"A sympathetic novel of one of Europe's most maligned queens"
Reviewed by Elizabeth Crowley
Posted July 1, 2011
Historical
The bestselling author of The Lost Queen once again dazzles
readers with his latest novel, THE CONFESSIONS OF CATHERINE
DE MEDICI. The novel begins when Catherine is a young girl
in Florence. She barely escapes with her life when she is
abducted from her home by the Signoria (the ruling body),
who overthrew the Medici's rule in Florence. When her
uncle, Pope Clement VII, regains control of Florence, he
arranges a brilliant political marriage between Catherine
and the second son of France's King Francois I. But when
Catherine arrives on French soil, she discovers her royal
fiancé is not among the crowd of people gathered to welcome
her. When King Francois declares Catherine will be married
by proxy because Henri refuses to attend the ceremony,
Catherine knows she will never have the happy marriage she
hoped for. When the dauphin of France unexpectedly dies, Henri becomes
heir to the throne, and Catherine becomes the dauphine, the
future Queen of France. Although Catherine is now
considered the most important woman in the realm, she must
contend with a dangerous rival who is queen in all but
name: Henri's mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Former governess
to Henri, Diane becomes a constant thorn in Catherine's
side. When Catherine and Henri fail to produce an heir,
Catherine fears she will be cast off and sent back to
Florence. But France is in a precarious position. The
number of Huguenots (Protestants) and the threat of
insurrection continue to grow. The Valois dynasty must
produce an heir. Henri resigns himself to his fate and
attempts to get Catherine with child while Diane stands
nearby offering advice on the best way to ensure pregnancy.
Catherine is relieved when she finally presents France with
an heir, but she soon realizes her husband's mistress has
not only stolen her husband, but her children as well.
Diane greedily assumes care of Catherine's children, who
Catherine is barely allowed to see. When Henri is
accidentally killed during a jousting match, Catherine
finally exacts her revenge by banishing Diane from court,
but other enemies lurk in the shadows. The dangerous Guise
family name themselves regents of the realm and take it
upon themselves to declare a holy war on all French
Protestants. When countless Huguenots are slaughtered,
Catherine's son, Charles, is blamed. Catherine must find a
way to rid France of the Guise family and their corruption
forever. Catherine de Medici's ruthless tactics and determination to
ensure the legacy of her sons have resulted in Catherine
being one of the most maligned queens in European history.
While some people may question C.W. Gortner's decision to
write Catherine as a woman who dabbles in the dark arts,
the novel still manages to create a sympathetic portrait of
the Italian queen by focusing on the love of her children.
In THE CONFESSIONS OF CATHERINE DE MEDICI, Catherine plots
murder, creates voodoo dolls, and betrays her closest
friends in order to save the future of France for her
sons. Mostly historically accurate and written through the
eyes of a mother and betrayed wife, C.W. Gortner creates a
vivid portrait of one of the most misunderstood women in
history.
SUMMARY
The truth is, none of us are innocent. We all have sins to
confess. So reveals Catherine de Medici in this brilliantly imagined
novel about one of history’s most powerful and controversial
women. To some she was the ruthless queen who led France
into an era of savage violence. To others she was the
passionate savior of the French monarchy. Acclaimed author
C. W. Gortner brings Catherine to life in her own voice,
allowing us to enter into the intimate world of a woman
whose determination to protect her family’s throne and realm
plunged her into a lethal struggle for power. The last legitimate descendant of the illustrious Medici
line, Catherine suffers the expulsion of her family from her
native Florence and narrowly escapes death at the hands of
an enraged mob. While still a teenager, she is betrothed to
Henri, son of François I of France, and sent from Italy to
an unfamiliar realm where she is overshadowed and humiliated
by her husband’s lifelong mistress. Ever resilient,
Catherine strives to create a role for herself through her
patronage of the famous clairvoyant Nostradamus and her own
innate gift as a seer. But in her fortieth year, Catherine
is widowed, left alone with six young children as regent of
a kingdom torn apart by religious discord and the ambitions
of a treacherous nobility. Relying on her tenacity, wit, and uncanny gift for
compromise, Catherine seizes power, intent on securing the
throne for her sons. She allies herself with the enigmatic
Protestant leader Coligny, with whom she shares an intimate
secret, and implacably carves a path toward peace, unaware
that her own dark fate looms before her—a fate that, if she
is to save France, will demand the sacrifice of her ideals,
her reputation, and the passion of her embattled heart. From the fairy-tale châteaux of the Loire Valley to the
battlefields of the wars of religion to the mob-filled
streets of Paris, The Confessions of Catherine de
Medici is
the extraordinary untold journey of one of the most maligned
and misunderstood women ever to be queen.
ExcerptBlois, 1589
I am not a sentimental woman.
Even during my youth I wasn't
given to melancholia or remorse. I rarely looked back,
rarely paused to mark
the passage of time. Some would say I do not know the
meaning of regret.
Indeed, if my enemies are to be believed, my unblinking eyes
stare always
forward, focused on the future; on the next war to fight;
the next son to
exalt; the next enemy to vanquish.
How little they know me. How
little anyone knows me. Perhaps it was ever my fate to dwell
alone in the myth
of my own life, to bear witness to the legend that has
sprung around me like
some venomous bloom. I have been called murderess and
opportunist, savior and
victim. And along the way, become far more than was ever
expected of me, even
if loneliness was always present, like a faithful hound at
my heels.
The truth is, none of us are
innocent.
We all have sins to confess.
