Marguerite de Valois: "La reine Margot.".Eliane Viennot. Marguerite de Valois
Paris: Editions Perrin, 2005. 664 pp. index. append To add to the end of an existing structure. . tbls. bibl. [euro]11. ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m : 2-262-02377-8. Highlighting a problem occurring in representing female subjects with public reputations, Antonia Fraser, in Boadicea's Chariot: The Warrior Queens (1988), found that she needed to distinguish between the historical person and the often more compelling legend. Her solution was to use the term Boudicca to refer to the Iceni queen who fought against Rome and Boadicea to refer to the myth. Eliane Viennot, in her biography of Marguerite de Valois--youngest daughter of Henri II and Catherine de' Medici Catherine de' Medici (dĕ mĕd`ĭchē, Ital. dā mĕ`dēchē), 1519–89, queen of France, daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici, duke of Urbino. She was married (1533) to the duc d'Orléans, later King Henry II. and queen consort of Henry IV--adopts a similar strategy, employing this princess's given name when discussing the person and Margot, Ronsard's invention to allegorize al·le·go·rize v. al·le·go·rized, al·le·go·riz·ing, al·le·go·riz·es v.tr. 1. To express as or in the form of an allegory: her in a bergerie, to indicate her myth. Although only her brother Charles IX, who died when she was twenty-one, employed the nickname, it lives on, due to Dumas's 1845 melodrama, La Reine Margot, reprised in Patrice Chereau's film of 1994. Viennot's book is equal parts person and myth: the second half tracing the ways that allegory, biography, drama, history, and polemic have transformed Marguerite into Margot. It is informed by a way of thinking akin to that of Chantal Thomas, who, in La reine scelerate: Marie-Antoinette dans les pamphlets (1989), demonstrates how tracts written about that queen had, and have, lives of their own, their rhetoric needing study apart from how they might correctly or incorrectly inform about their subject. Viennot provides a provenance of assertions about Marguerite from her lifetime through the present, determining the first occurrence of each and discussing its invention and effect. The result, a revised paperback edition of her earlier study of 1993, with a new "postface" addressing scholarship that has cropped up in its wake, is a great read. Exemplary thinking greatly informed Renaissance culture. Rather than attempt to understand an individual, portrait subjects (literary or visual) provided their authors with examples to propose for emulation or avoidance. There was little space for a middle ground or allowance for complexity, especially for women. Prescriptive literature singled out chastity as woman's primary virtue, defining her reputation. As carriers of the royal succession, any hint of sexual promiscuity was treasonous for ruling-class women, and implications assaulting honor provided the most powerful means for impugning character. Marguerite's presumed sexual transgressions, therefore, propel the Margot legend. What Viennot brings back into perspective is her own agency in a wider arena. Renaissance culture seemed most comfortable when representations of women did not veer substantially from ideals. Marguerite's situation rendered this impossible. Primogeniture primogeniture, in law, the rule of inheritance whereby land descends to the oldest son. Under the feudal system of medieval Europe, primogeniture generally governed the inheritance of land held in military tenure (see knight). demanded family subservience to the eldest son. That two of Catherine de' Medici's sons died young shifted the wind, but the queen mother tried to steer a steady course. Princesses marry foreign princes for strategic alliances, often between states in conflict. Implicit is the expectation that they resettle resettle Verb [-tling, -tled] to settle to live in a different place resettlement n Verb 1. in their husband's kingdom, as Marguerite's older sisters did. In the absence of legitimate male heirs from her brothers, however, Marguerite was to marry the Bourbon heir presumptive HEIR PRESUMPTIVE. A presumptive heir is one who, in the present circumstances, would be entitled to the inheritance, but whose rights may be defeated by the contingency of some nearer heir being born. 2 B1 Com. 208. to the French throne. This had occurred before with dynastic shifts: Marguerite's grandmother, Louis XII's daughter, Claude de France, married the collateral heir A successor to property—either by will or descent and distribution—who is not directly descended from the deceased but comes from a parallel line of the deceased's family, such as a brother, sister, uncle, aunt, niece, nephew, or cousin. , who would become Francis I. New, however, was the fact that Navarre, Marguerite's intended, was Protestant. Birth families expected daughters to mediate between families, and royal women were successful diplomats in both official and unacknowledged ways. They were often left in untenable positions, however, and their loyalty questioned. Princesses' lives revolved around a succession of male kin: fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons. Marguerite bore no children and, divorced from her husband, who needed an heir, had no son to shore up her position. While under house arrest in the Auvergne, she started asserting her authorial voice, Viennot argues, to reposition herself, using the same weapon--writing--as those acting against her. As editor of Marguerite's Memoires, and the scholar most conversant CONVERSANT. One who is in the habit of being in a particular place, is said to be conversant there. Barnes, 162. with her subject's authorial voice, Viennot questions the legitimacy of various texts, carefully revealing subtleties within. When evidence for certain assertions is lacking, she resists drawing conclusions and says so, making it difficult to continue the reductionism reductionism(rē·dukˑ·sh Legal invalidation of a marriage. It announces the invalidity of a marriage that was void from its inception. It is to be distinguished from dissolution or divorce. To justify annulment, the marriage contract must have a defect (e.g. in 1602, she situates herself for the first time within a female lineage, comparing herself to Louis XI's daughter Jeanne--separated from Louis XII, thus facilitating his marriage to Anne of Brittany--and stops using masculine referents. Marguerite co-opts the Neoplatonic language that male poets used to figure relationships with beautiful (hence virtuous) women, to claim a similar function for male beauty in the alliance she devised for herself with Jacques de Harlay. Another way that Marguerite deviates from the norm is that despite repudiation, she resurfaced, aged fifty-two, and reestablished herself in Paris. The last living link between Valois and Bourbon, Marguerite befriended her successor, Maria de' Medici Medici, Italian family Medici (mĕ`dĭchē, Ital. mā`dēchē), Italian family that directed the destinies of Florence from the 15th cent. until 1737. , and left her property to the dauphin. Here, too, language is revealing. Working out what the future Louis XIII would call her, in a society where kinship terms defined status and relationship, after trying out tante and soeur, Maman ma fille was decided upon. Marguerite attended Maria de' Medici's coronation and went to see her after Henry IV's ensuing assassination Assassination See also Murder. assassins Fanatical Moslem sect that smoked hashish and murdered Crusaders (11th—12th centuries). [Islamic Hist.: Brewer Note-Book, 52] Brutus conspirator and assassin of Julius Caesar. [Br. . Who better to relate to a calamity following a royal ceremony than the bride whose wedding devolved into a massacre? SHEILA FFOLLIOTT George Mason University Named after American revolutionary, patriot and founding father George Mason, the university was founded as a branch of the University of Virginia in 1957 and became an independent institution in 1972. |
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