DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0208
166
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
She first met her second husband at Queen Claude’s funeral
and straightway fell in love with him. It was perhaps a
superficial love and her passion for her brother was still
paramount in her heart, but she was dazzled by Henri
d’Albret. “I have only seen one man in France, and that
man is the King of Navarre,” said Charles V, who was not
easily impressed. Such a hero was bound to be taken
prisoner at Pavia, and he only escaped a worse fate by
pretending to be ill and getting away in his servant’s clothes.
Margaret easily succumbed to this young Olympian. It was,
to all appearances, a risky match. She was his elder by
eleven years, he being twenty-four and she thirty-five at
their marriage, in 1527. She had more than the philosophy
of her age, he more than the impressionableness of his.
His veins were full of Southern blood, and yet, with all
the fire of a Spaniard, he possessed the airy lightness of a
Frenchman. He was born to make a woman unhappy;
for his mind was finer than his character: fine enough to
encourage hopes of his reformation. He shared Margaret’s
love of learning, even to the extent of demanding it in
women; but the strongest bond between them was his
sympathy for the Reformers, though he was more of a
Trimmer than she was.
Secular reforms were more to his taste. While Francis I
was still growing richer by the labour-tax, Henri was the
first ruler to remit it; and his kingdom—a model of legisla-
tion—had its own system of agriculture, its national Library
and Printing-press; its special industries and code of Laws,
all invented or re-organised by him. He chose the right
wife to help him. His attitude towards her was one of
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
She first met her second husband at Queen Claude’s funeral
and straightway fell in love with him. It was perhaps a
superficial love and her passion for her brother was still
paramount in her heart, but she was dazzled by Henri
d’Albret. “I have only seen one man in France, and that
man is the King of Navarre,” said Charles V, who was not
easily impressed. Such a hero was bound to be taken
prisoner at Pavia, and he only escaped a worse fate by
pretending to be ill and getting away in his servant’s clothes.
Margaret easily succumbed to this young Olympian. It was,
to all appearances, a risky match. She was his elder by
eleven years, he being twenty-four and she thirty-five at
their marriage, in 1527. She had more than the philosophy
of her age, he more than the impressionableness of his.
His veins were full of Southern blood, and yet, with all
the fire of a Spaniard, he possessed the airy lightness of a
Frenchman. He was born to make a woman unhappy;
for his mind was finer than his character: fine enough to
encourage hopes of his reformation. He shared Margaret’s
love of learning, even to the extent of demanding it in
women; but the strongest bond between them was his
sympathy for the Reformers, though he was more of a
Trimmer than she was.
Secular reforms were more to his taste. While Francis I
was still growing richer by the labour-tax, Henri was the
first ruler to remit it; and his kingdom—a model of legisla-
tion—had its own system of agriculture, its national Library
and Printing-press; its special industries and code of Laws,
all invented or re-organised by him. He chose the right
wife to help him. His attitude towards her was one of