A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Margaret of Scotland
MARGARET OF SCOTLAND,
The first wife of Louis the Eleventh of France, died in 1445, at the age of twenty-six, before her husband had ascended the throne. Margaret was devoted to literature, and, while she lived, patronized men of learning and genius. Her admiration for the poet Alain Chartier is said to have induced her to kiss his lips, as he sat asleep one day in a chair. Her attendants being astonished at this act of condescension, the princess replied that "she did not kiss the man, but the lips which had given utterance to so many exquisite thoughts." She excited in the gloomy and ferocious Louis the Eleventh, a taste for science and literature, which lasted long after her death. She left no children. Her death is said to have been caused by the calumnies circulated against her; of which, however, she was proved innocent.