Her most famous work, however, is Miroir de l’âme pécheresse (The Mirror of the Sinful Soul), a 1,434-line poem first published anonymously in 1531. In this, the sinful soul offers to the readers the mirror in which they can see their own souls. Most of this work describes the soul’s astonishment and frustration at the awareness of the depths of her sinful nature and her relief at the discovery of God’s grace. 

Marguerite d’Angoulême, also known as Marguerite de Navarre, was one of the most influential figures in sixteenth-century Europe. Today, her memory in Reformed circles seems obscured by that of her more committed daughter, Jeane d’Albret. In reality, while Marguerite never called herself Lutheran or Reformed, she had an enormous impact on the Reformation.
Scholar, Patron, and Benefactor
The only daughter of Charles de Valois, Comte d’Angoulême, and Louise de Savoie, Marguerite was born on 11 April 1492 in Angoulême, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwestern France, but was raised in Cognac, a town in the same region that is today known for its homonymous drink. There, her brother Francis was born two years later.
The Angoulême court was full of scholars, artists, and singers, offering a unique learning environment for the children, particularly fostered by Louise, whose motto was “libris et liberis” (for books and for children). From the start Marguerite displayed a keen intelligence.
When Charles de Valois died unexpectedly in 1496, nineteen-year-old Louise continued to raise her children, hiring respected scholars for their education. Two years later, upon the sudden death of King Charles VIII, four-year-old Francis was declared heir presumptive in the distant case that the next king, Louis XII, died without a male heir. For this reason, Francis, his mother, and his sister were invited to move first to the royal residence in Blois, then to the court in Amboise, and finally to Paris.
In 1509, soon after their last move, Marguerite was given in marriage to another Charles, the Duke of Alençon. This was definitely not her choice, since a courtier reported that she “wept enough to carve out a stone” during the whole wedding ceremony. She then moved to the castle of Alençon, a luxurious place with no books (she had to request them from her previous libraries, together with scholars).
Besides reading, Marguerite became involved in charitable programs, visiting the poor and organizing a program to eliminate the need for begging by building hospitals, hospices, and almhouses, raising funds to maintain them, and supervising them personally. She levied regulations on financial care for poor unmarried mothers before and after they gave birth, and imposed sanctions on monks and nuns who abandoned or killed unwanted children (born of rape or illicit sexual relations – a sad situation described in several medieval texts).
Dangerous Liaisons
In 1514, the distant possibility for Francis to become king became reality because Louis XII died unexpectedly, leaving only two daughters. Marguerite, who had always been close to her brother, was soon named “La mignonne du roi de France” (the Sweetheart to the King of France).
In the meantime, she became familiar with some of the current reformist ideas of Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther, but she was particularly influenced by Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples, one of the most respected professors of philosophy in Paris, who promoted, among other things, the printing and circulation of the Bible in French, together with some commentaries.
Lefèvre introduced Marguerite to Guillaume Briçonnet, bishop of Meaux, who became her faithful correspondent. Firmly committed to their cause, she supported the printing and distribution of evangelical essays and tracts. although both Briçonnet and Lefèvre were ruled as “in error” by the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris. Highly critical of Reformist ideas, the Faculty investigated and threatened anyone who seemed to deviate from Roman Catholic doctrines.
One of Marguerite’s protégés, Louis de Berquin, raised the Faculty’s suspicions when he omitted supplications to Mary and the saints in a booklet on prayer. Further examination found him guilty of sympathizing with Lutheran teachings. He was burned at the stake in spite of Marguerite’s intercession. He was only one of the many friends of Marguerite who were executed.
At first, King Francis was open to the new ideas and backed Marguerite on her requests for leniency. Soon, however, political pressures became too strong, and he sided with the Roman Catholic authorities. In spite of her dangerous connections, Marguerite was spared from investigations and was able to continue her support of dissenters. These famously included John Calvin, who spent some time at her castle when fleeing from Paris.
Wife, Sister, Mother, and Aunt
In 1525, Marguerite’s husband Charles returned mortally wounded from the disastrous battle of Pavia, where Francis was captured and held for ransom.
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The church is a people, not a place or a statistic. It’s a body, united into him who is the head. It’s a family, joined together by adoption through Christ. I pray that we pastors would increasingly recognize our awesome responsibility for the particular flocks over which God has made us undershepherds.

