She
summoned for this purpose all the best artists of the time to Bourg, and
the church begun in 1506 was finished in 1532, under the direction of
Loys von Berghem.
This spirited and imperious Margaret of Austria, known as Margot la
Flamande, played an important part in history, as readers of Michelet's
eloquent seventh volume know. She adored her second husband, the
handsome Philibert, and owed all her life a grudge against France, on
account of having been, as a child, promised in marriage to Charles
VIII., and afterwards supplanted for political reasons by the no less
imperious Anne of Brittany. Aunt and first instructress of Charles V.,
King of Spain and Emperor of Germany, she is regarded by Michelet as the
founder of the House of Austria, and one of the chief agents in
humiliating France by means of the Treaty of Cambrai. Margaret of
Austria, Anne of Brittany, Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I., writes
the historian, "cousant, filant, lisant, ces trois fatales Parques ont
tissu les maux de l'Europe" (sewing, spinning, reading, these three
fatal Parcae were the misfortune of Europe), and the student of French
history will follow the career of all three with interest after the clue
here given them.
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