"Tout mon office:" Body politics and family dynamics in the verse epitres of Marguerite de Navarre

Renaissance Quarterly, Winter, 2001 by Leah Middlebrook

THE "LITTLE CORNER"

Whether or not because of the pressures placed upon her by the family, it is clear that Marguerite's relation to the discourse of the trinite' was ambivalent. On the one hand, the epitres make frequent reference to the animating effect of the family group on her spirits. In epitre 14, for example, she writes, "la vertu de voz cueurs en moy forte / Vivifiera, vivans, ma vie morte" (80,13-14) But even as Marguerite speaks of the trinite' in terms of sustenance in these lines, this is shadowed by the language of suffering and spiritual alienation in which the sentiment is expressed. This double discourse is evident throughout the epitres. For their part, Louise and Francois celebrated Marguerite as one of their own, but fixed her firmly within the confines of a noblewoman's existence, insisting that she comply with the requirements of her station and sex, and emphasizing her feminine weaknesses and failings.

Epitre 13, written by Francois in 1527 or 1528, provides an example. (34) On first reading, the poem appears to be a simple letter of consolation. The King cajoles his sister to come to terms with her family duties (in this case, "exile" from Louise and himself in the lands of her new husband, Henri de Navarre) through reference to the seamless unity of the family group:

La chose entiere estant inseparable

Rend temoinage a elle trop louable:

L'esprit vivant en ung corps triforme

Est bien heureux en tel temps estre ne.

(77, 1-4) (35)

However, as the poem moves on, Francois reminds Marguerite of the responsibility which she bears to the common welfare. His language belies the notion of the family as tripartite body operating in perfect, inseparable accord. In fact, Francois's words reveal that the most embodied member of the family group is Marguerite, and her resistance to the wishes of her mother and brother brings forth a subtle threat, which he weaves into the discourse of the trinite:

...si l'oeil de ton corps veult plourer,

Arreste-le, faisant le demourer,

En luy disant: O corps! Tu n'as puissance

Rien exercer, Amour t'en faict deffense.

Deux aultres sont qui, sans les offenser,

Tu ne pourroys ung triste ennuy penser

(77, 9-14) (36)

It is a pretty conceit that Marguerite would scold her eye for wishing to shed a tear, yet while the tone of the passage is playful, it also inscribes a biblical passage to which Marguerite would have been alert. "Si l'oeil de ton corps veult plourer" echoes Matthew 5:29, "If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it away. . ." (37) Affectionate as his address may seem, then, Francois implies that Marguerite may find herself "cast out" from her position in the trinite should she continue to protest her removal to Navarre. His poem thus inscribes Marguerite's body as the property and the instrument of the family on two levels. At their most concrete, his words insist that her eyes are not her own to weep; moreover, they remind Marguerite that her proper roles in the family are marital diplomacy and childbearing. The admonition reminds Marguerite of her duty to comply in both registers.