The Historical Plausibility of Queen Margot: A Film Analysis

ONCE UPON A HISTORY

The Historical Plausibility of Queen Margot

A Film Analysis

Kimberly Simmonds, B. A.

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“France is deeply divided by the wars of religion raging across Europe. Catholics and Protestants have been fighting and killing each other for years. Charles IX, a Catholic, was crowned at the age of ten. For many years, it was his mother, Catherine de’Medici, that really controlled France. Now, the Protestant leader, Admiral Coligny, has gained the King’s trust and is trying to lead him into a dangerous war against Catholic Spain. The King’s brothers, Anjou, Alencon and their ally, Duke de Guise, are opposed to Admiral Coligny and his influence. In an attempt to regain her power and take credit for bringing peace, Catherine has arranged the marriage of her daughter, Margot, to her Protestant cousin, Henri de Bourbon, the King of the French province of Navarre. On August 18, thousands of Protestants have come from the countryside for the wedding and have begun to mix with the Catholic population. A stifling heat wave that has hit Paris is yet another provocation for a city already on the verge of rebellion…”1

Queen Margot begins on the eve of the wedding of Henry of Navarre and

Margot of Valois. The two have been arranged to be married with the hopes of

bringing peace between the Catholics and the Huguenots. The pair do not favor

each other, Henry being afraid that he will be killed by the plotting family of

Margot, and Margot does not favor her husband to be, and knows that she is a

pawn in the game of peace cooked up by her brother, King Charles IX, and her

mother, Catherine de’Medici.

Regardless of how the two feel about each other, they are married in a

lavish, exquisite and expensive ceremony with hundreds of guests in attendance.

Many thousands more have traveled to Paris to take part in the festivities.

As a festival to celebrate the marriage rages on in the city, tensions run high

throughout the royal family. Henry and his advisors are convinced that a fight is

1 Queen Margot (1994), DVD, directed by Patrice Chereau (Burbank: Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc.)

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going to break out, and Admiral Coligny, a Huguenot and favorite advisor of the

King, is pushing for war against Spain. Catherine plots Coligny’s death and hires a

hitman to kill him the following day. Margot, who almost seems oblivious to the

fact that she just got married, tries to reconnect with her lover, de Guise, who is

jealous of her new marriage. After he pushes Margot away, she decides to take

herself to the streets and has a passionate connection with La Mole, a Protestant

soldier who has come to Paris to meet up with Coligny and join his fight.

The hitman who is hired by Catherine to kill Coligny fails, shooting the

Admiral in the arm. Crowds of Huguenots begin to protest, asking for justice,

thinking that Coligny is dead. Worried about the impending violence, Catherine

and her son, Anjou, urge Charles to snuff out any problems right away by killing

the Huguenot leaders. In a state of distress, the King gives the order to not only

kill the leaders, but to kill all of the Protestants in the area, anyone who could do

damage to him.

As bells toll, the Catholic soldiers make their way into the homes, beds, and

workplaces of the Protestants in Paris. They are stripped of their clothing and

murdered in cold blood: they are stabbed, shot, their throats are slit, limbs are cut

off; the killing needed to take place as quickly as possible to prevent any sort of

organization on part of the Protestants.

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Margot, who is barricaded in her rooms, is startled by an injured man who

has made his way into her area of the palace. The man turns out to be La Mole,

the man who she had relations with just days before, and she takes pity on him

and tries to care for the wounded man. She is, however, rushed from her rooms

in order to save Henry, who has been taken by her family and is being made to

convert or die. La Mole tries to follow her, but ends up back in the streets where

all of the fighting is taking place.

Margot manages to save Henry from her family by convincing him to

convert to Catholicism. They are both imprisoned in the Louvre because Charles

(and Catherine) wants to keep them close and under watchful eyes. La Mole is

found by an executioner who is cleaning up the bodies of the perished off the

streets, and is nursed back to health. La Mole leaves to raise money and men to

come back and save Henry and his lover, Margot, from the grips of Catherine and

her sons.