A Jarring Conversation
During my graduate studies, I remember one conversation with a friend who worked for a Christian ministry that was not affiliated with any one church. He and I did attend the same church for a couple of years. But while I joined the church as a member, my friend didn’t. In fact, he only came for the Sunday morning service and would slip in about halfway through, just in time for the sermon.
One day, I decided to ask him about his half-hearted attendance. “I don’t really get anything out of the rest of the service,” he replied.
“Have you ever thought of joining the church?” I asked.
He appeared genuinely surprised by my question and responded, “Join the church? I honestly don’t know why I would do that. I know what I’m here for, and those people would just slow me down.”
As far as I could tell, he didn’t say those words disdainfully, but with the genuine zeal of a gifted evangelist who did not want to waste one hour of the Lord’s time. He had given some thought to what he was looking for in a church. And on the whole it didn’t involve the other members of the church, at least not that church. He wanted a place where he could hear good preaching from God’s word and get his spiritual jolt for the week.
Yet his words reverberated in my mind—“Those people would just slow me down.” There were a number of things I wanted to say, but all I said was, “Did you ever think that if you linked arms with those people, yes, they may slow you down, but you may help to speed them up? Have you thought that might be a part of God’s plan for them, and for you?”
I, too, wanted a church where I could hear good preaching every Sunday. But the words “body of Christ” mean more than just that, don’t they?
A People, Not a Place
The church is not a place. It’s not a building. It’s not a preaching point. It’s not a spiritual service provider. It’s a people—the new-covenant, blood-bought people of God. That’s why Paul said, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). He didn’t give himself up for a place, but for a people.
That’s why the church I pastor starts its Sunday morning gatherings not by saying, “Welcome to Capitol Hill Baptist Church,” but “Welcome to this gathering of the Capitol Hill Baptist Church.” We are a people who gather. Yes, this is a small thing, but we’re trying to point to a big reality even in the words we use to welcome people.
Remembering that the church is a people should help us recognize what’s important and what’s not important. I know I need the help. For example, I have a temptation to let something like the style of music dictate how I feel about a church. After all, the style of music a church uses is one of the first things we will notice about any church, and we tend to respond to music at a very emotional level. Music makes us feel a certain way. Yet what does it say about my love for Christ and for Christ’s people if I decide to leave a church because of the style of its music? Or if, when pastoring a church, I marginalize a majority of my congregation because I think the style of music needs to be updated?
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As usual, the newspapers reported on the Burning Man storm as an art festival that got rained out, which shows you why no one should read them to find out what’s actually going on in the world. But that’s another story. God cannot be silenced, and His glory and love are too powerful to be mocked forever.

A few weeks ago, millions of Americans learned for the first time about a new modern religion, because of a flash flood in the desert of Western Nevada that left some 75,000 people dangerously stranded. What were 75,000 people doing in a barren desert?
Revelry in the Desert
They were at a weeklong pagan festival called Burning Man where they go live in the desert every year for a week of revelry. Elon Musk calls it Silicon Valley’s annual must-go retreat. If so, then Silicon Valley is more of a problem than you or I had imagined.
The schedule is punctuated by a host of quasi-religious rituals. The makeshift city that hosts it boasts an Orgy Dome with long lines of people waiting to enter and do exactly what its name says. (If that seems unlikely, feel free to confirm it however you like, but be aware that what you find will be disturbing. I do not care to supply a link.)
The entire complex is centered around two freshly built structures: one of them a temple, and the other some form of massive depiction of all mankind. At the end of the week, they ritually burn the temple and the “man,” which is where they get the name Burning Man.
This year they built and burned the Temple of the Heart and the 60 ft. tall Chapel of Babel, respectively. Revelers spend months preparing for it, partly because if you are not properly outfitted you could die in the waterless heat, and partly because everyone is supposed to contribute something to the affair. If that isn’t a religion, then the word religion has no meaning.
Behind the Burning Rituals
Burning rituals are fundamental to religions as different as Buddhism, Hinduism, Molech, and that of the Vikings. There is a reason: They all reject the body. The physical world on the whole is regarded with suspicion (hence the need to escape it), but specifically the human body is regarded as an enemy in which the soul is imprisoned for the time being.
Our own bodies are the great enemy of our souls, and everything fixed about them is the enemy of the spirit which longs to be free from captivity and return to somewhere or something or nothing at all. The rainbow-trans flag which adorned the wall of the Burning Man chapel serves as testament to their rejection of the sanctity of the body and of the natural order.
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