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Updated 05-29-09
Marguerite de Valois /de Navarre
/de France /Queen Margot (1553-1615)
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"I COULD NOT WISH THE VICTORY OF EITHER PARTY."
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Marguerite was born into the last generation of the Valois family, which had ruled France for over 200 years. She was the youngest of three daughters of King Henry II and Queen Catherine de Medici. Since they also had four sons, the French throne seemed secure. It was assumed that Marguerite would marry someone who would be a useful French ally, as had her older sisters; various marriages were considered and rejected. However, by 1570, Marguerite's father and eldest brother were dead, and none of her surviving brothers showed signs of producing an heir. At this point, Catherine de Medici and her second son, Charles IX, began negotiations to marry Marguerite to Henry of Bourbon, "first prince of the blood," the next in line for the French throne if the Valois had no sons to inherit.
France had been in a state of civil war between Catholics and Protestants for much of the previous eight years. The Valois were Catholic, and Henry's branch of the Bourbons was Protestant. Catherine de Medici believed that Henry could be won over to the Valois belief, while Henry's mother, Jeanne d'Albret, ruler of Navarre, hoped that Marguerite would choose to be Protestant; both were wrong.
In 1572 Jeanne d'Albret died, so Henry came to his wedding as King of Navarre. The wedding ceremony was cobbled together in order to marry a Protestant to a Catholic, but six days later the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of French Calvinists ("Huguenots") began. Henry's life was spared, but he and Marguerite were kept at court --- ostensibly as family members, effectively as prisoners --- for the next three years. In late 1573, Marguerite's favorite brother, Alencon, one of those who sought accommodation with the Huguenots, involved Henry in talk of a coup, and Marguerite wrote a defense of her husband, Memoire justificatif pour Henri de Bourbon.
In 1574, Charles IX was succeeded by Henry III, a brother with whom Marguerite had always been at odds and who was suspicious of both Navarre and Alencon. The next year, Navarre escaped and returned to his own lands in the southwest of France. Marguerite was not allowed to follow him. She was able, though, to help Alencon, by winning allies for him in Flanders and later by aiding him to escape from Henry III's court.
By 1578 there was still no Valois heir, so Marguerite was permitted to join her husband at his court in Gascony, charged with bearing legitimate sons. But in the four years they were together, Marguerite remained childless (although at least one of Navarre's mistresses gave birth). Navarre continued to fight on the Huguenot side, and in 1582 Marguerite returned to Henry III's court for a visit that she hoped would reconcile the two kings.
It is at this point that the extant portion of Les memoires de la roine Marguerite, written by Marguerite in the 1590s, ends, but we know about the rest of her life from her letters and other contemporary documents. At her brother's court she had her only documented love affair, with Jacques de Harlay, lord of Champvallon. After a year at Henry III's court, she was sent away --- because of her licentiousness, according to Henry III; because of her continued support for Alencon, according to Marguerite. She went back to Gascony, still hoping for a child; but Navarre went only to his mistresses.
In 1584, Alencon died; this meant that Navarre was heir-presumptive to the throne of France, and with Henry III still childless, a very likely heir. Henry III and Catherine began to deal directly with Navarre; Marguerite was no longer needed as a go-between. In her isolation, Marguerite left Navarre's court and turned to the extreme Catholic party of the Duke of Guise, an old friend and perhaps a former lover. For the next two years she worked to oppose Navarre's succession as king of France; her efforts included actions seen as treasonous by the court. At the end of 1586, Marguerite was captured by Henry III's troops and, in spite of her letters of appeal to her mother, imprisoned at the royal castle of Usson, in the Auvergne.
Henry III was assassinated in 1589; before he died he named Navarre as his successor. The new king, Henry IV, kept his wife at Usson, although the harshness of her captivity was lessened. It was then that she began to write her Memoires. In 1599 her marriage to Henry IV was annulled, Marguerite testifying that the marriage had been forced on her (which her Memoires deny). Henry promptly married Marie de Medici (a distant relative of Catherine), who bore five children. Shortly after the annulment, Marguerite's debts were paid and she was granted a pension.
In 1605, Marguerite returned to Paris, met Henry for the first time in over 20 years, and became friends with Marie de Medici. In her letters to Henry of this period, she addressed him as "Roy mon seigneur et frere." Marguerite lived the rest of her life in Paris, where her home became the center of a literary circle. When Henry IV was assassinated in 1610, Marguerite supported Marie de Medici's regency and made Marie's son Louis XIII her heir.
