Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois
The earliest memoir by a Frenchwoman, written to answer her enemies by a queen who had survived all of them.
Marguerite de Valois wrote her memoirs in her fifties, looking back on a life at the centre of the French wars of religion: daughter of Catherine de’ Medici, married to the Protestant Henri of Navarre days before the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre, later confined for years. She is the earliest French woman to leave such an account, and she wrote it to answer her enemies, which gives it a defensive brilliance no chronicler could match.
Recommended by 1 Person
Nancy Goldstone
The voice has to be exactly right, otherwise you come across as self-serving, or not interesting. Not Marguerite. I read her memoir like it was a novel. She wrote it when she was in her fifties, looking back over her life.
Interview · October 2013
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