* * *
PART I 1527 – 1532
The Tender Leaf
One
I was ten years old when I
discovered I might be a witch.
I sat sewing with my aunt
Clarice, as sunlight spread across the gallery floor.
Outside the window I
could hear the splashing of the courtyard fountain, the
cries of the vendors in
the Via Larga and staccato of horse hooves on the
cobblestone streets, and I
thought for the hundredth time that I couldn't stay inside
another minute.
"Caterina Romelo de Medici, can
it be you've finished already?"
I looked up. My late father's
sister Clarice de' Medici y Strozzi regarded me from her
chair. I wiped my brow
with my sleeve. "It's so hot in here," I said. "Can't I go
outside?"
She arched her eyebrow. Even
before she said anything, I could have recited her words, so
often had she
drummed them into my head: "You are the Duchess of Urbino,
daughter of Lorenzo
de Medici and his wife Madeleine de la Tour, who was of
noble French blood. How
many times must I tell you, you must restrain your impulses
in order to prepare
for your future?"
I didn't care about the future.
I cared that it was summer and here I was cooped up in the
family palazzo
forced to study and sew all day, as if I might melt in the
sun.
I clapped my embroidery hoop
aside. "I'm bored. I want to go home."
"Florence is your home; it is
your birth city," she replied. "I took you from Rome because
you were sick with
fever. You're fortunate you can sit here and argue with me
at all."
"I'm not sick anymore," I
retorted. I hated it when she used my poor health as an
excuse. "At least in
Rome, Papa Clement let me have my own servants and a pony to
ride."
She regarded me without a hint
of the ire that the mention of my papal uncle always roused
in her. "That may
be but you are here now, in my care, and you will abide by
my rules. It's
mid-afternoon. I'll not hear of you going outside in this
heat."
"I'll wear a cap and stay in
the shade. Please, Zia. You can come with me."
I saw her trying to repress her
unwilling smile as she stood. "If your work is satisfactory,
we can take a
stroll on the loggia before supper." She came to me, a thin
woman in a simple
gray gown, her oval face distinguished by her large
liquid-black eyes—the
Medici eyes, which I had inherited, along with our family's
curly auburn hair
and long-fingered hands.
She
swiped up my embroidery. Her lips pursed when she heard me
giggle. "I suppose
you think it's funny to make the Holy Mother's face green?
Honestly, Caterina;
such sacrilege." She thrust the hoop at me. "Fix it at once.
Embroidery is an
art, one you must master as well as your other studies. I'll
not have it said
that Caterina de Medici sews like a peasant."
I thought it best not to laugh
and began picking out the offensive color, while my aunt
returned to her seat.
She stared off into the distance. I wondered what new trials
she planned for
me. I did love her but she was forever dwelling on how our
family prestige had
fallen since the death of my great grandfather, Lorenzo Il
Magnifico; of how
Florence had been a center of learning renowned for our
Medici patronage, and
now we were but illustrious guests in the city we had helped
build. It was my
responsibility, she said, to restore our family's glory, as
I was the last
legitimate descendant of Il Magnifico's bloodline.
I wondered how she expected me
to accomplish such an important task. I'd been orphaned
shortly after my birth;
I had no sisters or brothers and depended on my papal
uncle's goodwill. When I
once mentioned this, my aunt snapped: "Clement VII was born
a bastard. He
bribed his way to the Holy See, to our great shame. He's not
a true Medici. He
has no honor."
Given his prestige, if he
couldn't restore our family name I didn't know how she
expected me to.
Yet she seemed convinced of my destiny, and every month had
me dress in my
uncomfortable ducal finery and pose for a new portrait,
which was then copied
into miniatures and dispatched to all the foreign princes
who wanted to marry
me. I was still too young for wedlock, but she left me no
doubt she'd already
selected the cathedral, the number of ladies who would
attend me—
All of a sudden, my stomach
clenched. I dropped my hands to my belly, feeling an
unexpected pain. My
surroundings distorted, as if the palazzo had plunged
underwater. Nausea turned
my mouth sour. I came to my feet blindly, hearing my chair
crash over. A terrifying
darkness overcame me. I felt my mouth open in a soundless
scream as the
darkness widened like a vast ink stain, swallowing
everything around me. I was
no longer in the gallery arguing with my aunt; instead, I
stood in a desolate
place, powerless against a force that seemed to well up from
deep inside me . .
.
I stand unseen, alone among
strangers. They are weeping. I see tears slip down their
faces, though I can't
hear their laments. Before me is a curtained bed, draped in
black. I know at
once something horrible lies upon it, something I should not
see. I try to stay
back but my feet move me toward it with the slow certainty
of a nightmare,
compelling me to reach out a spotted, bloated hand I do not
recognize as my
own, part the curtains, and reveal—
"Dio Mio, no!" My cry
wrenched from me. I felt my aunt holding me, the frantic
caress of her hand on
my brow. I had a terrible stomach ache and lay sprawled on
the floor, my
embroidery and tangled yarns strewn beside me.
"Caterina, my child," my aunt
said. "Please, not the fever again. . ."
As
the strange sensation of having left my own body began to
fade, I forced myself
to sit up. "I don't think it's the fever," I said. "I saw
something: a man,
lying dead on a bed. He was so real, Zia . . . it
scared me."
She stared at me. Then she
whispered, "Una visione," as if it was something
she'd long feared. She
gave me a fragile smile, reaching out to help me to my feet.
"Come, that's
enough for today. Let us go take that walk, si?
Tomorrow we'll visit the
Maestro. He'll know what to do."
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