Catherine de Medici and Obsession Over Power

Catherine de Medici and Obsession Over Power

"An execrable woman whose memory will remain in bloody crepe until the

end of time[1]". For nearly 400 years this assessment of Catherine de

Medici held true. In the popular imagination she is a Machiavellian

schemer using poison on those who hindered her in her quest to gain

and maintain power at court, a view of Catherine reinforced in recent

years by the film La Reine Margot, based on the book by Dumas.

Most traditionalist historians take their information on Catherine

from pamphlets such as Discours Merveilleuse de la Vie, Actions et

Deportment de Catherine de Medicis, Royne Mere[2]. Claiming to be a

strictly factual account of Catherine de Medici, the author accuses

Catherine of 'rising from the dregs of society' (she came from a

powerful Florentine family on her father's side and her mother was

daughter of Jeanne de Bourbon-Vendôme, consequently a princess of

royal blood). It accuses her of poisoning Francis I's eldest son (to

make Henry, her husband, Dauphin and therefore herself Dauphine). The

pamphlet also circulates the story most associated with Catherine,

that she was the sole initiator of the infamous St Bartholomew Day's

Massacre.

The pamphlet is probably the most vitriolic of its kind, but its

claims have been repeated by other, more reputable, historians such as

JE Neale who accuses Catherine of having an 'unprincipled mind'[3].

Honore de Balzac, writing in the nineteenth century takes her conduct

as 'an illustration of the complete hardness of her heart'[4]. This

unflattering image of Catherine was scarcely questioned until Ferriere

published his 'lettres de Cath...

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pg.8

[7] Catherine de Medicis Jean Heritier (1963) pp83-84

[8] Catherine de' Medici, HR Williamson (1973)

[9] Ancien Regime, Sutherland pg.16

[10] Catherine de'medici and the Black Legend (article), RJ Knecht

(1999) published in historical magazine 'The Historian'.

[11] Ibid

[12] Arrêtez le massacre! Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine,

Marc Venard (1992), pp. 645-61

[13] According to Knecht pp.156 this theory is derived from Discours

du roy Henri III, a work unknown before 1623

[14] Seven ages of Paris, Alistair Horne (2002) pg. 76

[15] The Prince, Nicolo Machiavelli (edition translated and published

1999) pg. 9. The exact quote reads, "so any injury a prince does a man

should be of such a kind that there is no fear of revenge"

[16] Catherine de'Medici, RJ Knecht, pp 164