Margaret de Valois

This volume was published in 1902.


Alexandre Dumas (1802?1870) was a French writer, best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. Many of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne were serialized.

The following introductory remarks are extracted from a review in BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

" On the eighteenth day of August, 1572, a great festival was held in the palace of the Louvre. It was to celebrate the nuptials of Henry of Navarre and Marguerite de Valois.

" This alliance between the chief of the Protestant party in France, and the sister of Charles IX. and daughter of Catherine de Medicis, perplexed, and in some degree alarmed, the Catholics, whilst it filled the Huguenots with joy and exultation. The king had declared that he knew and made no difference between Romanist and Calvinist that all were alike his subjects, and equally beloved by him. He caressed the throng of Huguenot nobles and gentlemen whom the marriage had attracted to the court, was affectionate to his new brother-in-law, friendly
with the Prince of Conde, almost respectful to the venerable
Admiral de Coligny, to whom he proposed to confide the command of an army in a projected war with Spain.

" On the twenty-second of August, four days after the marriage, in which the Huguenots saw a guarantee of the peaceful exercise of their religion, the Admiral de Coligny was passing through the street of St.-Germain-Pauxerrois, when he was shot at and wounded by a captain of PetardierSy one Maurevel, who went by the name of Le Tueur du Roi, literally, the King's Killer. At midnight on the twenty-fourth of August, the tocsin sounded, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew began.

" It is at this stirring period of French history, abounding in horrors and bloodshed, and in plots and intrigues, that M. Alexandre Dumas commences ' Marguerite de Valois.' Beginning with the marriage of Henry and Margaret, he narrates, in his spirited and attractive style, various episodes, real and imaginary, of the great massacre, from the first fury of which Henry himself, doomed to death by the remorseless Catherine de Medicis, was only saved by his own caution, by the indecision of Charles IX., and the energy of Margaret of Valois. The marriage between the King of France's sister and the King of Navarre
was merely one of convenance, agreed to by Henry for the
sake of his fellow Protestants, and used by Catherine and
Charles as a lure to bring 'those of the Religion,' as they
were called, to Paris, there to be slaughtered, unsuspecting
and defenseless.

" The author, according to his custom, introduces a vast array of characters, for the most part historical, all spiritedly drawn and well sustained. M. Dumas may, in various respects, be held up as an example to our history spoilers, self-styled writers of historical romance, on this side the Channel. One does not find him profaning public edifices by causing all sorts of absurdities to pass, and of twaddle to be spoken, within their precincts; neither does he make his kings and beggars, high-born dames and private soldiers, use the very same language, all equally tame, colorless, and devoid of character. The spirited and varied dialogue in which his romances abound, illustrates and brings out the qualities and characteristics of his actors, and is not used for the sole purpose of making a chapter out of what would be better told in a page. In many instances, indeed, it would be difficult for him to tell his story, by the barest narrative, in fewer words than he does by pithy and pointed dialogue."