[Sidenote: His anxiety to obtain the support of the Pope.]
If to these two motives we add a third--the desire of the king to avail himself of the important influence of the Roman pontiff upon the politics of Europe--we shall be at no loss to account for the singular fact that the brother of Margaret of Angoulême, in spite of his sister's entreaties and the promptings of his own better feeling--at times in defiance of his own manifest advantage--became during the later part of his reign the first of that long line of persecutors of whom the Huguenots were the unhappy victims.
[Sidenote: Studious disposition of Margaret.]
Margaret was two years older than her brother. Born April 11, 1492, in the city of Angoulême, she enjoyed, in common with Francis, all the opportunities of liberal culture afforded by her exalted station. These opportunities her keener intellect enabled her to improve far better than the future king. While Francis was indulging his passion for the chase, in company with Robert de la Marck, "the Boar of the Ardennes," Margaret was patiently applying herself to study. It is not always easy to determine how much is to be set down as truth, and how much belongs to the category of fiction, in the current stories of the scholarly attainments of princely personages. But there is good reason in the present case to believe that, unlike most of the ladies of her age that were reputed prodigies of learning, Margaret of Angoulême did not confine herself to the modern languages, but became proficient in Latin, besides acquiring some notion of Greek and Hebrew. By extensive reading, and through intercourse with the best living masters of the French language, she made herself a graceful writer. She was, moreover, a poet of no mean pretensions, as her verses, often comparing favorably with those of Clément Marot, abundantly testify. It was, however, to the higher walks of philosophical and religious thought that Margaret felt most strongly drawn. Could implicit credit be given to the partial praises of her professed eulogist, Charles de Sainte-Marthe, who owed his escape from the stake to her powerful intercession, we might affirm that the contemplation of the sublime truths of Revelation early influenced her entire character, and that "the Spirit of God began then to manifest His presence in her eyes, her expression, her walk, her conversation--in a word, in all her actions."[222]