Nor was she in literature by any means an unnotable one, quite
independently of the collection of unfinished stories, which, after
receiving at its first posthumous publication the not particularly
appropriate title of _Les Amants Fortunes_, was more fortunately
re-named, albeit by something of a bull (for there is the beginning
of an eighth day as well as the full complement of the seven), the
_Heptameron_.
Few ladies have been known in history by more and more confusing titles
than the author of the _Heptameron_, the confusion arising partly from
the fact that she had a niece and a great-niece of the same charming
Christian name as herself. The second Margaret de Valois (the most
appropriate name of all three, as it was theirs by family right) was the
daughter of Francis I., the patroness of Ronsard, and, somewhat late
in life, the wife of the Duke of Savoy--a marriage which, as the bride
carried with her a dowry of territory, was not popular, and brought some
coarse jests on her. Not much is said of her personal appearance after
her infancy; but she inherited her aunt's literary tastes, if not her
literary powers, and gave Ronsard powerful support in his early days.
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