Margaret of Lorraine
Margaret of Lorraine, French Marguerite de Lorraine (* 1463 Castle Vaudémont (Lorraine ); † November 2, 1521 in Argentan ) was a Duchess of Alençon and a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis and is venerated in the Roman Catholic Church as Blessed.
Life
Margaret was the daughter of Count Frederick II of Vaudémont and his wife Jolanda of Anjou. Since her father died in 1470, she spent the next ten years of her childhood and youth his mother at the court of her grandfather, René I of Anjou, in Avignon. Like her siblings, she was brought up very religiously. After the death of her grandfather in 1480 she came back to her brother René II of Lorraine to the yard where she was favorably influenced by her sister Philippa of funds.
At the age of 25 years, Margaret married on 14 May 1488 Toul the Duke René of Alençon. The marriage produced three children:
- Charles IV (* 1489, † 1525), Duke of Alençon, husband of Margaret of Angoulême
- Françoise ( * 1490, † September 14, 1550 ), first wife of Duke Francis II of Longueville, then the Duke Charles IV of Vendome
- Anne (* October 30, 1492, † October 18, 1562 ), wife of the Margrave Wilhelm XI. of Montferrat
René of Alençon showed great understanding of the religious exercises of his wife Margaret and donated for them to Alençon, a Poor Clare Monastery, which she often visited for worship. Already after four years of marriage, died René of Alençon (November 1, 1492). His widow practiced almost 20 years prudently, sensibly, righteously from the regency in the country. She devoted herself especially the righteous upbringing and befitting marriage of their children. At that time she began under the influence of a friend of hers, St. Francis of Paula to lead an ascetic life. She founded numerous churches and Klarissenklöster and had also built hospitals for the poor and sick.
After the marriage of her eldest son Charles IV ( 1509 ) Margaret retired from court life and pursued since a purely ecclesiastical career. But in her castle Essai near Sées they chastened around so much that she told the Bishop of Sées for moderation. 1513, she joined in Mortagne the Third Order of St. Francis at. She stepped into the 1519 donated by her Klarissenkloster to Argentan, but did not want to be the abbess, but led a simple and abstemious life. On October 11, 1520, she passed her final vows. On November 2, 1521, she died at the age of 58 years in their monastery in Argentan and was buried there.
About her daughter Françoise Margaret was the great-grandmother of the French King Henry IV
Beatification
King Louis XIII. of France suggested that Pope Urban VIII put a beatification process for Margarete in motion and thereby let the virtuous life of the Duchess of Alençon and allegedly caused by them investigate miracles. Her grave was opened on 19 October 1624 it should have been found unharmed, her body. But the process did not come to her beatification completed. In the resolution of their worship of Margaret 's remains were transferred to the church of St. Germain d' Argentan, but buried in 1793, after the outbreak of the French Revolution, desecrated by the Jacobins and in a public cemetery. Pope Benedict XV. confirmed on March 10, 1921 officially the cult of Margaret as blessed of the Catholic Church. When her feast day was her death anniversary, November 2, fixed.