Marguerite's situation for most of her life --- trying to balance between the Catholic and the Huguenot parties --- also came to affect how she has been seen by posterity. To Calvinist polemicists, she was a Valois and a Medici, so by nature sexually depraved. To the extreme Catholic pamphleteers, her support for the politically moderate Alencon could be due only to an incestuous relationship, her ability to convince a Usson governor to ameliorate the condition of her captivity could be due only to seduction. Thus was born the legend of the promiscuous "Queen Margot."
The extant Memoires were published in 1628; we don't know if the original narrative went past 1582, although we do know that more was planned. Marguerite's other writing has not yet been translated: it includes letters, poetry, and perhaps La Ruelle mal assortie (a brief comic dialogue between an educated woman and her uneducated lover that has been attributed to her).
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from a translation in print.
Information about secondary sources.
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1. An anonymous 1813 translation of Marguerite's Memoires; you may either link to all of 21 "letters" (the translator's arrangement of the original's three books), or to groups of the first twelve letters and then the final eleven. The translator's preface is sometimes outdated but does include a c.1590 letter from Marguerite to her kinsman and friend, Pierre de Bourdeille, lord of Brantome. The memoirs are followed here by a "History of the House of Valois," by an anonymous author whose only mention of Marguerite is to say that she "was married to Henri of Navarre, the worst of wives to a husband none too good."
2. A link to the text of H. Noel Williams' 1911 biography, Queen Margot: Wife of Henry of Navarre; although some information has been called into question by later research, Williams quotes extensively from Marguerite's letters and from those to and about her. You can also download the work as a PDF file.
3. In French:
(a) A link to the text (or to a PDF file) of Francois Guessard's 1842 Memoires et lettres de Marguerite de Valois; it includes, in addittion to the Memoires, Marguerite's 1574 Memoire justificatif pour Henri de Bourbon (p.182), and a selection of her correspondence (p.194) from 1577 to 1609.
(b) A humorous work that has been attributed to Marguerite, La Ruelle mal assortie, a dialogue between a sophisticated woman who resembles "la belle Venus" and her uneducated and inarticulate "petit Adonis."
(c) Lines from one of Marguerite's poems, "J'ai un ciel de desir, un monde de tristesse."
4. Essays, etc.:
(a) Click on "Traduction" for a translation of Eliane Viennot's 2002 essay on Marguerite and a bibliography of her writing (note that Viennot, Marguerite's modern editor, does not accept the attribution to her of La Ruelle mal assortie).
(b) An English-language review by Moshe Sluhovsky of Vionnet's 2005 French-language study, Marguerite de Valois: "La reine Margot," on the difference betwee the woman and the legend.
(c) An abstract of a 2001 thesis by Jenifer Ann Branton-Desris, "Discovering a French Pearl: Marguerite de Valois' Identity as Defined by Her Choice of References"; you can download the entire thesis as a PDF file.
(d) A review by Veronique Desnain of Patricia Francis Cholakian's 2000 study, Women and the Politics of Self-representation in Seventeenth-century France (for information on the book's treatment of Marguerite, see "Secondary sources").
(e) On pp. 6-7 of a 2000 survey by Anne R. Larsen, an English-language review of Vionnet's editions of Marguerite's letters (1998) and of the works (1999).
5. For contemporary images of Marguerite:
(a) Two drawings by Francois Clouet: Marguerite as a small child; then, a later drawing (before 1573).
(b) Another portrait as a young girl; from here you may link to portraits of her mother, brothers, and Henry of Navarre.
(c) A crayon drawing, after Clouet.
(d) A coin struck in Navarre in 1577, showing Henry and Marguerite.
(e) An early 1580s tapestry, showing Margarite with Alencon, her favorite brother.
(f) A portrait of Marguerite from later in her life.
(g) With a c.1659 French-language essay on Marguerite by Gedeon Tallemant des Reaux (not a Valois fan), a portrait and a 1605 engraving.
6. In this numbered collection, see #39 for part of a May 1589 letter from Henry of Navarre to his current mistress, Madame de Gramont. After the January death of Catherine de Medici, Navarre and Henry III were soon fully reconciled, but the king was still concerned about the treatment of his sister: hence Navarre's reference to Marguerite (here called the Dame d'Auvergne), "I think I shall make her take a bad spill."
