The youngest daughter of Catherine de Medici, the infamous Queen Margot. For thousands of years people have discussed her beauty, talked about her affair, her many lovers, who remembers that she was just a simple little princess named Margaret in the royal palace? Who remembers that she was just a victim of royal power? Today we are going to tell the story of margaret de Valois, the little princess of the Valois dynasty, throughout her life.
Margaret de Valois
Before the main text, it is necessary to popularize the Huguenot tips:
Huguenots, also translated as Huguenots and Hughinnots, are the names of the Protestant Calvinist church in France. The symbol of Huguenotism is the Huguenot Cross, which has now become the official symbol of the Protestant Church in France. In short, the Huguenots were the largest Protestant denomination in France in the 16th century and the face of Protestant forces.
Massacre of St. Bartholomew
After introducing the synopsis, we can enter the theme of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. In the early morning of August 24, 1572, important figures of the Huguenots gathered in Paris to celebrate the wedding of Henry, the Protestant leader of the Bourbon family. Tens of thousands of radical Catholics in Paris, together with police soldiers, carried out a bloody massacre of Huguenots in the city. They drew a white cross in front of the Huguenot dwelling, broke into the house at night, killed most of the people who were still asleep, and then threw the bodies into the Seine. The massacre lasted for months, and following the Massacre in Paris, many other French towns also slaughtered Huguenots, thus beginning a protracted religious war.
Margaret de Valois was the seventh child and third daughter of King Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici. Little Margaret had a good relationship with her brothers, both François and Henry were very fond of her little sister, and her brother Charlie gave her a nickname called "Margot". This is the origin of the future Queen Margot.
Speaking of her sister Elizabeth, she once said that although Catherine de Medici herself was not good-looking, she would give birth, and several of her children were amazingly beautiful. Especially little Margaret, innocent, lively, and enthusiastic, makes this girl very beautiful and charming. Isabelle Adjani's Queen Margot gives Margaret a pure and debauched temperament, and at the age of forty she is still heartbreakingly beautiful.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" > princess's fate is a political marriage</h1>
Born in the imperial family, enjoying the most luxurious life in the world, the fate of the princess has long been predestined. The same was true of Margaret, who, when she grew into a little girl, was put on the table for various marriage plans.
Let's take a look at this list of marriage partners:
Carlos, Prince of Asturias, Spain (Margaret's sister married his father Philip II);
Carlos, Prince of Asturias, Spain
King Sebastião of Portugal, negotiations were unsuccessful;
King Sebastião of Portugal
Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, marriage negotiations were also unsuccessful.
Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II
After the death of her sister Elizabeth, her mother Catherine attempted to marry Margaret to widower's brother-in-law Philip II, which also ended in failure.
In addition to these marriage partners, does the young girl Margaret have a lover? Yes, she fell in love with the third Duke of Guise, Henry I de Lorraine. Margaret, who fell in love, asked her mother to marry her lover, but she was doomed to disappointment, because at this time the religious struggle in France was very serious, and the form could be said to be on the verge of breaking out. The Valois family of the French royal family has been struggling to maintain a balance between Catholicism and Protestantism, how is it possible to marry a princess into the Guise family, the backbone of the opposition to the French Huguenots?
Henry I, Duke of Guise, 3rd generation
In order to break up the lovers, Henri de Lorraine's court position was abolished and he was soon forced to marry the Queen's goddaughter, Catherine de Clive.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="56" > blood-stained wedding</h1>
Marriages between countries are actually political negotiations, and after several failed political marriages planned by Catherine, she changed the "use" of her daughter in a different direction. In order to stabilize French internal rule, Margaret's brother Charles IX and mother Catherine planned to marry Margot the Catholic Margot to the Protestant Crown Prince Henry of Navarre. It was a very bold plan, because Henry was no more than king of a small country in northern Spain and a distant relative of the Valois royal family. More importantly, he was a Protestant.
Henry IV
Perhaps among the commoners, marriages between different denominations were commonplace, but this was the first time in the European ruling class that such a political marriage had occurred.
This was followed by lengthy marriage negotiations, with Henry's mother Jeanne Dabret and Margaret's mother Catherine both holding the idea of changing each other's beliefs, which was undoubtedly impossible. Eventually, they signed a draft treaty at the Château de Blois, making it clear that the marriage would not require both parties to change their religion.
Not long after the marriage was concluded, Henry's mother Jeanne died, and there is a theory that Empress Catherine poisoned Queen Juana.
Henry's mother, Jeanne
On August 18, 1572, the two newlyweds held their wedding ceremony. The ceremony was held in the vestibule of notre dame cathedral, where Protestant Henry refused to enter the Mass Hall of any Catholic church.
