[the pearl of pearls ]. So Francois called his sister
(Marguerite de Valois), authoress of the Heptameron. She married
twice: first, the Duc d'Alencon, and then Henri d'Albret, king of
Navarre, and was the mother of Henry IV. of France. Henri [IV.] married
a Marguerite, but this Marguerite was the daughter of Henri II. and
Catherine de Medicis. The former befriended the Huguenots, the latter
was a rigid Catholic, like her mother.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
