[Marguerite]. Daughter of Henry II. by Catherine de’ Medici. She was born on the 14th of May 1553. When very young she became famous for her beauty, her learning, and the looseness of her conduct. She was married, after a liaison with the duke of Guise, to Henry of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., on the eve of St. Bartholomew’s Day. Both husband and wife were extreme examples of the licentious manners of the time, but they not unfrequently lived together for considerable periods, and nearly always on good terms. Later, however, Marguerite was established in the castle of Usson in Auvergne, and after the accession of Henry the marriage was dissolved by the pope. But Henry and Marguerite still continued friends; she still bore the title of queen; she visited Marie de’ Medici on equal terms; and the king frequently consulted her on important affairs, though his somewhat parsimonious spirit was grieved by her extravagance. Marguerite exhibited during the rest of her life, which was not a short one, the strange Valois mixture of licentiousness, pious exercises, and the cultivation of art and letters, and died in Paris on the 27th of March 1615. She left letters and memoirs, the latter of which are admirably written, and rank among the best of the 16th century. She was the idol of Pierre de Bourdeille Brantôme, and is the “Reine Margot” of anecdotic history and romance.
The Mémoires are contained in the collection of Michaud and Poujoulat, and have been published separately by Guessard (the best, 1842), Lalanne, Caboche, &c. An English translation with introduction by Violet Fane appeared in 1892. Her character, and still more her circumstances, made the pen very unamiably busy with her in her lifetime, the chief of many lampoons being the famous Divorce satirique, variously attributed to Agrippa d’Aubigné, Palma Cayet, and others. The chief recent book on her is Saint Poucy’s Histoire de Marguerite de Valois (1887).