In the meantime, Catherine plots to kill Henry, whom she is convinced is

trying to steal the throne from her boys. She has her perfume maker (who is also

her poison maker) poison some lipstick which is given to Charlotte, a baroness

and Henry’s lover, in the hopes that it will poison and kill him. This plan fails when

Margot rushes into the room just as Henry is about to kiss Charlotte, and

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Charlotte dies instead. After Henry saves the life of Charles on a hunting trip,

Catherine becomes enraged and the second attempt at killing Henry is made. She

has a poisoned book delivered to him, but her son, Charles, opened and read the

book instead. Charles becomes very sick, and has a long, painful illness.

La Mole comes back to Paris to attempt to rescue Henry and Margot, but is

only successful in getting Margot out of the Louvre. They spend another

passionate night together, but La Mole insists that Margot go back to the palace

so that nothing happens to Henry if they realize that she is gone. Margot returns

to the castle and finds that her brother is dying. La Mole makes another attempt

to rescue the pair, but is found out, captured and sentenced to death. Margot

begs for the life of her lover at her brother’s bedside, but her brother tells her

that it is too late. Charles dies just after La Mole is put to death.

Henry is able to escape back to his kingdom where he converts back to

Protestantism, much to the joy of his people. Margot brings embalming fluid to

the executioner, in the hopes that he will be able to preserve her lover’s beauty,

even in death. She sets off in a carriage to meet Henry in Navarre and escape the

reality of the death and carnage that she has had to endure for so long.2

2 Queen Margot (1994), DVD, directed by Patrice Chereau (Burbank: Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc.)

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La Reine Margot (or Marguerite de Valois), written by Alexandre Dumas in

1845, is the sensationalist and fictionalized story that Queen Margot is based on.

Knowing that the film is based on a work of fiction, one must also assume that the

film is fiction as well. If the viewer does not know anything of the Saint

Bartholomew’s Massacre, however, or about France or Dumas’ book, it would be

very easy to assume that the goings on of the film are in fact true, which some of

them are.

“Chereau’s film perpetuates the version of the myth of Marguerite de

Valois, deploying some rather dubious [references] not found in Dumas’

novel. [Chereau] draws from some of the worst political-pornographic

pamphlets under the pretext of a realist vision of the Valois court, making

Marguerite a nymphomaniac who goes hunting for men in the streets of

Paris when her court lovers fail her.” 3

So, was Margot a chaste princess who simply got a bad name from Dumas?

Not likely. In fact, de Guise was one of Margot’s lovers. They wanted to be

married, but Catherine did not want the Guise family to gain power. An

ambassador to Phillip II of Spain reported on an incident one evening when de

Guise was seen going in and out of Margot’s private rooms. Margot was

3 Julianne Pidduck. La Reine Margot (Champaign:University of Illinois Press, 2005), 58.

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summoned to her mother’s room, where King Charles and Catherine were waiting

to lecture her. “I am assured that the mother took her hand to her daughter, and

that her son did likewise to the extent that she was rendered senseless.” 4

Charles, still angry with his sister, hired a man to kill de Guise on their next

hunting trip, but Margot was able to warn him in time.5 Soon after these

incidents, de Guise was married off to the Princess of Porcien.6

La Mole was also one of the lovers of Margot. Their clandestine meeting on

the streets of Paris is one unlikely part of this story. “This encounter plays on

exploitative folklore rather than historical probability, as it is highly unlikely that

two young women of the court would wander the streets of Paris unaccompanied

(let alone that they would search for sex in the streets).”7 Also untrue is the scene

where La Mole enters Margot’s chambers during the massacre and falls into

Margot’s arms, bleeding and hurt. According to Margot herself, in her Memoires,

“an injured Protestant Lerac seeks refuge in her chambers during the massacre

and is spared by the captain of the guards due to Margot’s compassion. Dumas’

4 Mark Strage. Women of Power: The Life and Times of Catherine de’Medici (New York: Harcourt, 1976), 147. 5 Charlotte Haldane. Queen of Hearts: Marguerite of Valois (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1968), 28.

6Strage, Women of Power, 148.

7 Pidduck, La Reine Margot, 59.

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novel, and in turn, its cinematic adaptations incorporate this episode in a boudoir

account of the massacre, where La Mole is substituted for Lerac.”8

Another falsehood was that La Mole was a Protestant. In actuality, he was a

Catholic and a good friend of Alencon, Margot’s brother and the next in line for

the throne after Charles.9 In the film, La Mole is blamed for poisoning Charles

with his hunting book, and is beheaded. This is partly true, historically speaking.