It is said that at the wedding scene, Henry said to Charles IX, "You killed my mother, and now I am going to marry your prostitute!" Of course, it wasn't henry who was dissatisfied with the wedding, and at the grand wedding, when the beautiful bride Margaret was asked if she would like to marry the groom, her chest rose and fell violently, but she raised her head high and did not say a word. All the onlookers looked at each other, and everyone was silent. King Charles IX of France was furious and rushed up and pressed Margot's head down, forcing her to agree, and the ridiculous wedding went smoothly.
Margo rescues the Protestants who fled to her room
Then, it was the infamous "Massacre of St. Bartholomew", which was stained with blood overnight in Paris. Henry, King of Navarre, was arrested and forced to convert to Catholicism. Catherine proposes that Margot annul the marriage be annulled under the pretext of a bloody massacre, but Margaret refuses, and she is placed under house arrest with Henry at the Louvre.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="61" > a vortex of conspiracy and power</h1>
Although Margo decided to stand with her husband Henry, it didn't mean she liked the rugged man who liked to drink and eat garlic bread. Margot is becoming more and more libertine-shaped skeletons, and there are countless male pets. She even taunted in front of her mother and brother: "You have built the future of France on the bed of a prostitute".
Queen Margot
After 4 years in captivity, Crown Prince Henry of Navarre finally escaped from Paris. It is now uncertain whether Margaret was involved in her escape plan, but she remains suspicious of her mother and brother and placed under house arrest at the Louvre. But strangely, if Margaret released the water, why didn't she run away with Henry? After a long period of negotiations, Margot was finally allowed to defect to her husband, but unfortunately, years of separation had made the two people's feelings very distant. The husband has many lovers, and Margot is not weak, she and Henry play each other, and often quarrel.
She had no pampering, they had no children, and Margot seemed to have caught nothing in this marriage.
In 1582, Margot fell seriously ill and decided to return to the French royal family. However, her brother Henry III, who had loved her as a child, threw her out. She returned to her husband's country, staged a coup d'état in her fiefage of Agen and seized power. Then she was imprisoned by her disfigured brother Henry III at The Usson Castle in Auvergne, where she spent 18 years.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="64" > queen who dissolved her marriage</h1>
In 1589, Henry III was stabbed to death in the Jacobin Monastery by a monk, Jacques Clement. Childless, the throne was succeeded by Henry of Navarre, who openly converted to Catholicism, known historically as Henry IV.
Henry III
Margot should have been able to be called Queen Margot at this point, but she and Henry had a bad relationship and never had any children. So Margo did a very correct thing, she agreed to dissolve the marriage contract between the two parties, and from then on, they were separated and happy.
Divorced, the relationship between the two has returned to harmony. While Margot was in trouble, she sold her jewelry and returned to Paris to become a consultant to poor artists and patrons. He also reconciled with her ex-husband's second wife, Marie de' Medici, to provide court event planning services to the royal family. In addition, Margot wrote a memoir, recounting the lives of her brothers and ex-husband in the form of a story, which was deeply loved by the public.
In 1615, Margaret de Valois died, her mother, brothers, and brothers had all died before that, and as the last drop of the Valois family's bloodline, her death represented the complete demise of the dynasty.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="68" > merry beauty</h1>
Don Juan of Austria once wrote this for Margot: "Her appearance is only comparable to that of a goddess in heaven, and it is condescending to ask her to be a princess on earth." Her brilliance could not save men, but could only lead them to the path of destruction. Every smile she makes us go to hell. ”
Stills from the movie Queen Margot
Because of her beauty, Queen Margot appeared in later writings as a debauched and depraved queen. In fact, Margot did have many lovers, among whom Joseph Boniface de La mole was believed to be her true love, and Dumas's Queen Margot portrayed Larmor as a beautiful man who beheaded Margot Henry III to save Margot. After the defeat of the struggle, he suffered inhuman torture, his nails were all pulled out, his bones and bones were broken, and he finally fell on the guillotine. Margot, on the other hand, privately bought the executioner to see her lover's body and kissed and stole his head.
What a sad and romantic passage, in Stendhal's The Red and the Black, Martel stole his head even after he died.
The Capetian dynasty ended with the last king, Charles IV, childless, and Philip VI began the reign of the Valois dynasty. The death of Henry III also ended the Valois dynasty, and the Bourbon dynasty officially arose.
Margot witnessed the brutal struggle of religion, witnessed the demise of the Valois dynasty, and saw that in the face of power and interests, affection and love were vulnerable. Her whole life has been in political power, and her whole life has been sacrificed, and those conspiracies and tricks and the exchange of benefits have filled every part of her life. She could not continue to love the family who had hurt her, nor did she love Henry IV. She just struggled to resist this sad fate, but like an insect caught in a cobweb, the more she struggled, the more painful it became.
A life of entanglement begins with that blood-soaked wedding and ends at the end of life. After the prosperity, there is nothing left in the land.