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Few historical figures have aroused as much passionate controversy as Catherine de' Medici who was queen of France from 1547 until 1559 and several times regent before her death in 1589. In the sixteenth century she came under attack from Protestant propagandists who accused her of a whole series of crimes, culminating in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day in August 1572. Probably the most vicious of these attacks was the Marvellous discourse on the life, deeds and conduct of Catherine de' Medici, queen-mother, which claimed to be a strictly factual account of her life. The anonymous author feels bound `to show to everyone the kind of woman who has us beneath her claws'. He reminds his readers that as an Italian she comes from a nation noted for its guile. Her family rose from `beneath the dregs of society'. At her birth, astrologers warned that she would bring only calamities to her future husband's house. The author asserts that after marrying Francis I's second son, Henry, in 1533, Catherine cleared his path to the throne by having his elder brother poisoned. After Henry's death, she plotted the overthrow of his Guise ministers with their rivals, the Bourbons and when the plot misfired, called for the plotters to be punished. Under Charles IX she courted the Protestants, then turned against them. Having failed to poison their leader, Conde, she had him murdered on the battlefield of Jarnac. Her greatest coup, however, was the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. She had arranged the marriage of her daughter, Marguerite, to the Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre in order to lure Catholic and Huguenot nobles to their deaths in Paris. When the Catholics escaped, she tried to get them slaughtered at the siege of La Rochelle. Catherine then turned against her own sons. She poisoned Charles IX, when he showed signs of independence, and packed off his brother, Henry of Anjou, to Poland to get him out of the way.When Alencon, Catherine's youngest son, tried to strike out on his own, she spread lies about him designed to make him hateful to Catholics.
The Marvellous Discourse served as a rich quarry for historical novelists in the nineteenth century. The Wars of Religion enjoyed a popular vogue in France during...