The woman we are going to introduce today is the sister of a King Henry, the wife of another King Henry, or the lover of the third Duke Henry. The fact that there are so many ambiguous relationships with the supreme power of the state does not mean that he is the darling of all kinds, but rather that he has become the focus of many contradictions, his name is Margaret de Valois, and she has another, known to the world, called Queen Margot.
Dumas, a famous popular novelist of the 19th century, once wrote a novel and play of the same name. This thrilling fictional text was first serialized in the Parisian newspaper ElMasse in 1844. Dumas was not alone in the battle, he formed a "novel factory" and worked with many shadow writers to carefully plan the content of the weekly newspaper.
In the second half of the sixteenth century, France was in the midst of the "Huguenot Wars", with brutal wars between Catholics and Protestants. And the interior of the court was also extravagant and corrupt. In order to quell the civil war, the Catholic French court decided to marry Princess Margaret to Henry, King of Navarre, the leader of the Protestants. Despised her husband, Margaret took to the streets in disguise on her wedding night to have fun, and met the Protestant nobleman La Moore.
Margot on the street
On August 24, 1572, the wedding ceremony was solemnly held in Paris. Just when people are immersed in the atmosphere of joy. Empress Catherine, on the other hand, ordered a bloody massacre of Protestants, the famous massacre in Western history, the "Night of St. Bartholomew". During the massacre, Margaret protected La Moore, who had fled to the gate.
Like all popular novels now, whether this work can make money depends entirely on whether it can attract the attention of the public and be liked by the readers at that time. It is therefore necessarily not a description in line with historical facts, but merely a joke.
And what we are most familiar with is probably not Dumas's version, but the film version played by the famous actress Isabelle Adjani in the 1990s. In this version, Adjani performs the image of a "sexy (neurotic)" woman who is crazy for lust and torn apart by various power relations, captivating thousands of male audiences.
On Margo's wedding night, Henry struggling to break away from Navarre
If you have seen this movie, you will find that there is no logic in this woman, and she often produces all kinds of fierce actions because of some direct stimuli, and confusingly, these actions are completely contradictory. The film doesn't explain why she warned her husband before the Holocaust, after all, she despised him so much; why she was moved by a dewy marriage, after all, she was a wandering lustful woman; and she didn't know why she finally left Paris with her husband.
In Queen Margot, she is beautiful but uncontrollable—neither controlled by anyone else nor herself, full of danger, sentimental, mysteriously powerful, yet fragile, and eager for redemption.
Of course, we need to know that this image is a sample of a "perfect lover" specially created for male consumers in modern society. Queen Margot is not the Margaret de Valois of history at all.
chip
Margaret de Valois was born in 1553, the beginning of modern Europe. In those days, royal women were like goods, waiting only for the right time to be sent to the right place and make political deals.
Her father and mother, Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici, were witnesses to the union of forces between France and the Church of Rome; the marriage of her eldest sister to Philip II of Spain was the end of the 65-year war between France and Spain over Italy; and the second sister was married to the Duke of Lorraine, the bond between the interests of the royal family and the extended family.
The Battle of Pavia, Spain's great victory over France, the turning point of the Italian War
Margaret's fate would not be any different. So who will she marry? The burden that fell on her was heavier.
Protestant forces have flourished since Martin Luther protested against the Church of Rome movement, with Huguenots imported from Switzerland taking root in southwestern France. The Catholic and Protestant forces in France were incompatible, and the country was sprinkled with water like a frying pan. To make matters worse, in 1559, Henry II, who was in his prime, died in the eye during a contest, and the firstborn son, François II, who had just ascended the throne the following year, fell ill and died, and the second son, Charles IX, took the throne at the age of 10.
The Lord is suspicious. Moreover, the widowed mother Catherine de Medici, who was in power, was an Italian and had no influence in France. Therefore, in order to maintain the stability of the dynasty, Margaret's mother wanted to marry her to Henry, King of Navarre in the Protestant South (he was also a member of the Bourbon family of the French royal family and was eligible to inherit the French throne). Because Juana, henry's mother, was the spiritual leader of the Huguenots, the marriage had the intention of stabilizing the Protestant forces in France and reconciling the contradictions between Catholicism and Protestantism. At the same time, in order to add weight to the protestant side, it slightly weakened the power of the Catholic leader Guiss family.
The "Black Widow" in the movie, the Empress Medici
The idea was bold, because Margaret was Catholic, Henry of Navarre was Protestant, and believers from different denominations were married, and even if it was a political marriage, it was groundbreaking.
slaughter
After a long negotiation, the two sides finally reached August 18, 1572, the year Margaret was 19 years old and Henry was 18 years old. They got married. A major matter of discussion between the two sides is that neither side needs to change their respective religious beliefs.
Even so, there was still a big problem: the Protestant King Of Navarre was reluctant to enter the Catholic Church, much less to attend a traditional Catholic wedding Mass. Although it was later agreed that the wedding would be held on a specially built open platform outside the church, after the wedding ceremony, the bride would enter the church to listen to Mass, and the groom and his entourage would stay outside the church, which was a reluctant solution, but it was clear how unreasonable the wedding was.