7. A link to the text (or to a PDF file) of Illustrious Dames of the Court of the Valois Kings, Katharine Prescott Wormeley's 1912 translation of Vies des dames illustres, by Marguerite's kinsman, Pierre de Bourdeille, lord of Brantome; about halfway down the page (on p. 151) is the section on Marguerite, in which Brantome not only praises Marguerite but asserts her right as a Valois to rule all of France. The section is followed by Charles Augustin Saint-Beuve's 1852 essay on Marguerite (p. 193). Elsewhere, the French original of Brantome's discourse on Marguerite.
8. For historical background, a two-part essay by C.T. Iannuzzo on the French "Wars of Religion" from 1562 to 1598, which describes the Saint Bartholomew Day's Massacre and the wars which surrounded it. At the start of the essay is a link to a useful map of France showing the political divisions during part of the period: the League was the Catholic party; Bourbon lands were those ruled by Henry of Navarre.
9. Alexandre Dumas' 1845 novel (written with Auguste Maquet) La Reine Margot, here translated by S. Fowler Wright as Marguerite de Valois; the popularity of the novel helped to form the modern view of "Queen Margot." For a shorter version of the same story, Dumas' 1847 play based on his novel, here "translated and adapted" by Frank J. Morlock.
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[Liselotte Dieckmann's appears to be the most recent translation of Les memoires de la roine Marguerite. The notes are moderately helpful; there is no index or bibliography:]
Marguerite, Queen, consort of Henry IV, King of France. Memoirs
of Marguerite de Valois / translated from the first printed text,
Paris 1628 [by] Liselotte Dieckmann (Biblio 17; 18). Paris; Seattle:
Papers on French seventeenth century literature, 1984. (160 p.:
ill.)
LC#: DC122.9.M2A3 1984
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"...by persons either poorly informed or without affection."
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[In the opening, Marguerite says that she will provide accurate information to her kinsman, Pierre de Bourdeille, lord of Brantome, who had already written an admiring essay about her:]
If you had done this [written of Marguerite] to show the contrast of Nature and Fortune, you could not have chosen a better topic, since the two made a special effort for me to show their power. In the case of Nature you do not need instruction since you were an eye-witness, But in the case of Fortune, you can describe it only by report (which is given by persons either poorly informed or without affection, or else full of ignorance or malice). I suppose that it will give you pleasure to have the Memoirs of the person who knows best and is most interested in the truth of the presentation of the subject. [p.22]
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"I had no other wish than hers; but...."
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[From the time Marguerite was a child, her marriage was being discussed. The first serious plan was that she would marry the king of Portugal. but this was opposed by the king of Spain and came to nothing. Then:]
A few days later there was talk of my marriage to the Prince of Navarre who is now our great and generous king. My Mother the Queen spoke during dinner...about it.... I answered that it was unnecessary to talk to me, since I had no other wish than hers; but I begged of her to consider the fact that I was a good Catholic, and that it would be painful to have a husband who professed a different faith....
The proposals became stronger daily; then the queen of Navarre, his mother, arrived at the Court, where the marriage was contracted before her death. [p.38]
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"...one led to the choir, the other through the nave to
the outside."
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[Marguerite's description of the 1572 wedding between the Catholic and the Protestant presages the couple's future:]
At the gate of the church the Cardinal of Bourbon, who was to read the Mass, received us with the customary words. Then we went to the platform which separates the nave from the choir. There were two stairs, one led to the choir, the other through the nave to the outside; by this the King of Navarre left the church. [pp.39-40]
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"The Huguenots suspected me,... and the Catholics."
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[Five days after her marriage, on the night before the St.Bartholomew Day massacre, the 19-year-old Marguerite realized that something terrible was under way at court. Admiral Coligny, the Huguenot leader, who was believed to have killed the head of the Catholic Guise family, had been attacked:]
I saw a great deal of movement; the Huguenots in despair because of the wounding of the Admiral, the Dukes of Guise whispering anxiously among each other, afraid that they might be held responsible.
The Huguenots suspected me, because I was a Catholic, and the Catholics suspected me because I had married a Huguenot. Consequently nobody said anything to me.... [pp.43-44]
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"We both screamed and were both equally scared."
