Le Frêne. The story is in both cases more human and less repugnant
than the, in some respects, similar story of Griselda.
Marie’s Ysopet is translated from an English original which she erroneously attributed to Alfred the Great, who had, she said, translated it from the Latin. The collection includes many fables that have come down from Phaedrus, some Oriental stories derived from Jewish sources, with many popular apologues that belong to the Renard cycle, and differ from those of older origin in that they are intended to amuse rather than to instruct. Marie describes the misery of the poor under the feudal régime, but she preaches resignation rather than revolt. The popularity of this collection is attested by the twenty-three MSS. of it that have been preserved.
Another poem attributed to Marie de France is L’Espurgatoire Seint Patriz, a translation from the Tractatus de purgatorio S. Patricii (c. 1185) of Henri de Salterey, which brings her activity down almost to the close of the century.
See Die Fabeln der Marie de France (1898), edited by Karl Warnke with the help of materials left by Eduard Mall; and Die Lais der Marie de France (2nd ed., 1900), edited by Karl Warnke, with comparative notes by Reinhold Köhler; the two works being vols. vi. and iii. of the Bibliotheca Normannica of Hermann Suchier; also an extremely interesting article by Joseph Bédier in the Revue des deux mondes (Oct. 1891); another by Alice Kemp-Welch in the Nineteenth Century (Dec. 1907). For an analysis of the Lais see Revue de philologie française, viii. 161 seq.; Karl Warnke, Die Quellen der Esope der Marie de France (1900). The Lais were first published in 1819 by B. de Roquefort. L’Espurgatoire Seint Patriz was edited by T. A. Jenkins (Philadelphia, 1894). Some of the Lays were paraphrased by Arthur O’Shaughnessy in his Lays of France (1872).
MARIE DE’ MEDICI (1573–1642), queen consort and queen regent of France, daughter of Francis de’ Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, and Joanna, an Austrian archduchess, was born in Florence on the 26th of April 1573. After Joanna’s death in 1578 duke Francis married the notorious Bianca Capello, and the grand-ducal children were brought up away from their father at the Pitti Palace in Florence, where after the death of her brother and sister and the marriage of her elder sister Eleonora, duchess of Mantua, a companion was chosen for Marie, this being Leonora Dori, afterwards known as Leonora Galigaï. She received a good education in company with her half-brother Antonio. After many projects of marriage for Marie had failed Henry IV. of France, who was under great monetary obligations to the house of Medici, offered himself as a suitor although his marriage with Marguerite de Valois was not yet dissolved; but the marriage was not celebrated until October 1600. Her eldest son, the future Louis XIII., was born at Fontainebleau in September of the next year; the other children who survived were Gaston duke of Orleans; Elizabeth queen of Spain; Christine duchess of Savoy; and Henrietta Maria queen of England. During her husband’s lifetime Marie de’ Medici showed little sign of political taste or ability; but after his murder in 1610 when she became regent, she devoted herself to affairs with unfailing regularity and developed an inherited passion for power. She gave her confidence chiefly to Concini, the husband of Leonora Galigaï, who squandered the public money and secured a series of important charges with the title of Maréchal d’Ancre. Under the regent’s lax and capricious rule the princes of the blood and the great nobles of the kingdom revolted; and the queen, too weak to assert her authority, consented at Sainte Menehould (May 15, 1614) to buy off the discontented princes. In 1616 her policy was strengthened by the accession to her councils of Richelieu, who had come to the front at the meeting of the states general in 1614; but Louis XIII., who was now sixteen years old, was determined to throw off the tutelage of his mother and Concini. By his orders Concini was murdered, Leonora Galigaï was tried for sorcery and beheaded, Richelieu was banished to his bishopric, and the queen was exiled to Blois. After two years of virtual imprisonment she escaped in 1619 and became the centre of a new revolt. Louis XIII. easily dispersed the rebels, but through the mediation of Richelieu was reconciled with his mother, who was allowed to hold a small court at Angers, and resumed her place in the royal council in 1621. But differences between her and the cardinal rapidly arose, and the queen mother intrigued to drive Richelieu again from court. For a single day the journée des dupes, the 12th of November 1630, she seemed to have succeeded; but the triumph of Richelieu was followed by her exile to Compiêgne, whence she escaped in 1631 to Brussels. From that time till her death at Cologne on the 3rd of July 1642 she intrigued in vain against the cardinal.
