Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/566

552 the women who were counted most charming in her absence. Others say, that she had more grace and youthfulness about her than beauty; that she walked well, and was the best dancer in Europe. She gave early proofs of genius, and was a brilliant assemblage of talents and faults, of virtues and vices. This maybe naturally attributed to her education in the most polished and at the same time the most corrupt court in Europe. Margaret was demanded in marriage both by the emperor and the king of Portugal; but, in 1572, was married to Henry, prince of Beam, afterwards Henry IV, of France. Nothing could equal the magnificence of this marriage, which was succeeded by the horrors of St. Bartholemew. Margaret, though far from strict in her way of life, was strongly attached to the Catholic religion; but she was not intrusted with the secrets of that horrible day. She was alarmed with suspicions, which her mother would not suffer to be explained to her, and terrified by a gentleman, covered with wounds and followed by four archers, bursting into her room, and clinging round her. Scarce could her prayers obtain his life; and, after fainting with terror by the way, at the feet of her mother, her tears obtained grace for two of her husband's suite. Henry escaped the fate prepared for him, and Margaret refused to suffer the marriage to be cancelled.

In 1573, when the Polish ambassadors came to elect her brother, the duke of Anjou, king of their country, Margaret, as a daughter of France, received them. The Bishop of Cracow made his harangue in Latin, which she understood, and answered with so much eloquence, that they heard her with astonishment and delight. She accompanied the duke on his way to Poland, as far as Blamont, and during this journey heard