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“…que toutes les choses du monde avaient deux faces (…) que, comme la prudence conseillait de vivre avec ses amis comme devant un jour être ses ennemis, pour ne leur confier rien de trop, qu’aussi l’amitié venant à se rompre et pouvant nuire, elle ordonnait d’user de ses ennemis comme pouvant être un jour amis.”
“That all things in the world have two faces (…) that, just like prudence advises to live with one’s friends like they might one day have to become enemies, and not tell them anything superfluous, it also, given that friendship can come to an end and can cause harm, orders to treat one’s enemies like they might one day be friends.”
“Et la tristesse, contraire à la joie qui emporte hors de nous les pensées de nos actions, réveille nôtre âme en soi-même, qui, rassemblant toutes ses forces pour rejeter le Mal et chercher le Bien, pense et repense sans cesse pour choisir ce souverain bien, auquel pour assurance elle puisse trouver quelque tranquilité.”
“And sadness, contrary to joy which carries the thoughts of our actions outside of us, wakens our soul to itself, which, collecting all its forces to reject Evil and search for Good, thinks and thinks unceasingly in order to choose this sovereign good, with which for reassurance it might find some tranquility.”
—
The memoirs of the wife of the king of France whose funeral I once attended, in a theatrical re-performance of the music written for that occasion.
Intelligent, proud, biased, defensive, spiteful, honest, not entirely honest, detailed, vivid, loving, hating: Marguerite is not a likable person in all respects, but she comes through in her writings extremely real, and I like her a great deal.
Marguerite’s life story is highly eventful even with its long periods of semi-imprisonment: she is born into the heart of the royal family of France during the sixteenth-century wars of religion, and to keep herself safe she has to contend with all that the affairs of the Court can throw at her. She is surrounded by her difficult mother, Catherine de’Medici, who holds tightly onto the reins of politics; her brother, king Charles IX, who cannot assert himself against their mother; her younger brother Francois, whom she favors; and her brother king Henry III who, proud, brillant, irascible, and slow to forget a grievance, is the one she most resembles.
The massacre of protestants surrounding her wedding went down in history as the Night of Saint-Barthélemy. Then: her husband Henry of Navarre, who would become Henry IV, who neglects her for his mistresses and from whom she is separated by their different religions; her political position between the Catholics and the Protestants, the nobles and the king, the opportunists and the zealots; and her own furious and often counterproductive efforts to be a player in the game and not merely a pawn.
For a good portion of her later life she was quasi-imprisoned in a castle in the central regions of France, and it is in this time that she wrote her Memoirs. The events described, however, belong to the earlier part of her life, and the story cuts off very abruptly - either she did not finish it, or the later parts have been lost. What she describes is thus with the benefit and agendas of hindsight, either to make interpretations fit with the shape politics and allegiances turned out to take, or just to relive events and adventures past with the distance and illuminations of memory.
This book was in some ways a very relaxing thing to read, because Marguerite would always have a worse day than I did, but not in a way that made me feel too bad for her or oppressed me with the horrors of the universe. Her mother is mad at her! For something she did not do! Her lover is cold and uncaring! People tried to attack and kill her lover, but luckily only succeeded in killing someone they mistook for him! She has to be in the South of France instead of in Paris! The king of France her brother is mad at her other brother for something that he absolutely did do, but she’s taking his side anyway! She had to escape from Flanders in a hurry and leave her golden carriage behind! She let her brother escape from her tower window and her maids are not managing to successfully burn the rope…
Marguerite’s world is in many ways still very medieval high courtly - there are tournaments, favors given by ladies to their favorites, codes of honor held to and broken - but it is also a time of change, of the increased propagation of new ways of thinking, and of the painful and bitterly felt tearing of Europe’s religious unity. These Memoirs are a cold but luminous window on a time period that in the end can only be regarded with the bitter clarity that Marguerite does, even though she has some very large blind spots regarding the value of lives outside of her noble circles. Her telling is rich with fury about injustices now past (in Marguerite’s case her personal ones, but we can think of others), but also with attention for the things that were beautiful and extraordinary - and most of all with the stamp of her own desires, opinions, and personality, so that you can read Marguerite tell you her own version of the story of her life with a directness not impeded by the passing of centuries.
