Of quite another sort were the character and sentiments of Marguerite de Valois.

She was born on the 11th of April, 1492, and was, therefore, only two years older than her brother Francis; but her more delicate nature was sooner and more richly cultivated and developed.

She was brought up with strictness by a most excellent and most venerable dame, in whom all the virtues, at rivalry one with another, existed together.

[Madame de Chatillon, whose deceased husband had been governor to King Charles VIII.] As she was discovered to have rare intellectual gifts and a very keen relish for learning, she was provided with every kind of preceptors, who made her proficient in profane letters, as they were then called.

Marguerite learned Latin, Greek, philosophy, and especially theology.