2 Referring to this subject, she says in one of her letters:  “You can tell it to the Count and Countess of Vertus, whom you will go and visit on my behalf; and say to the Countess that I am sorely vexed that she has this loathsome illness.  However, I had it as severely as ever was known.  And if it be that she has caught it as I have been told, I should like to be near her to preserve her complexion, and do for her what I did for myself.”—­Genin’s lettres de Marguerite d’Angouleme, Paris, 1841, p. 374.

Like her brother, whom she greatly resembled, she was very tall.  Her gait was solemn, but the dignified air of her person was tempered by extreme affability and a lively humour, which never left her. (1)

1 Sainte-Marthe says on this subject:  “For in her face, in her gestures, in her walk, in her words, in all that she did and said, a royal gravity made itself so manifest and apparent, that one saw I know not what of majesty which compelled every one to revere and dread her.  In seeing her kindly receive every one, refuse no one, and patiently listen to all, you would have promised yourself easy and facile access to her; but if she cast eyes upon you, there was in her face I know not what of gravity, which made you so astounded that you no longer had power, I do not say to walk a step, but even to stir a foot to approach her.”—­ Oraison-funebre, &c, p. 53.

Francis I. did not allow the magnificent reception accorded to him 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)