Marguerite of Navarre was the sister of the French King Francois I and bore the title Queen of Navarre herself following her marriage to Henry II. Her legacy has eclipsed her celebrated who was not exactly a slouch himself. A vigorously productive patron of the arts she became one of the most leading figures associated with the French Renaissance who would later be termed by 21st century scholar Samuel Putnam “the First Modern Woman.”
Already an experience and controversial author by the time she set to work on the Heptameron, this unfinished portion of what was planned to be a much longer and complex volume is thought to have been commenced at some point between 1538 and 1542. As the title suggests, the Heptameron was both inspired by and aspired to be an emulation of Boccaccio’s much-celebrated masterwork the Decameron. Like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the Decameron and the Heptameron are structured as a series of tales told by travelers. Marguerite’s original intent was for ten travelers—half male, half female—to each relate ten stories within a framing device in which they had all become stranded together in an abbey atop the Pyrenees.
Ultimately, only 72 of the 100 stories were completed and the author’s conceit is that each of the stories are true. In addition, each of the travelers telling the stories are all allegedly based on real life historical figures known to Marguerite though—as the saying goes—“names were changed to protect the innocent.” While mimicking the style and form of the earlier work by Boccaccio, one particularly notable and striking difference is immediately obvious: Marguerite studiously avoids the explicit (for the time) sexuality that pervades throughout the Decameron.
What is otherwise exceptional about what are generally tales of romance is the underlying themes which support a view held by its author of the equality of the sexes and—especially interesting for a French writer—a view toward religion that aligns surprising more closely to Protestant ideals than might be expected from a Roman Catholic. At least, that is, until one learns that with the publication Mirror of the Sinful Soul in 1531, Marguerite came under public accusation of heresy from the Sorbonne until her brother intervened and the school issued an apology.
Perhaps for this very reason, the Heptameron would not be published until nearly a decade after Marguerite’s death and even then the first edition was heavily edited with five of the stories being excluded in their entirety.
