Queen Margot by Alexandre Dumas

Genre: Historical Fiction Main characters: Queen Marguerite de Valois, Henry of Navarre, Comte Annibal de Coconnas, Comte de La Mole Time and place: the 1570s, Paris, France First sentence: “On Monday, the 18th of August 1572, there was a splendid fete at the Louvre.” Summary: It’s August 1572, and the wedding between Marguerite de Valois and Henry of Navarre has just taken place. St. Bartholomew’s day will soon follow. Although a Huguenot, Henry manages to escape it, saved by his new queen. He is nevertheless kept at the Louvre, a place where he is never safe, especially as his mother-in-law, Catherine de Medici, has looked at the future and seen him on the throne of France, an end to her own dynasty. She will try to change these premonitions, by various means, none of them orthodox, but can destiny ever be changed?

Let me start off by saying I have throughly loved Dumas as a child. I have read many of his books and loved them — somehow this book of his always remained unread, albeit famous and albeit being praised by some. I started it off almost fearfully, thinking that there’s no way I was going to like one of Dumas’ books as I did as a child — and that turned out to be true, in a way. However I read almost the whole book (all 600-something pages of it) in a single day, which means there must have been something in there that I did like, right? :)

The characters are quite well drawn, and one couldn’t help rooting for the obvious good guys (and some of the less obvious ones too). Margaret of Valois, the Margot in the title, is described as being incredibly beautiful (when in fact she looked like this), and also much learned. She is rather ambitious though but, unlike her mother Catherine de Medici, she has no occasion to actually be stepping on bodies in order to fulfill her plans, so she’s rather okay in the book. Her husband, Henry of Navarre, is the one who I think should have been the title character, as Margot is more like his prop than anything else: the vast portion of the book deals with Catherine’s planning Henry’s demise, and he managing to escape her clutches at the very last moment. Speaking of Catherine de Medici, she is the one who breathes life into this book: sure, she’s the antagonist, but she’s so creative and so out-and-out evil than the reader is drawn in, reading faster and faster just to see her fail once again.

Another interesting character was the king at the time, Charles IX. While he had a weak constitution and he cared for hunt more than anything else, he was also rather hard to pin down to one side or another, making for an interesting read in search for his motives. We also get to meet another two noblemen of the time, La Mole (Margot’s love interest) and his friend Annibal de Coconnas (a person just as real as the rest and yet unknown to Wikipedia). Their friendship is an interesting thing, as it starts out like a series of mere coincidences (which I doubt happened in real life, of course, but I found them a nice touch nevertheless), evolving into conflict and hatred during St. Bartholomew’s Day (they were on different sides), then blossoming into a charming friendship mostly due to another series of coincidences.

As mentioned earlier, all of the main characters in this book have lived and breathed, and, while the author has taken some liberties with some of the facts of history, he has taken particular care to weave in some of the details I wouldn’t have expected him to (I wouldn’t have thought they were actually real, that is). As characteristic to Dumas, he has also taken liberties with the characters’ emotions, making his heros and heroines somewhat different than they were in real life (for example one of my favorite parts in the book was the perfect relationship between Margot and Henry of Navarre; in real life they were known to have been arguing quite a lot during their marriage) — but, since I was expecting it, I was careful to filter all the information through Wikipedia’s almost all knowing filter (sure there are a lot more detailed historical accounts, but for my purpose Wikipedia did serve just fine), so it didn’t bother me that much, and, more important, it didn’t skew my perspective towards facts.

The thing I haven’t been that fond of is that everything is just the slightest bit exaggerated at times. People talk with lots of exclamation marks, for one. Dodging bullets is literally possible (there are many instances in the book when a character manages to jump sideways before being hit by a bullet, a thing I very much doubt can actually happen in real life). Also, some of the feelings expressed in the book seemed to me somewhat exaggerated — all people in love in this book, are terribly, unbelievably so, 110% percents. I cannot even chalk this out to their being part of one of the hot-blooded Romance people, because I happen to be part of a Romance people myself and still find it all more over-the-top rather than not :)

Thoughts on the ending: Quite predictable given what history teaches us :) :)

What I liked most: Predictably enough, the parts where real-life things happen to real-life characters :)

What I liked least: Did I mention some parts are exaggerated? My least favorite of them was a scene between Margot and La Mole, the latter making her promise that, should anything ever happen to him, she should retrieve his head and always have it by her side. Can you say “eeeeew”?

There was a scene I liked even less than that though, and the honor goes to the part where Margot and one of her friends let La Mole and Coconnas duel almost to the death under their very eyes, without moving a finger to stop the fight. I found this strange, as both ladies had previously invested time and feelings in the two gentlemen, and also their willingness to let one of them die needlessly chilled me to the bone. Perhaps at the time someone’s life was worth a lot less than it is now (although can this, should this ever be true?)

Recommend it to? Anyone who loves swashbuckling novels and/or has an interest in French history at the end of the 16th century.

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