DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0260
218
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
scandal, besides suspicious papers. He had been staying
with one of his grand friends at Blois, and had just returned,
when a hasty messenger warned him of his danger and he
fled to Margaret’s court in Bearn. Even that was not safe,
and, leaving her his son as a page, he escaped to Italy and
made for Ferrara.
Here he was not without allies, for the Princess Renee,
Louis XH’s second daughter, who had married Hercules
d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, had taken with her to her new
Court Madame de Soubise, Marot’s first patroness in the
days of Anne de Bretagne. Renee herself was a centre of
the Renaissance, with strong Protestant leanings. She was
plain and lame, like her sister Claude, but learned, subtle
and a great talker, given to astrology and speculation. The
Italians she disliked and she surrounded herself with French
courtiers, though she tolerated a few Ferrarese poets who
wrote verses in her honour. She was fondest of the women-
scholars of France, to whom she and her friend, Mademoi-
selle de Pons, gave the tone; and she loved to gather round
her the French Reformers—impelled at once by her friendship
for Calvin and her distaste for Papal cavillings. This was
in spite of her husband, a fervent Italian and a strong ally
of the Pope and the Emperor. She received Marot like
Ovid: so he tells us in his “ Coq a Pane,” which was
written at Ferrara. But the Duke, hampered by her pedants
and in nervous dread of the Reformers, sent them all
packing, Marot amongst them, and hedged in his wife with
Italians.
Marot went to Venice, whence he implored the Dauphin
to help his return. At last, greatly owing to Paul Ill’s
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
scandal, besides suspicious papers. He had been staying
with one of his grand friends at Blois, and had just returned,
when a hasty messenger warned him of his danger and he
fled to Margaret’s court in Bearn. Even that was not safe,
and, leaving her his son as a page, he escaped to Italy and
made for Ferrara.
Here he was not without allies, for the Princess Renee,
Louis XH’s second daughter, who had married Hercules
d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, had taken with her to her new
Court Madame de Soubise, Marot’s first patroness in the
days of Anne de Bretagne. Renee herself was a centre of
the Renaissance, with strong Protestant leanings. She was
plain and lame, like her sister Claude, but learned, subtle
and a great talker, given to astrology and speculation. The
Italians she disliked and she surrounded herself with French
courtiers, though she tolerated a few Ferrarese poets who
wrote verses in her honour. She was fondest of the women-
scholars of France, to whom she and her friend, Mademoi-
selle de Pons, gave the tone; and she loved to gather round
her the French Reformers—impelled at once by her friendship
for Calvin and her distaste for Papal cavillings. This was
in spite of her husband, a fervent Italian and a strong ally
of the Pope and the Emperor. She received Marot like
Ovid: so he tells us in his “ Coq a Pane,” which was
written at Ferrara. But the Duke, hampered by her pedants
and in nervous dread of the Reformers, sent them all
packing, Marot amongst them, and hedged in his wife with
Italians.
Marot went to Venice, whence he implored the Dauphin
to help his return. At last, greatly owing to Paul Ill’s