Two years after Marguerite's birth, the family moved from Angoulême to Cognac, "where the Italian influence reigned supreme, and where Boccaccio was looked upon as a little less than a god".

Thanks to her mother, who was only nineteen when widowed, Marguerite was carefully tutored from her earliest childhood and given a classical education that included Latin.

[4] When Marguerite was ten, Louise tried to marry her to the Prince of Wales, who would later become Henry VIII of England, but the alliance was courteously rebuffed.

With this decree, Marguerite was forced to marry a generally kind but practically illiterate man for political expediency—"the radiant young princess of the violet-blue eyes... had become the bride of a laggard and a dolt".

Following the example set by her mother, Marguerite became the most influential woman in France during her lifetime when her brother acceded to the crown as Francis I in 1515.

A Venetian ambassador of that time praised Marguerite as knowing all the secrets of diplomatic art, hence to be treated with deference and circumspection.

Marguerite's most remarkable adventure involved freeing her brother, King Francis I, who had been held prisoner in Spain by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor after being captured in the Battle of Pavia, Italy, 1525.

Scholars believe that her grief motivated Marguerite to write her most controversial work, Miroir de l'âme pécheresse (The Mirror of the Sinful Soul), in 1531.

Her most notable works are a classic collection of short stories, the Heptaméron, and a remarkably intense religious poem, Miroir de l'âme pécheresse (The Mirror of the Sinful Soul).

Dentière responded in 1539 with the Epistre tres utile, commonly known today as the Epistle to Marguerite de Navarre.

It is conjectured that Marguerite gave Anne the original manuscript of Miroir de l'âme pécheresse at some point.

[16] This literary connection between Marguerite, Anne Boleyn, Katherine Parr, and Elizabeth suggests a direct mentoring link or legacy of reformist religious convictions.

The Dutch humanist Erasmus wrote to her: "For a long time I have cherished all the many excellent gifts that God bestowed upon you; prudence worthy of a philosopher; chastity; moderation; piety; an invincible strength of soul, and a marvelous contempt for all the vanities of this world.

Henri, her husband, King of Navarre, believed in what she was doing, even to the extent of setting up a public works system that became a model for France.

Jules Michelet (1798–1874), the most celebrated historian of his time, wrote of her: "Let us always remember this tender Queen of Navarre, in whose arms our people, fleeing from prison or the pyre, found safety, honor, and friendship.

Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), French philosopher and critic, whose Dictionnaire historique et critique (Historical and Critical Dictionary, 1697) greatly influenced the French Encyclopedists and the rationalist philosophers of the eighteenth century, such as Voltaire and Diderot, esteemed her highly, writing: "... for a queen to grant her protection to people persecuted for opinions which she believes to be false; to open a sanctuary to them; to preserve them from the flames prepared for them; to furnish them with a subsistence; liberally to relieve the troubles and inconveniences of their exile, is an heroic magnanimity which has hardly any precedent ..."