La Mole was accused of creating a wax figure of the king and sticking it with pins

in order to accelerate the death of Charles (who actually died of tuberculosis, not

of pins or poison)10 so that Alencon might ascend to the throne more quickly.11 He

was tortured and beheaded at the behest of Catherine.

True is the story of the duo who could not love each other less. Henry of

Navarre and Margot were a couple whose “union was based solely on external

and internal State policy by the bride’s mother and brother in collaboration with

the Huguenot leaders, Coligny and Jeanne of Albert.” 12 Not one to trust the

Protestant son-in-law, Catherine dispatched Charlotte de Sauve to watch over

Navarre, and she became his mistress. In the film, Charlotte becomes too involved

with the King of Navarre, and stops reporting her findings to Catherine. In


9 Haldane, Queen of Hearts, 68.




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actuality, Charlotte reported her findings religiously to the power hungry woman,

hoping to stay on her good side.13 As an instrument to poison Henry, there was no

evidence found.

In this time period, reformation was spreading through Europe, and

according to McKay in A History of Western Society, “Protestant teachings called

the power of sacred images into question, and mobs in many cities took down

and smashed statues, stained-glass windows and paintings…Catholic mobs

responded by defending images, and crowds on both sides killed their opponents,

often in gruesome ways.”14

The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was no different. Just six days after

the arranged marriage of Henry of Navarre and Marguerite of Valois, which “was

intended to help reconcile Catholics and Huguenots,” according to McKay,15 the

massacre of Huguenot wedding guests in Paris and the slaughter of Protestants

across France took place. The gruesome violence shown in the film is probably not

even a sliver of the horrors that took place. An estimated 3,000 were killed in

Paris and 70,000 killed in all of France.16 Like in the film, it is the botched

assassination of Coligny on August 22, 1572 (a few days after the royal wedding)

13

Haldane, Queen of Hearts, 71. 14

John P. McKay. A History of Western Society (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2008), 473. 15

McKay, A History, 473. 16

Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th

ed., s.v. “Saint Bartholomew’s Day, massacre of.”

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that sparked off the massacre a few days later.17 Also, when watching this film, it

feels like the events take place within days of each other; in actuality, they take

place over a period of two years.18

Pidduck, in her book analyzing the film, says “Indeed, part of the challenge

of ‘filmed history’ involves injecting immediacy into times already dead and gone,

in reinventing past events as somehow ‘live.’”19 Patrice Chereau, the director of

the film, did a great job of executing a film that did just that. He deliberately shot

much of the film on an intimate scale close to the faces and bodies of the actors.20

This really brings the viewer closer to the characters, makes it feel as if they could

jump through the screen and continue on with their sword fight, or run away

from a marriage they want no part of. Every emotion is seen on their faces, every

pain seen writhing through their bodies. The lighting plays a key role in this as

well. The director used chiaroscuro, an element first used in painting, where most

of the picture would be cast in a dark, shadowy light with a sort of spotlight

illuminating what he wanted the viewer to focus on. Much of the film is dark, with

a few exceptions, like the hunting scene where Navarre saves Charles IX from a

wild boar, and the scene where the executioner is unloading hundreds of dead,

17

Pidduck, La Reine Margot, 6. 18



Pidduck, La Reine Margot, 45.

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stark naked bodies into mass graves. Chereau did this to show the importance of

viewing the violence and brutality that had taken place.

