The love of Marguerite for her brother, and her unselfish devotion to his interests, is a precedent unparalleled in French history until the time of Madame de Sévigné. In all her letters we find the same tenderness, gentleness, passion, inexhaustible emotion, sympathy, and compassion that distinguished her actions.
In her _Contes_ (the _Heptameron_) _de la Reine de Navarre_ we have an accurate representation of society, its manners and style of conversation; in it we find, also, remnants of the brutality and grossness of the Middle Ages, as well as reflections of the higher tendencies and aspirations of the later time. In having a thorough knowledge of the tricks, deceits, and follies of the professional lovers of the day, and of their object in courting women, Marguerite was able to warn her contemporaries and thus guard them against immorality and its dangers. In her works she upheld the purity of ideal love, exposing the questionable and selfish designs of the clever professional seducers. A specimen may be cited to show her style of writing and the trend of her thought:
"Emarsuite has just related the history of a gentleman and a young girl who, being unable to be united, had both embraced the religious life. When the story is ended, Hircan, instead of showing himself affected, cries: 'Then there are more fools and mad women than there ever were!' 'Do you call it folly,' says Oisille, 'to love honestly in youth and then to turn all love to God?' ... 'And yet I have the opinion,' says Parlemente, 'that no man will ever love God perfectly who has not perfectly loved some creature in this world.' 'What do you by loving perfectly?' asks Saffredant; 'do you call perfect lovers who are bashful and adore ladies from a distance, without daring to express their wishes?' 'I call those perfect lovers,' replies Parlemente, 'who seek some perfection in what they love--whether goodness, beauty or kindness--and whose hearts are so lofty and honest that they would rather die than perform those base deeds which honor and conscience forbid; for the soul which was created only to return to its Sovereign Good cannot, while it is in the body, do otherwise than desire to win thither; but because the senses, by which it can have tidings of that which it seeks, are dull and carnal on account of the sin of our first parents, they can show it only those visible things which most nearly approach perfection; and the soul runs after them, believing that in visible grace and moral virtues it may find the Sovereign Grace, Beauty and Virtue. But without finding whom it loves, it passes on like the child who, according to his littleness, loves apples, pears, dolls and other little things--the most beautiful that his eye can see--and thinks it riches to heap little stones together; but, on growing larger he loves living things, and, therefore, amasses the goods necessary for human life; but he knows, by the greatest experiences, that neither perfection nor felicity is attained by possessions only, and he desires true felicity and the Maker and Source thereof.'"