us, / She alone consoled our faith. / And now that she is weak, and you ate strong, / You support her as her comfort, / Suffering no less for your compassion / Than she endures in her pain and travail."

(60.) "Now each of you does as you two fulfills their duty, / For true love..."

(61.) "... to prevent my appearing before you,/a single infant has waged such a skirmish with me, / that he has defeated both myself and my band,/from gaining the fort...."

(62.) See Knecht, 286.

(63.) "Alas, Madame, what recourse have I/But to you, my only, my surest aid."

(64.) "It is tiresome indeed, to such a true heart, / Which has always conquered, / When it is tried to the extent that a mere infant / Triumphs over both heart and glory."

(65.) "That you now hold close, after diverse alarms, / In good peace, your sons, they of the many tears, / They will cause you, despite bitter fortune, / To be called everywhere that supremely joyous grandmother. / Mother, I say, who has suffered so much / To offer good life to her children."

(66.) See, for example, Louise's letters to Charles V in which she implores him to care for Francois during the period of his captivity, Champollion-Figeac, ed., 1847. See also Russell.

(67.) "It is also known that all of your effort / Is to fill, in all ways, the office of mother. / This you have done so well on the Garonne, / That all of France is now secure. / Bring it to pass as well that the river Loire / Gives an oath of eternal remembrance."

(68.) "what is worst of all, / is providing no service / Beyond praying to God, behold, my sole office."

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