DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0419
LAST DAYS OF MARGARET OF NAVARRE 371
“Le Miroir de Fame pechdfesse,” we have already glanced
at. It is a long evangelical hymn of conversion and its
main interest lies in the risks that she ran for it. Prob-
ably the Sorbonne found other reasons for condemning it
beside those that it alleged. There are one or two phrases
referring to her past life which, however great her repent-
ance, might well cause alarm in the hearts of suspicious
old divines. She confesses her former doubts to God; she
tells Him she thought Him an immoral Being; she cites
the language she once used.
Vous nous faites de mal-faire defense,
Et pared mal faites sans conscience.
Vous defender de tuer, a chacun,
Mais vous tuez sans epargner aucun
De vingt trois mille que vous faites defaire.
Of the Scriptures she says:
Las ! tous ces mots ne voulais ecouter.
Mais encore je venais a douter
Si c’etait vous, ou si, par a venture,
Ce n’etait rien qu’une simple ecriture.
These are strong words for any generation—Voltaire
would not have disowned them. But the charm of Margaret
was unconsciousness, and when she uttered what was daring,
it came as much from her heart as did the romantic mystic-
ism of her later days.
We feel no reluctance in quitting her reflective poems.
Yet amid her vast tracts of rhyme, there spring up here
and there little flowers of thought and fancy which we
should like to gather up in a posy. There are her lines
“Le Miroir de Fame pechdfesse,” we have already glanced
at. It is a long evangelical hymn of conversion and its
main interest lies in the risks that she ran for it. Prob-
ably the Sorbonne found other reasons for condemning it
beside those that it alleged. There are one or two phrases
referring to her past life which, however great her repent-
ance, might well cause alarm in the hearts of suspicious
old divines. She confesses her former doubts to God; she
tells Him she thought Him an immoral Being; she cites
the language she once used.
Vous nous faites de mal-faire defense,
Et pared mal faites sans conscience.
Vous defender de tuer, a chacun,
Mais vous tuez sans epargner aucun
De vingt trois mille que vous faites defaire.
Of the Scriptures she says:
Las ! tous ces mots ne voulais ecouter.
Mais encore je venais a douter
Si c’etait vous, ou si, par a venture,
Ce n’etait rien qu’une simple ecriture.
These are strong words for any generation—Voltaire
would not have disowned them. But the charm of Margaret
was unconsciousness, and when she uttered what was daring,
it came as much from her heart as did the romantic mystic-
ism of her later days.
We feel no reluctance in quitting her reflective poems.
Yet amid her vast tracts of rhyme, there spring up here
and there little flowers of thought and fancy which we
should like to gather up in a posy. There are her lines