page_title: Margaret of Valois
section_title: Last years in Paris
hierarchical_section_title: Margaret of Valois / Life / Last years in Paris
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Particolare del dipinto "L'incoronazione della regina all'abbazia di Saint-Denis", del "Ciclo di Maria de' Medici" di Pieter Paul Rubens, raffigurante la Regina Margherita di Valois, prima moglie di Enrico IV di Francia.
context_page_description: Margaret of Valois was a French princess of the Valois dynasty who became queen consort of Navarre and later also of France. By her marriage to Henry III of Navarre, she was queen of Navarre and then France at her husband's 1589 accession to the latter throne.
  Margaret was the daughter of King Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici and the sister of kings Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III. Her union with the king of Navarre, which had been intended to contribute to the reconciliation of Roman Catholics and Protestant Huguenots in France, was tarnished six days after the marriage ceremony by the St Bartholomew's Day massacre and the resumption of the French Wars of Religion. In the conflict between Henry III and the Malcontents, she took the side of Francis, Duke of Anjou, her younger brother, and this caused the king to have a deep aversion towards her.
  As Queen of Navarre, Margaret also played a pacifying role in the stormy relations between her husband and the French monarchy.
context_section_description: In 1605, after nineteen years in Usson, Margaret made her return to the capital. She impressed the Parisians for her appearance: her skin was red and raw, she wore an extravagant blonde wig and her clothes were in fashion twenty years before, but despite this she equally won the affection of the people. Even if she had changed little - at least as far as her tastes were concerned - she became "horribly stout", according to Tallemant des Réaux.
  In Paris Queen Margaret established herself as a mentor of the arts and benefactress of the poor. She was also now very devout and Vincent de Paul was her chaplain.
  In 1606 she managed to win the lawsuit against her nephew and gained her entire maternal inheritance. After this, Margaret named as her heir the dauphin Louis. This was an extremely important political move for the Bourbon family, as it made official the dynastic transition between the Valois family, of which Queen Margaret was the last legitimate descendant, and that of Bourbon dynasty, just settled on the throne of France.
  It strengthened the friendship that had been created with Queen Marie de' Medici to delegitimize the claims of Henriette d'Entragues, sister of Charles of Valois and lover of Henry IV, who claimed that her son was the legitimate heir due to the King's promise of marriage. Margaret often helped plan events at court and nurtured the children of Henry IV and Marie. In 1608, at the birth of Prince Gaston of France, future Duke of Orleans, Queen Margaret was chosen by the King himself to be the godmother.
  She settled her household on the Left Bank of the Seine in the Hostel de la Reyne Margueritte, which is illustrated in Merian's 1615 plan of Paris; the hostel was built for her to designs by Jean Bullant in 1609. The palace became a Parisian  political and intellectual center. Queen Margaret gave brilliant receptions with theatrical performances and ballets that lasted until night and had great patrons;  she also opened a literary lounge where she organized a company of philosophers, poets and scholars (among them Marie de Gournay, Philippe Desportes, François Maynard, Etienne Pasquier, Théophile de Viau).
  On 13 May 1610, Queen Margaret attended Marie's coronation at Saint Denis. The following day, Henri IV was assassinated by the fanatic monk François Ravaillac and Marie de' Medici obtained the regency for their minor child. The regent was entrusted with  various diplomatic roles, including the reception of foreign ambassadors at court, the celebrations for the future marriage of Louis XIII and in the Estates General in 1614, in which Margaret was charged with negotiating with clergy representatives. This was her last public assignment.
  Also in 1614, she entered the woman question (querelle des femmes) in response to The Flowers of Moral Secrets, a text that she considered to be misogynist, written by the Jesuit father Loryot. She wrote The Learned and Subtle Discourse in which she affirmed the superiority of the woman over man, arguing that God in the creation of the world started from the lower creatures up to the superiors and the woman is the last created creature, not even from the mud, like Adam, but from a rib. Furthermore, the delicacy of the aesthetic forms of women reflects only their perfection. For Queen Margaret, the world is not "made for man and man for God, but rather the world is made for man, man made for woman, and woman made for God".
  Early in March 1615, Margaret became dangerously ill. She died in her Hostel de la Reyne Marguerite, on 27 March 1615. "On March 27 – wrote Paul Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain – there died in Paris, Queen Margaret, the sole survivor of the race of Valois; a princess full of kindness and good intentions for the welfare and repose of the State, and who was her only enemy. She was deeply regretted".
  Queen Margaret was buried in the funerary chapel of the Valois in the Basilica of St. Denis. Her casket has disappeared and it is not known whether it was removed and transferred when work was done at the chapel, or destroyed during the French Revolution.
caption: Queen Margaret in 1610. Coronation of Marie de' Medici in St. Denis (detail), by Peter Paul Rubens, 1622–1625.
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