MARGUERITE OF FRANCE or VALOIS (known as Queen Margot)
(Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1553 - Paris, 1615.) Third daughter of Henri II and Catherine de Medici. She had already embarked on the path of the most unbridled gallantry when her mother and her brother Charles IX married her, despite the difference of religion, to Henri de Navarre, on August 18, 1572.
This alliance, officially intended to bring Catholics and Protestants closer, quickly produces the opposite effect, if we judge by the fact that Saint-Barthélemy takes place less than a week later. Forced spouses experience little reciprocal affection. Marguerite, left at Court after the escape of the King of Navarre, serves both the interests of the latter and those of his youngest brother, Alençon. In 1578, she made a first stay in Nérac. Soon she returns to the Court, where she makes herself unbearable by her misconduct and especially by her intrigues, to the point that Henry III has to drive her out in 1583. Then begins a new stay in Nérac. There, his shenanigans begin again which earns him general contempt.
In 1587, taking the excommunication of the King of Navarre as a pretext, she left him, discovered herself in league and went to Agen, which had been given to her as a dowry. The Agenais were quick to take a dislike to her and the arrival of Marshal de Matignon forced her to take refuge hastily in Carlat in Haute-Auvergne. Then, leaving this place where she does not believe she is safe, she is captured by Canilhac who has orders to take her to the Château d'Usson. His jailer is easily seduced. After getting rid of him, Margot leads in Usson, for seventeen years, a more withdrawn life than during her youth, but which remains very free, not to say libertine. In 1599, in exchange for attractive compensation, she agreed to the annulment of her marriage to the man who became the king of France. Having obtained permission to return to the capital in 1605, she continued to talk about her adventures until her death.
Queen Margot, who prided herself on letters like almost all the Valois of his time, left Poems and Memoirs published in 1628.