Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/28

Rh women. She was unhappily married, and possessed neither love nor esteem for her husband. She ruled without scruple the laxest court of Europe. Yet, singular among the women of that court, the Duchess of Alençon never had a lover.

The virtue of the young Princess, gay as she seemed, was quite secure. She looked on all her would-be lovers with a sweet, remote ironical compassion, and turned away to seek her books again. She had an almost pedantic love of learning; theology, grammar, classics, romances, she gave them each a share of the curiosity and interest with which she envisaged life. All these tastes and qualities helped to secure her virtue; but even greater than they as a safeguard we must place her absolute, unrivalled devotion to her brother.

It was the fashion then at court for people of quality to select a motto or device expressing their personality. Duchess Margaret was clever at making these posies; she supplied them to her brother, to his mistress, to half-a-dozen others. For herself, she selected a sunflower turning to the sun, and underneath she wrote, "Non inferiora secutus." The phrase is exact; no lower light did she ever follow, no wandering glory led her from the worship of that sun of hers. Through all history, I think, we never come again upon a devotion sustained so long and at so high a pitch as this of Margaret d'Angoulême for her brother. And this idolatry demanded many sacrifices. She was to offer it her life and her constant service, the interests of her husband, the happiness of her child. She offered it her judgment, almost her conscience. And for his sake, in her middle age, already weary of the world, she should forsake the mystical meditation in which she