Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (1886).djvu/15

has been the origin of the unfounded scandals which haunt the memory of the earlier Margaret; for the younger princess was also Margaret of Valois and of France, also the wife of a Henry, King of Navarre. Moreover, Brantôme wrote of our Heroine, "En fait de galanterie, elle en sçavoit plus que de son pain quotidien." But we must remember that in Brantôme's eyes the sense of intrigue and of amours was by no means the only sense of galanterie, which signified indeed—as properly it still should do—rather gentility, courteous and magnanimous behavior, chivalry, and pleasing address. No phrase could be more suited to Margaret, the generous Egeria of two royal courts, the storyteller par excellence of her age, whose palace at Nérac assumed the double aspect of an asylum for persecuted scholars and a refined and spiritual Court of Love.