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[But in the morning, a young Huguenot came to her room (Dumas' novel will have him become Marguerite's lover; Memoires never mentions him again):]
...[S]omebody banged at the door with hands and feet, and called: "Navarre! Navarre!" My nurse thought it was my husband the King and ran quickly to open the door for him. It was a Nobleman by the name of Tejan who was wounded at the elbow by the stab of a sword and on the arm by a halberd; he pushed himself, together with four officers, into my room and threw himself on my bed to save himself. When I saw all these people, who threw themselves upon me, I fled behind my bed, but he followed, clinging fast to me. I did not know the man at all and did not know whether he had come with the intention of harming me, or whether the officers wanted to do harm to him or me. We both screamed and were both equally scared.
God gave that M. de Nancay, Captain of the Guard, arrived at that moment; he could not help but laugh when he saw me in this state.... He scolded the officers for their clumsiness, chased them out, and left to me the life of the poor man who still clung to me. I had him taken to my Cabinet and had his wounds dressed; there he stayed until he was completely healed.
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"I felt as though the thrust had hit both of us."
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[The next young Huguenot whom Marguerite saw was not so fortunate:]
[Nancay] had a housecoat thrown over me and led me into the chamber of my sister Duchess of Lorraine. I arrived there more dead than alive; as I entered the ante-chamber whose doors stood completely open, a nobleman by the name of Bourse who tried to save himself from the officers was stabbed, only three feet from me, by a halberd. I almost fainted and fell into the arms of M. de Nancay; I felt as though the thrust had hit both of us. [pp.45-46]
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"Then, perhaps, I would be necessary and useful."
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[Marguerite and Navarre were kept at court, virtual prisoners. In 1575, with Henry III now king, first Marguerite's brother Alencon and and then her husband escaped from court; Marguerite knew of their plans and supported them. Catherine de Medici's words to her son quoted here effectively sum up that Queen's political philosophy:]
I was constantly suspected by the King of being the sole cause of this departure. If he had not been held back by my Mother the Queen, in his anger, he would have, I believe, committed some cruelty against my life....
My Mother the Queen, wishing to do things gently, told him.... [e]verything in the world has two faces. The first one, which was sad and terrible, will change when we will see the second more agreeable and calmer one. With new events one would take new counsel, she said. Then, perhaps, I would be necessary and useful. Prudence counsels us to live with our friends as if one day they might be our enemies, therefore one should not confide in them too much. Also,... Prudence advises us to use our enemies as if one day they might be friends.
These objections prevented the King from doing me harm (which he would have liked to do). [pp.70-71]
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"...closed off only by a bad wall and a bad gate."
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[In 1577, by pretending to need to go to Flanders for her health, Marguerite got permission to leave the court; on the trip she urged those Flemish unhappy with their Spanish rulers to invite her brother Alencon to lead them in a war of liberation. She convinced many, but on her return trip was threatened with capture by the Spanish leader Don John. In one of several close calls, she arrived at a castle of a supporter, seeking a place to stay overnight:]
The trouble was that this Gentleman was not there, only his wife was present. And as we entered the courtyard, finding it open, she became alarmed and fled into the castle keep, raising the bridge, determined that no matter what we could tell her, she would not let us enter.
In the meantime, three hundred Noblemen, whom Don John had sent to cut off our way and to seize the castle..., knowing that I would spend the night there, appeared on a hill one thousand feet from us. They thought that we were inside the stronghold... and they stopped and settled down there hoping to catch me the next morning.
While we were in this predicament, namely to see ourselves only in the courtyard which was closed off only by a bad wall and a bad gate which would have been easy to force, all the time disputing with the Lady of the castle who was inexorable to our prayers, God sent us the grace that her husband... arrived as the night closed in. He immediately made us enter his castle and was very angry with his wife for the indiscreet lack of civility she had displayed. [pp.115-16]
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"...thought... only of the safety or danger of my brother."
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[Alencon won battles in Flanders and popularity in France; soon after his return to Henry III's court he once again found himself a prisoner. He asked Marguerite to help him escape:]
I looked for means and since I realized that he could not leave through the gates of the Louvre which were so curiously guarded that the face of everyone who passed was suspected, there was no other way than to leave through the window of my Chamber which faced the moat and was on the second floor. He [Alencon] asked me to purchase a strong cord long enough for this purpose. [p.135]
[When the plans were ready, Alencon came to Marguerite's room with two of his servants:]
...[W]e fastened a stick to the cord, then we looked down into the moat to see if there was anyone there. With the help of my three Ladies-in-waiting and the boy who had brought it [the cord] to me, we first lowered my brother, who laughed... without any apprehension, although the height was considerable, then Simier who, shaking with fear, could barely hold onto the cord, and finally Conge, his valet....
