Produced by David Widger
Written by Herself
Being Historic Memoirs of the Courts of France and Navarre
Marguerite de Valois—Etching by Mercier
Bussi d' Amboise—Painting in the Versailles Gallery
Duc de Guise—Painting in the Versailles Gallery
Catherine de' Medici—Original Etching by Mercier
Henri VI. and La Fosseuse—Painting by A. P. E. Morton
A Scene at Henri's Court—Original Photogravure
The first volume of the Court Memoir Series will, it is confidentlyanticipated, prove to be of great interest. These Letters first appearedin French, in 1628, just thirteen years after the death of their wittyand beautiful authoress, who, whether as the wife for many years of thegreat Henri of France, or on account of her own charms andaccomplishments, has always been the subject of romantic interest.
The letters contain many particulars of her life, together with manyanecdotes hitherto unknown or forgotten, told with a saucy vivacity whichis charming, and an air vividly recalling the sprightly, arch demeanour,and black, sparkling eyes of the fair Queen of Navarre. She died in1615, aged sixty-three.
These letters contain the secret history of the Court of France duringthe seventeen eventful years 1565-82.
The events of the seventeen years referred to are of surpassing interest,including, as they do, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, the formation ofthe League, the Peace of Sens, and an account of the religious struggleswhich agitated that period. They, besides, afford an instructive insightinto royal life at the close of the sixteenth century, the modes oftravelling then in vogue, the manners and customs of the time, and apicturesque account of the city of Liege and its sovereign bishop.
As has been already stated, these Memoirs first appeared in French in1628. They were, thirty years later, printed in London in English, andwere again there translated and published in 1813.
The Memoirs, of which a new translation is now presented to the public,are the undoubted composition of the celebrated princess whose name theybear, the contemporary of our Queen Elizabeth; of equal abilities withher, but of far unequal fortunes. Both Elizabeth and Marguerite had beenbred in the school of adversity; both profited by it, but Elizabeth hadthe fullest opportunity of displaying her acquirements in it. QueenElizabeth met with trials and difficulties in the early part of her life,and closed a long and successful reign in the happy possession of thegood-will and love of her subjects. Queen Marguerite, during her wholelife, experienced little else besides mortification and disappointment;she was suspected and hated by both Protestants and Catholics, with thelatter of whom, though, she invariably joined in communion, yet was shenot in the least inclined to persecute or injure the former. Elizabethamused herself with a number of suitors, but never submitted to the yokeof matrimony. Marguerite, in compliance with the injunctions of theQueen her mother, and King Charles her brother, married Henri, King ofNavarre, afterwards Henri IV. of France, for whom she had no