Marguerite de Navarre (also known as Marguerite d'Angoulême or d'Alençon) (1492-1549). Born in Angoulême, daughter of Charles d'Angoulême and Louise de Savoie, she received the same humanist education as her younger brother, the future François Ier. She was married in 1509 to Charles d'Alençon (d. 1525), then in 1527 to Henri d'Albret, king of Navarre. Her daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, was mother of the future Henri IV. Throughout her life she was intimately involved in the political life of France, particularly in the period following François Ier's captivity in Spain (1525-6). There were periods when she found it prudent to take refuge in her own kingdom of Navarre because of her religious views (e.g. after the Affaire des Placards in 1534). She was strongly influenced by the archbishop of Meaux, Guillaume Briçonnet, and the Evangelical group around him. Passionately interested in the ideas of Luther and Calvin, she protected some of the leading Reformers—such as Lefèvre d'Étaples— and was the patron of writers like Marot, Bonaventure des Périers, and Rabelais.
She was a prolific writer, leaving a voluminous correspondence and numerous poetic and dramatic works, though her most lasting achievement is undoubtedly the cycle of 72 tales known as the Heptaméron. Her poetry is mostly religious and often mystical, comprising rondeaux, the Chansons spirituelles, and many long allegorical meditations. One of her earliest works of this type, Le Miroir de l'âme pécheresse (1531), was banned by the Sorbonne in 1533. A large body of her poetry was published in the Marguerites de la Marguerite des Princesses and the Suite des Marguerites (1547), including La Coche, a dialogue on perfect love. Some important works remained in manuscript until the 19th c. (e.g. two long poems—Les Prisons, describing the progressive liberation of the human soul; Le Navire, a monologue evoking her distress at the death of François Ier). Her plays include secular pieces with a strong moralistic content, such as the Comédie jouée à Mont de Marsan or the Farce de Trop, Prou, Peu, Moins, and the more specifically religious four-part Comédie de la nativité de Jésus-Christ.
Though Marguerite's writing reflects her involvement in Renaissance humanism, Neoplatonism, and Evangelism, her choice of genres and use of allegory look back to the Middle Ages. As much as for her literary achievements, she is noteworthy for her role as a political figure and as a protector of major Evangelical writers and thinkers.
— Christine Scollen-Jimack
Bibliography
- P. Jourda, Marguerite d'Angoulême, duchesse d'Alençon, reine de Navarre (1492-1549). Étude biographique et littéraire, 2 vols. (1930, repr. 1978)