As we let Conge down last, a man rose from the bottom of the moat. He ran toward the... way one takes to the guards. I, who during the whole procedure had never thought of myself, but only of the safety or danger of my brother, remained half-faint with fear because I thought that this man... had been placed there in order to spy. Thinking that my brother had been captured I fell into such despair as can be understood only by people who have attempted similar things.
While I was in this state, my women... took the cord and put it into the fire so that it would not be found.... That cord, being very long, made such a great fire that it entered the chimney. From there it went above the chimney top and was seen by the archers who were on guard that night. They knocked madly at my door asking to be let in promptly. [pp.137-38]
[The women managed to get rid of the guards, but then:]
Two hours after this alarm, M. de Cosse came and told me to see the King and my Mother the Queen in order to account for my brother's departure.... I found him [the King] sitting at the head of my mother's bed in such a fury that I think he would have made me feel it if the fear of my brother's absence and my mother's presence had not prevented it. [pp.138-39]
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"...happiness which lasted the four or five years I was...
with him."
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[Thanks to Catherine's intervention, not only did Marguerite escape punishment, but she was allowed to go to her husband. The reason was political: Henry III had no children, his brother, Alencon, was unmarried, so Navarre --- next in line for the throne --- needed to be propitiated. By late 1578, Marguerite was with Navarre at his court in Gascony, the first time they had lived together outside her brother's court. It had been over two years since they met, and at first there was coolness between them; then Navarre became seriously ill, and Marguerite nursed him:]
I served so completely, never leaving his bedside nor undressing, that he began to find my service pleasant and to praise it to everyone.... It was a happiness which lasted the four or five years I was in Gascogne with him.
But the enviable fortune of such a happy life which seemed in its tranquility and unity to disregard its [Fortune's] own power, created a new reason for war between my husband the King and the Catholics. [pp.145-46]
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"I decided to follow his fortune...."
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[In 1580 war began again for a brief time:]
From the beginning of this war, I realized that the honor my husband the King showed by his love demanded that I not abandon him. I decided to follow his fortune although, with great regret, I saw that the cause of this war was such, that I could not wish the victory of either party without causing damage to myself. If the Huguenots had the advantage, that meant the ruin of the Catholic religion whose preservation meant more to me than my own life. And if the Catholics were victorious over the Huguenots, I could see the ruin of my husband the king. [pp.148-49]
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"I had no other wish than to make him content in every way."
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[Navarre's wars did not preclude him from having a good number of affairs, some with Marguerite's own ladies-in-waiting. The court-raised Marguerite was complaisant --- and perhaps having her own affairs (though this is never said in the Memoires):]
It was his nature to enjoy himself in the company of Ladies. Also, he was much in love with Fosseuse [an attendant to Marguerite] whom he had served ever since he left Rebours [another attendant]. From her [Fosseuse] I received no bad service. And therefore my husband the King did not stop living with me in great privacy and friendship since he saw that I had no other wish than to make him content in every way. [p.149]
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"...to arrange my husband's and my own affairs."
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[In 1582, Henry III and Catherine wrote to Marguerite urging her to come back to their court for a visit --- offering to pay for her trip and to meet her on the way, even holding out the possibility of a reconciliation between France and Navarre. Only a few more sentences follow these in the extant Memoires:]
All these nice gestures of good will did not deceive me about the actions one might expect form the court, having had in the past only too much experience. But I decided to profit from these offers and to take a trip of only a few months to arrange my husband's and my own affairs.... [p.160]
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[This is the print version of the translation available online. It is one of many editions of an anonymous 1813 translation of Marguerite's Memoires. The French edition had been arranged into three books; these this translator "has taken the liberty of sub-dividing into twenty-one" letters (p.xi). This particular edition gives a detailed glossary of place names (not online), but no notes:]
Marguerite, Queen, consort of Henry IV, King of France. Memoirs
of Marguerite de Valois, queen of Navarre, written by herself.