Unlike in the movies, the actual wedding is not held in the church, and the groom does not attend Mass
The wedding celebration and revelry lasted for 4 days, but before people could calm down, a notorious massacre took place.
It turned out that although the empress dowager's means of raising Protestantism temporarily suppressed the arrogance of the Guise family, the Protestant figures who were gradually rising were not puppets. Their regent at the royal court, Gaspar de Collini, was not only a minister of the navy, but also the most trusted father of King Charles IX, influencing France's decisions on foreign affairs.
Although France was defeated in the struggle against Spain, Spain was also caught in the quagmire of war at this time. The rebellion in the Netherlands, which had long been a Spanish dependency, was in the name of Protestantism. As a politician in a neighboring country and a Protestant, Coliny certainly advocated sending troops to support the Dutch revolution. The Catholic forces in France, on the other hand, saw the Dutch as traitors and wanted to unite with Spain to suppress the rebellion, or at least sit idly by.
Empress Catherine, as a well-known Catholic Medici family, was afraid that Charles IX would obey Coliny and send troops to assist the Netherlands against Spain, so she decided to eliminate Coliny and the Huguenots who were preparing to enter the war.
So on August 22, the Empress dowager sided with the Catholics again, and she instructed Henry of the Guise family to send someone to assassinate Coliny. Coliny was seriously injured. The news reached the ears of the king's entourage who were attending the wedding, and the indignant Huguenots shook their fists, ready to avenge Coliny.
In order to avoid repercussions, the king and the empress dowager decided to strike first, and launched a pursuit of protestants a few hours before dawn on Saint Bartholomew's Day on 24 August, killing all protestants in Paris.
An estimated 5,000-6,000 people were killed in the city of Paris alone, including women and children without the power of chickens. In the days that followed, the massacre spread across France and became a massive massacre.
split
After the massacre, the empress dowager also wanted to announce that the marriage was invalid because Margaret and Henry of Navarre did not have a round house. The Empress believed that since Margaret despised Henry, this proposal would definitely be supported by Margaret.
But little did she know that Margaret resented her mother equally, even more than she hated Henry. A large number of subjects were killed during her own wedding, and she knew that the Protestants were innocent, they were all guests who had come to her wedding to celebrate her becoming queen of Navarre, but they were ruthlessly betrayed.
Catherine de Medici inspects the results of the Holocaust
Moreover, even if he cut off Henry, he would one day be "sold" to other places by his mother and brother again. Who knows where the bad old man will be waiting for her next. She was at a romantic age, and Henry was young, and maybe it wasn't too bad a choice.
So, with anger, pity, and trepidation, she chose to stand with Henry, and hoped that when the haze of the Holocaust dissipated, they would become a real couple.
However, for Henry, it was much more difficult to accept Margaret. Needless to say, the Catholic's blood feud against the Protestants was purged after the massacre, and he himself was left in the Court of Paris like a hostage, humiliated. In particular, I had to see henry of the enemy Guise's family every day flaunting his might in the court, and he could only swallow his anger. Indignant, he never understood his wife's intentions, and only regarded her as a traitor installed by the royal family, and was very distant from her.
Margaret realized that from now on she was alone.
In November, the local rebellion in Huguenot resumed, and the king sent royal troops to Pactin. Henry of Navarre also went with him. With her husband gone, Margaret experienced the joy of a married woman of the nobility. For Chinese readers, it is natural for ancient women to observe the "way of women" after marriage, while on the european side of the nobility, it is just the opposite, the nobles in the boudoir are chips in the political transaction, and there must be no half-loss, but after marriage, the transaction has been completed, and women can "do whatever they want". Holding salons, making friends with young men, flirting, as long as you don't play divorce and destroy the contractual relationship between the two families, it's not a thing.
Margaret immerses herself in a game of pleasure and meets Saint Joseph Berniface, the film's La Moore. He was not a Protestant, but a Catholic aristocrat.
Margot protects La Moore in the film. In real history, Margaret did protect a Protestant.
Later, La Moore was executed on suspicion of murdering the king, Charles IX died, his brother Henry Valois took the throne, the political situation in France was once again turbulent, and Henry, king of Navarre, fled... Until the French Wars of Religion broke out again, the Battle of the Three Henrys, the Bourbon family represented by King Henry of Navarre entered Paris, and France entered the Bourbon era, Queen Margaret all participated personally. In particular, the "Battle of the Three Henrys", the three sides of the war, were his brother Henry, King of France, his husband Henry, King of Navarre, and his early lover Henry, Duke of Guise. It is precisely because she is very important in the history of France, and is at the core of the network of relationships where various forces intersect and compete, which is not only noticed by thousands of people, but also denigrated by thousands of people, leaving a debauched, emotional, and destructive image of "red face and bad water".
The story of the real Margaret in history takes an entire book to make sense. The best reading in this regard is Nancy Goldstone's "The Two Queens of France", which is rich in detail and brilliantly commentary, outlining Margaret's life in the vortex of religion, politics and emotion.