Among contemporary authorities for the history of Marie de’ Medici, see Mathieu de Morgues, Deux faces de la vie et de la mort de Marie de Médicis (Antwerp, 1643); J. B. Matthieu, Éloge historial de Marie de Médicis (Paris, 1626); Florentin du Ruau, Le Tableau de la régence de Marie de Médicis (Poitiers, 1615); F. E. Mézeray, Histoire de la mère et du fils, ou de Marie de Médicis et de Louis XIII. (Amsterdam, 1730); and A. P. Lord, The Regency of Marie de Médicis (London, 1904). For the political history see the bibliographies to Henry IV. and Louis XIII.
There are lives by Thiroux d’Arconville (3 vols., Paris, 1774) by Miss J. S. H. Pardoe (London, 1852, and again 1890); and by B. Zeller, Henri IV. et Marie de Médicis (Paris, 1877). There is a technical discussion of the causes of her death in A. Masson’s La Sorcellerie et la science des poisons au xvii e siècle (Paris, 1904), and the minutest details of her private life are in L. Batiffol’s La Vie intime d’une reine de France (Paris, 1906; Eng. trans., 1908).
MARIE GALANTE, an island in the French West Indies. It lies in 15° 55′ N. and 61° 17′ W., 16 m. S.E. of Guadeloupe, of which it is a dependency. It is nearly circular in shape and 55 sq. m. in area. A rocky limestone plateau, rising in the east to a height of 675 ft., occupies the centre of the island, and from it the land descends in a series of well-wooded terraces to the sea. The shores are rocky, there are no harbours, and the roadstead off Grand Bourg is difficult of access, owing to the surrounding reefs. The climate is healthy and the soil rich; sugar, coffee and cotton being the chief products. The largest town is Grand Bourg (pop. 6901) on the south-west coast. The island was discovered by Columbus in 1493, and received its name from the vessel on which he was sailing. The French who settled here in 1648 suffered numerous attacks both from the Dutch and the British, but since 1766, except for a short period of British rule in the early part of the 19th century, they have held undisturbed possession.
MARIE LESZCZYNSKA (1703–1768), queen consort of
France, was born at Breslau on the 23rd of June 1703, being the daughter of Stanislas Leszczynski (who in 1704 became king of Poland) and of Catherine Opalinska. During a temporary flight from Warsaw the child was lost, and eventually discovered in a stable; on another occasion she was for safety’s sake hidden in an oven. In his exile Stanislas found his chief consolation in superintending the education of his daughter. Madame de Prie first suggested the Polish princess as a bride for Louis duke of Bourbon, but she was soon betrothed not to him but to Louis XV., a step which was the outcome of the jealousies of the houses of Condé and Orléans, and was everywhere regarded as a mésalliance for the French king. The marriage took place at Fontainebleau on the 5th of September 1725. Marie’s one attempt to interfere in politics, an effort to prevent the disgrace of the duke of Bourbon, was the beginning of her husband’s alienation from her; and after the birth of her seventh child Louise, Marie was practically deserted by Louis, who openly avowed his liaison with Louise de Nesle, comtesse de Mailly, who was replaced in turn by her sisters Pauline marquise de Vintimille, and Marie Anne, duchess de Châteauroux, and these by Madame de Pompadour. In the meantime the queen saw her father Stanislas established in Lorraine, and the affectionate intimacy which she maintained with him was the chief consolation of her harassed life. After a momentary reconciliation with Louis during his illness at Metz in 1744, Marie shut herself up more closely with her own circle of friends until her death at Versailles on the 24th of June 1768.
See V. des Diguières, Lettres inédites de le reine Marie Leczinska et de la duchesse de Luynes au Président Hénault (1886); Marquise des Réaux, Le Roi Stanislas et Marie Leczinska (1895); P. de Raynal, Le Mariage d’un roi (Paris, 1887); H. Gauthier Villars, Le Mariage de Louis XV. d’après des documents nouveaux (1900); P. de Nolhac, La Reine Marie Leczinska (1900) and Louis XV. et Marie Leczynska (1900); P. Boyé, Lettres du roi Stanislas à Marie Leszczynska 1754–1766 (Paris and Nancy, 1901); and C. Stryienski’s book on Marie Joséphs de Saxe (La Mère des trois derniers Bourbons, Paris, 1902). See also the memoirs of Président Hénault and of the duc de Luynes (ed. Dussieux and Soulié, 1860, &c.).