Being historic memoirs of the courts of France and Navarre (Court
memoir series) . Boston, L. C. Page, 1899. (xxiv, 320 p. illus.,
ports., plates)
LC#: DC122.9 .M2 1899
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[Another translation was made by "Violet Fane" in 1892. In one way this is the most useful of the translations because of the detailed notes and useful index. However, the translation is "almost literal," even to variant spellings and some odd tense shifts. Also, many of the notes are in French: the author, Mary Montgomerie Lamb, says that the book is not for the "few" readers who may be "absolutely ignorant of French.... in these enlightened days" (p.57):]
Marguerite, Queen, consort of Henry IV, King of France. Memoirs
of Marguerite de Valois, queen of Navarre, written by her own
hand. Newly translated into English, with an introduction and
notes by Violet Fane [pseud.] with eight portraits from contemporary
engravings. London, J. C. Nimmo; New York, C. Scribner's sons,
1892. (5 p. l., 277 p. 1 l. front., ports., facsim.)
LC#:DC122.9.M2 A3 1892
Alt name: Currie, Mary Montgomerie Lamb Singleton, Lady
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[Robert J. Sealy's full-length study discusses Marguerite's post-Memoires years, though the emphasis is on 1586-89 and her participation in the Catholic League's fight against the Huguenots. Several of her letters from this period are quoted. The first two chapters are an interesting analysis of a contemporary satire, Divorce satyrique (1607), and its influence on the legend of Marguerite's licentiousness:]
Sealy, Robert J. The myth of the Reine Margot: Toward the
elimination of a legend (Studies in the humanities: vol. 15)
. New York: P. Lang, c1994. (xiii, 226 p.: ill.)
LC#: DC122.9 .M2 S43; ISBN: 0820424803
Includes bibliographical references (p. [195]-219) and index
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[Patricia Frances Cholakian's study includes a chapter on the Memoires which discusses how Marguerite's reflections on the past allowed her to understand and represent herself. Cholakian also usefully summarizes earlier French-language studies. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Cholakian, Patricia Francis. Women and the politics of self-representation
in seventeenth-century France. Newark: University of Delaware
Press; London; Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, c2000.
(219 p.)
LC#: PQ149 .C48 2000; ISBN: 0874137357
Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-209) and index
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[Cathleen M. Bauschatz' article discusses Marguerite's developing view of herself as reader and writer. Most of the discussion is on the Memoires; however, a few of the letters and some of La Ruelle Mal Assortie are also treated, with passages given in both the original and in Bauschatz' translation:]
Bauschatz, Cathleen M. "Plaisir et proffict" in
the reading and writing of Marguerite de Valois. Tulsa Studies
in Women's Literature, 7 (1988), 27-48.
LC#: PN471 .T84; ISSN: 0732-7730
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[Madeleine Lazard's essay, "The Memoirs of
Marguerite de Valois and the Birth of Women's Autobiography,"
has been "translated and edited" for this collection
by Richard D. Johnson, et al. Lazard sees the Memoires
as unique among contemporary French memoirs; she analyzes the
work to show Marguerite's presentation of her self, her past,
and her family. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Women writers in pre-revolutionary France: strategies of emancipation
/ edited by Colette H. Winn, Donna Kuizenga (Garland reference
library of the humanities; v.1990. Women writers of the world;
v.2). New York: Garland Pub., 1997. (xxx, 454 p.)
LC#: PQ149 .W64 1997; ISBN: 0815323670
Includes bibliographical references (p. 415-441) and index
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[This article by Moshe Sluhovsky describes historians' view of Marguerite over the centuries, focusing on the effect of Alexandre Dumas' novel and Patrice Chereau's 1994 film treatment. Sluhovsky usefully sums up the work of French historians not available in English, including historians of the 1990s. (See the issue's table of contents online.):]
Sluhovsky, Moshe. History as voyeurism: From Marguerite de
Valois to La Reine Margot. Rethinking History: The Journal
of Theory and Practice, 4:2 (2000), 193-210.
LC#: D1 .R39; ISSN: 1364-2529
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[E.R. Chamberlin's 1974 biography is a useful introduction, although it relies rather heavily on secondary sources. It also quotes from several of Marguerite's letters. Chamberlin calls attention to the polemical nature of much of the contemporary gossip about Marguerite, but then frequently treats that same gossip as factual:]
Chamberlin, E. R. (Eric Russell). Marguerite of Navarre. New
York, Dial Press, 1974. (v, 296 p.)
LC#: DC122.9.M2 C45; ISBN: 0803752075
Bibliography: p. 285-286 Includes index
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Updated 05-29-09