Queen Margot, A Story of Scandalous Loves and Survival

I have to admit that I have always been fascinated with this lady and the incredible story of her life.   Marguerite de Valois , nicknamed La Reine Margot was born into French royalty in the year of 1553.

She grew up in the Louvre, which was the royal palace to the kings of France, long before Versailles.  Though she was raised in luxurious surroundings and all the gilt and glamour of royalty, she came from one of the most pathological royal families in French history.

Her life inspired several books and a movie that portrayed her in not the best of light. She has been called a nymphomaniac and even a whore, but I don’t think she was either.

She was instead a very resourceful, intelligent and powerful woman who survived the worse of betrayal and abuse.  Considering her upbringing, she could have turned out much worse.

She experienced death and loss as early as  6 years old, when her father King Henry II, was killed in a jousting accident. Her oldest brother Francois II went on to the throne and died a year later at only 16.     By the time she was 15, she had already lived through the death of 5 of her siblings!

Her mother Catherine de Medici was not gifted in maternal matters of affection , though she had 10 children in all.  Marguerite longed to be close to her mother, yet feared her wrath, and knew she was not the favored one from the start.

Catherine de Medici was ruthless and mean, who along with her 2 sons plotted and pulled off the Saint Barthelemy Massacre, and was suspected of murdering several others, including Marguerite’s future mother in law Jeanne d’Albret.

There is a room in the Chateau de Blois, where she kept her multiple poisons for her misdeeds. She seemed to enjoy dominating and controlling her children with fear, and often pivoted them against each other.

Though Marguerite had 2 sisters, she was more socialized by her brothers, and there were rumours of sexual abuse by them.  Her mother favored one of her brothers who became Henry III, the most despicable King of France.  His hatred against Marguerite would plague her till his death.

Marguerite grew up in an era where marriages were arranged, therefore infidelity was expected in men and tolerated at best by their wives.  Her father Henry II made no effort to hide his beloved mistress Diane de Poitiers and it was with her that he had his first child, a daughter.

By the time she was 16, Marguerite was offered to the future king of Portugal, but was blamed for it falling through, because of a teenage romance she preferred with the Duc de Guise., who would remain one of her favorite lovers.

It was then arranged for her to marry the King of Navarre, who was a protestant at that time and even a distant cousin.  He was later to become Henri IV, King of France.

The marriage took place on August 18th, 1572 at Notre Dame cathedral.  It was only 6 days later that the Barthelemy Massacre occurred, a horrible omen that panned out to be true.

The couple managed to keep separate from each other more often than not.    Hard to say who ended up having the most affairs, but Henri had at least 12 illegitimate children and Marguerite none.  Despite their scandalous lifestyle,  they surprisingly remained as least civil friends.

During a sumptuous banquet at the Louvre in August 1583, and while Henri was away in Navarre, her cruel brother King Henri III had her arrested for her multiple infidelities, which he considered an embarrassment to the family and the throne.

Poor Margot was  literally shipped off into exile in Auvergne.  Husband Henri IV never really protested and neither her mother who then had her disinherited from her estate.

Our resourceful Margot, not to be outdone, proceeded to seduce her guardian/captor and lived for the next 17 years in fairly luxurious captivity.  .  Shunned by the court but not forgotten by any means, she managed to continue her amorous adventures  hidden away.

During her exile her shameless brother, KIng Henri III, punished her even more by killing her old lover the Duc de Guise in a bloody attack at the Chateau de Blois.

During this time husband Henri became King Henri IV of France and smitten with his latest mistress Gabrielle d’Estrees, started an annulment process in order to marry anew.  After much negotiation, Margot was able to retrieve promises to keep her title and money to live it the style she was accustomed to.

She then agreed to the annulment which was granted in 1599, after 27 years of “marriage”.  Free at last, she returned to Paris in 1605.

By this time she was in her 50’s and she settled in the Hotel de Sens, which stands  today in the Marais close to the Seine.

She quickly resumed her old lifestyle, but an assassination of her young lover by a rival to her heart, brought out the worst of her and she impulsively sentenced him to death.

Up until then Margot had never shown any of violence so wickedly displayed by her mother and brothers.

During the last decade of her life, Henri IV remarried not to his mistress, who died, but to Marie de Medici.   Marguerite remained good friends with her ex husband and his new wife Marie, and was said to be nurturing to their children and comforting to his widow, when Henri IV was assassinated in 1610.

By this time she had retreated to a new palace, across the Seine from the Louvre, built just for her.   It was there she died in March of 1615,  having outlived all others of her immediate family.

Some might hail her as one of the earliest feminists of her day, who refused to take a back seat  to the double standard of  male debauchery and infidelity.   She shoved the decadent morals of French royalty back into their face, and turned the tables living with the same libertine values that only males had been able to get away with .

She endured the punishment and took the blunt of blame for her own behavior that mirrored their own immorality.  She had the guts to outwit her captors and live her life imprisoned as  best she could in face of humiliation and disgrace.

Her over sexualized behavior was most likely a compensation to fill a chronic need to be loved, as she grew up without her father, and was emotionally neglected and abused by her own mother.  I still see this type of behavior often with women who have had father loss and neglect.

With all the death and dying she lived through at such a tender age she probably also had fears of prolonged intimacy, often seen in those who experienced such trauma.

Despite the abuse from her mother and cruel hatred from her brother, she never took revenge or returned anger towards either of them.  If anything she tried to placate them and offered reconciliation.

She also displayed good graces towards her ex husband and new wife.  Generous acts of friendships were recorded to both, and that in itself has much merit and is rarely seen today!

With the depraved murderous minds of her mother and brothers that she grew up with, I find it incredible that Margot never used violence towards others, except once impulsively, when she was crushed by grief in her later years.

All in all Marguerite de Valois was an exceptional and remarkable woman who survived the worst sorts of abusive childhoods.   Certainly she carried many scars , but at least she turned her anguish and trauma into generous loving and kindness,  rather than bitterness, anger and hate.