Another feature that helps shape the film is the costumes. Two scenes

show an excellent representation of period costume: first, the wedding scene,

and then the scene where la Mole visits Amsterdam to collect funding and

soldiers to rescue Navarre and Margot. In the wedding scene, Margot is dressed

in a gown of rich red and silver with a high collar and stiff white lace ruffle. Her

face is heavily powdered white and her hair is elaborately pinned up with pearls

and precious stones.21 Everyone else is dressed in celebration finery, though

Catherine is wearing mourning black with a ‘spidery’ gold collar.22 According to

Pidduck, 800 extras were required to fill the basilica where the wedding scene

was filmed, and every one of the extras were costumed in period garb-from the

waist up. The lower bodies of seated figures were not costumed, which saved 400

pairs of shoes.23

In the scene where la Mole visits Amsterdam, a group of Protestants of all

ages are peacefully gathered, praying and reading, listening to the political

fortunes of Protestants across Europe, showing that people of all ages and

21

Pidduck. La Reine Margot, 47. 22



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nationalities are caught up in events pertaining to reformation. All of these

people are wearing black, sort of what you would think of as a habit today. Their

heads are cloaked in white kerchiefs, and they wear white chemises with high

necks underneath all of the black dress. Although this scene is an invention for

the film, and never took place in Dumas’ book, the costume designer did a great

job creating the Protestant garb of the period.

Most of the other scenes in the movie were not historically accurate in

terms of costuming, such as the wedding festival scene where women are seen

dancing around with their hair loose and their bodices untied without chemises to

cover the upper chest and neck. These “dresses were designed for sexual display

rather than historical accuracy, as aristocratic women’s gowns of the period were

characterized by stiff collars and relatively high necklines (along the lines of

Margot’s high-necked wedding dress).” 24

When compared to Dumas’ novelization of the events surrounding the

Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, the book and the film are very similar

because both were created with the intent to be entertaining, not necessarily

historically accurate. However, when comparing the film with non-fiction

historical sources, you can see where fact blurs into fiction. Margot was so

24


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concerned with ‘the truth’ being told that she wrote her own “Memoires” and

said this: “These memoirs might merit the honorable name of history from the

truths contained in them, as I shall prefer truth to embellishment. In fact, to

embellish my story I have neither leisure nor ability.”25 Because her own work

gives her control over her own story, her biographers avoid it to maintain their

kind of critically normative perspective.26

Without any background historical information on Queen Margot, Henry of

Navarre, and the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, it would be easy for

someone to come away with an inaccurate view of France’s violent and intolerant

past. While the film ends letting the viewer know that Henry became King of

France after Alencon died, and Margot and Henry were divorced later and

remained good friends for the rest of their lives, you come away from the film

yearning for more information. Henry reigned for 12 years and was remembered

fondly in history as ‘Good King Henri.’ He also created the Edict of Nantes of 1598,

which granted freedom to Protestants.27 In 1599, the marriage of Henry and

Margot was annulled and Henry married Marie de’Medici who gave birth to

25

Cathleen M. Bauschatz, “ ‘Plaisir et Proffict in the Reading and Writing of Marguerite de Valois,’ ” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 7, no. 1 (1988):23. 26

Bauschatz, “Plaisir,” 27. 27


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Henry’s heir, Louis XIII. Margot offered unwavering support to the family,

especially after Henry was murdered and until her death in 1615.28

Most times, films are made to sell theater tickets. Without adding drama,

romance, intrigue, even violence, audiences may find a story that only warrants a

paragraph or two in most history texts to be dull. A dull story without added plot

details will not sell tickets or make the studio producing it any money. The team

of Chereau and Dumas bring all of the elements an audience is looking for

together, making a breathtaking, ghastly, yet beautiful film that warrants a spot in

the “Girls Night In” section at Barnes and Noble, just not anywhere near the

documentary section.

28

Pidduck, La Reine Margot, 9-10.

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Bibliography

Bauschatz, Cathleen M. “ ‘Plaisir et Proffict in the Reading and Writing of

Marguerite de Valois.’ ” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 7, no. 1

(1988): 27-48.

Haldane, Charlotte. Queen of Hearts: Marguerite of Valois. New York: The Bobbs-

Merrill Company, Inc., 1968.

McKay, John P. A History of Western Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,

2008.

Pidduck, Julianne. La Reine Margot. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press,

2005.

Queen Margot (1994). DVD. Dir. Patrice Chereau. Burbank, CA: Buena Vista Home

Entertainment, Inc.

Strage, Mark. Women of Power: The Life and Times of Catherine de’Medici. New

York: Harcourt, 1976.

The Historical Plausibility of Queen Margot: A Film Analysis

Documents

margot of valois

admiral coligny

plotting family of margot

catherine demedici

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catholic population