Queen of Hearts: Marguerite of Valois

Constable & Co, 1968. Hardcover. Near Fine/Very Good. UNCOMMON 1968 British edition hardcover with dust jacket. UNREAD COPY with unmarked, well-bound pages. Charcoal-cloth hardcover is in excellent condition with sharp edges and corners. Very good jacket remains bright and retains its gloss, shows minor shelf-rubbing and faint scratching only. This is NOT an ex-library book. Nice copy overall, hard to find in this condition. 307 pages, includes index. "The life of Marguerite of Valois -- 'La Reine Margot' -- is one of the most fascinating and sensational in French history. Marguerite was 'une grande amoureuse.' Her enemies claimed that she had 22 lovers, and accused her of committing incest with her three brothers: King Charles IX, King Henri III, and Francois, Duke of Alencon. Whilst modern French historians reject this libel, Queen Margot's lovers did include three of the handsomest and bravest gallants of the time: La Molle, Bussy d'Amboise, and Chanvallon... Margot's biography is a real-life cloak-and-dagger story, far more thrilling than the many fictional accounts of it, based as it is on her own remarkable Memoirs and correspondence, together with eye witness reports and gossip by such of her contemporaries as Brantome, L'Estoile and others. It is an intensely vivid portrait of a queen who, in her struggle for feminine independence, and her belief that women had as much right to sexual freedom as men, was perhaps 400 years ahead of her time.