This sympathetic framing was not universal.

Other accounts — particularly those oriented toward the more conventional moral lessons of the day — framed the story as one in which transgression was appropriately punished and redemption was available through suffering and faith.

Within this framework, the ordeal was terrible but just, a consequence that Marguerite brought upon herself through her own behavior.

Both frameworks were available in the sixteenth century, and both were applied to her story.

The tension between them is itself historically revealing — it shows that even in an era when male authority over women was almost entirely unquestioned in law and custom, there were voices willing to say that this particular exercise of that authority had gone too far.