“That all things in the world have two faces (…) that, just like prudence advises to live with one’s friends like they might one day have to become enemies, and not tell them anything superfluous, it also, given that friendship can come to an end and can cause harm, orders to treat one’s enemies like they might one day be friends.”
“Et la tristesse, contraire à la joie qui emporte hors de nous les pensées de nos actions, réveille nôtre âme en soi-même, qui, rassemblant toutes ses forces pour rejeter le Mal et chercher le Bien, pense et repense sans cesse pour choisir ce souverain bien, auquel pour assurance elle puisse trouver quelque tranquilité.”
“And sadness, contrary to joy which carries the thoughts of our actions outside of us, wakens our soul to itself, which, collecting all its forces to reject Evil and search for Good, thinks and thinks unceasingly in order to choose this sovereign good, with which for reassurance it might find some tranquility.”
—
The memoirs of the wife of the king of France whose funeral I once attended, in a theatrical re-performance of the music written for that occasion.
Intelligent, proud, biased, defensive, spiteful, honest, not entirely honest, detailed, vivid, loving, hating: Marguerite is not a likable person in all respects, but she comes through in her writings extremely real, and I like her a great deal.
Marguerite’s life story is highly eventful even with its long periods of semi-imprisonment: she is born into the heart of the royal family of France during the sixteenth-century wars of religion, and to keep herself safe she has to contend with all that the affairs of the Court can throw at her. She is surrounded by her difficult mother, Catherine de’Medici, who holds tightly onto the reins of politics; her brother, king Charles IX, who cannot assert himself against their mother; her younger brother Francois, whom she favors; and her brother king Henry III who, proud, brillant, irascible, and slow to forget a grievance, is the one she most resembles.
The massacre of protestants surrounding her wedding went down in history as the Night of Saint-Barthélemy. Then: her husband Henry of Navarre, who would become Henry IV, who neglects her for his mistresses and from whom she is separated by their different religions; her political position between the Catholics and the Protestants, the nobles and the king, the opportunists and the zealots; and her own furious and often counterproductive efforts to be a player in the game and not merely a pawn.
For a good portion of her later life she was quasi-imprisoned in a castle in the central regions of France, and it is in this time that she wrote her Memoirs. The events described, however, belong to the earlier part of her life, and the story cuts off very abruptly - either she did not finish it, or the later parts have been lost. What she describes is thus with the benefit and agendas of hindsight, either to make interpretations fit with the shape politics and allegiances turned out to take, or just to relive events and adventures past with the distance and illuminations of memory.
This book was in some ways a very relaxing thing to read, because Marguerite would always have a worse day than I did, but not in a way that made me feel too bad for her or oppressed me with the horrors of the universe. Her mother is mad at her! For something she did not do! Her lover is cold and uncaring! People tried to attack and kill her lover, but luckily only succeeded in killing someone they mistook for him! She has to be in the South of France instead of in Paris! The king of France her brother is mad at her other brother for something that he absolutely did do, but she’s taking his side anyway! She had to escape from Flanders in a hurry and leave her golden carriage behind! She let her brother escape from her tower window and her maids are not managing to successfully burn the rope…
Marguerite’s world is in many ways still very medieval high courtly - there are tournaments, favors given by ladies to their favorites, codes of honor held to and broken - but it is also a time of change, of the increased propagation of new ways of thinking, and of the painful and bitterly felt tearing of Europe’s religious unity. These Memoirs are a cold but luminous window on a time period that in the end can only be regarded with the bitter clarity that Marguerite does, even though she has some very large blind spots regarding the value of lives outside of her noble circles. Her telling is rich with fury about injustices now past (in Marguerite’s case her personal ones, but we can think of others), but also with attention for the things that were beautiful and extraordinary - and most of all with the stamp of her own desires, opinions, and personality, so that you can read Marguerite tell you her own version of the story of her life with a directness not impeded by the passing of centuries.
