Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/165

150 some pastime which, without hurting the soul, may be pleasing to the body.

In this character of Madame Oisille, it is clear that the Queen of Navarre has meant to draw her own likeness. Margaret, in 1544, was fifty-two years of age, and loved to speak of herself as older than she was. The reader is already acquainted with her leaning towards mystical piety, and her strong sense of the necessity for reforming the Catholic Church. With all her piety she is, however, above all things a woman of the great world, indulgent to the laxities of others, though more severe towards herself. It is true that Oisille is a widow, Margaret a wife and a mother. But, alone in her Castle of Alençon, with her young husband so long away in the South, with her only child so seldom seen, bred and reared so far from her care, Margaret may well have portrayed herself as one who has outlived the dearest interests of life. Her customary dress of sober black, with the short mantle fastened by pins in front, with the white chemisette gathered high at the throat, and the low French hood covering the hair, is more like mourning garb than royal splendour. A widow's dress is her most natural disguise.

Madame Oisille is a virtuous widow of good birth; she is old and full of experience; herself all piety and virtue, and even an adherent of the severe and scriptural religion of Geneva, she is none the less disposed to the conventional gallantry of the time. The stories of her companions sometime draw from her a mild remonstrance, but she never forbids their recital. She possesses, indeed, quite a singular talent for drawing a pious conclusion from the loosest adventure. As all examples of human frailty go to prove that virtue and