a flame, burning and setting alight the remainder of your realm."
So we perceive, behind this mask of metaphors, a great and tangible effort: the endeavour to convert the Royal Family of France to the new ideas, to the wish for Reform. Margaret, herself an eager proselyte, throws herself ardently into the scheme. Her frequent letters to Briçonnet are chiefly concerned with this supreme topic. During the siege of Mézières she brings her mother to Meaux, where they spent the winter; and on their departure Margaret does not relax her efforts. "Madame has begun to read in the Holy Scriptures. You know the confidence that she and the King place in you." And Lefebvre writes to rejoice with her in the progress of the good work. "The King and Madame," writes Margaret, "are quite decided to let it be made known that the truth of God is no heresy." Indeed, at that time, when Protestantism as a Church in revolt did not as yet exist, when Lutheranism was the most cultured fashion of the age, it appeared faintly possible that Francis, the Father of Letters, might be brought to favour the opinion professed by the most learned, the most intellectually brilliant scholars of Europe. But Margaret, in this matter, did not understand the temper of Francis and of her mother. Lax and frivolous in regard to the spiritual importance of Catholicism, they believed it, none the less, a necessity of good conduct; that vast hierarchy appeared to them as a temporal force, in which all government and authority was rooted. Louisa and Francis were not of the pious. "I have canonized Francis de Paule—at least I paid the tax!" cries Louisa, and she makes sport of a "Fricassee of Abbeys" which was served
