Catherine De Medici Quotes

The truth is, not one of is innocent. We all have sins to confess.

Love is a treacherous emotion. You will fare better without it. We Medici always have.

The truth is, not one of us is innocent. We all have sins to confess.

Miroir de l'Ame Pecheresse, Mirror of a Lost Soul.

I had learned a fundamental truth about killing: The victim's anguish is brief and fleeting, but the murderer's endures forever.

I had a choice: to quail, or to harden. I hardened.

Catherine de Medici brought her cooks to France when she married, and those cooks brought sherbet and custard and cream puffs, artichokes and onion soup, and the idea of roasting birds with oranges. As well as cooks, she brought embroidery and handkerchiefs, perfumes and lingerie, silverware and glassware and the idea that gathering around a table was something to be done thoughtfully. In essence, she brought being French to France.

Femeile al caror suflet si ale caror intentii sunt pure, se folosesc de virtuti pentru a-i domina pe barbatii pe care-i iubesc; dar femeile care nu le vor binele ii guverneaza servindu-se de cusururile lor.

There are many ways to obtain our desires, ma petite. Remember that, for it will serve you well.

In religious matters she was no fanatic except when her sons and their birthright were concerned. The Catholic Mass suited her, a lifelong habit that she found comforting, almost as though it were another talisman to ward off evil.

You'll fare beer without love. We Medici always do." As soon as I spoke, I regretted it. I'd remembered Papa Clement's phrase exactly, used it to the same horrid purpose. I saw her flinch, take a small step back. I wanted to console her, to somehow ease the harsh reality of what I'd said. But I could not. I would not lie to her nor pretend the task I set before her was anything other than what it was: an act of submission, which could entail the loss of her youthful dreams.

But we are each created in God's image and must be allowed to seek our path to Him in our own way.

Nicicând plăcerea nu adusese cuiva atăta durere.

She was obviously devastated by her loss. But not so devastated that she did not find the energy to utterly vanquish Diane.

Prudenta lui ii egala averea. Era de o umilinta excesiva. Niciodata orgoliul nu-l prinsese in capcanele sale. Acest negustor se facea atat de mic, de bland, de placut si de sarac la curte, in fata printeselor, regilor si favoritilor, incat aceasa modestie si bonomie ii pazisera afacerea.

No truth can be determined that concerns the future.

with the queen

Adversity is solitary, while prosperity dwells in a crowd.

Czy zawsze musisz zobaczyć, żeby uwierzyć?

Nie rozumiesz, bo nie wiesz jak wielka jest niszcząca moc władzy. Nadal wierzysz, że można wszystko rozwiązać dzięki logice, że ludzie posłuchają głosu rozsądku, bo przecież w gruncie rzeczy w obliczu Boga wszyscy jesteśmy równi.

The vast majority of Huguenots supported the king and the royal family and wished to live in peace, he explained. The problem was that the Protestant movement had been more or less hijacked by extremists who desired political power. This radical element was using the general unhappiness with the Guises’ governance, and especially with their vicious policy of persecution, to forward their own ambitions.

He informed me that Huguenots throughout France were bolting across our borders into Geneva. There, I’d been branded as Queen Jezebel. Printed pamphlets declaimed every vile rumor told of me: I was the Italian serpent, a monstrous being who’d schemed with Spain to exterminate their faith. When once I might have been outraged, quick to protest my innocence, I told Birago to do nothing. Let all the calumny fall upon me, if it would absolve my sons.

ominous murmur ran through the legion of onlookers, who had heretofore maintained an uncharacteristic silence. Their resentment was palpable. Five days later Coligny was assassinated, and the streets of Paris ran with blood as the entire Huguenot wedding party was hunted down and slaughtered in one of the most infamous episodes in French history, known today as the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. But this horrific mass murder, which claimed more than five thousand martyrs over the course of a week, was no spontaneous bloodletting. Rather, it was the denouement of a carefully constructed plot that utilized the unsuspecting Margot as both victim and bait to lure Coligny and his faction to their doom, an intrigue planned, instigated, and executed by the one individual in France powerful enough

He rode into Vassy on March 1, 1562, accompanied by an entourage of two hundred armed knights and found the local Huguenot congregation, numbering some five or six hundred people, including many women and children, conducting its Sunday morning meeting not outside the city walls, as was specified in the Edict of Toleration, but right in town—and, worse, on his property in one of his very own buildings, which they had appropriated without his permission, an unimaginable insult. An altercation between the duke’s people and the Protestants promptly ensued. Being for the most part unarmed, the Huguenots had to improvise. Rocks were thrown. Members of the lower classes were not supposed to throw stones at their superiors from the upper classes. The duke’s soldiers retaliated by shooting and stabbing as many of the dissenters as they could (which was quite a few, as their opponents were trapped inside the building attending a church service), accompanied by rousing shouts of “Kill! Kill! By God’s death kill these Huguenots!” An hour later the Massacre of Vassy, as this infamous incident would later be dubbed, was over. Fifty Huguenots lay dead, another two hundred were wounded, and a flaming torch had been thrust into the tinderbox of religious controversy that would blaze up into the bonfire of the Wars of Religion.

The wealth of the Medici family was based on the wool trade but most importantly on banking. By the beginning of the fifteenth century they were one of the leading families in Florentine government. In 1421 Giovanni di Bicci de’Medici became gonfolaniere—literally, the standard-bearer of the republic, one of the most prestigious offices in the city. He was also a banker to the popes in Rome, and his bank has been called ‘the most successful commercial enterprise in Italy.’ It was the basis for his son Cosimo the Elder’s rise to power.

... gdy mężczyźni walczą ze sobą otwarcie, my musimy toczyć skryte boje

-Nie wracajmy do przeszłości. -Nie możemy. Musimy stanąć z nią twarzą w twarz, gdyż jedynie wtedy zdołamy odnaleźć pokój

Czasem musimy zadać cios pierwsi, zanim inni go nam zadadzą.

- Wiedziałeś i nie powiedziałeś mi? - Czy uwierzyłabyś mi, gdybym przyszedł do Ciebie, nie przynosząc dowodów? Musiałem je mieć, skoro Ty, Pani, raz za razem rozstrzygałaś wątpliwości na jego korzyść. Był niesłychanie ostrożny; samo przejęcie jego korespondencji wymagało cudów zręczności.

The duchess of Retz, who was fluent in Latin and Greek (languages she had acquired as a result of her first husband’s frustrating lack of sociability, which had obliged her to live like a hermit out in the countryside for years, with only her books for company), was especially interested in the literary arts.

They needn’t have worried. Three hundred men, it turned out, were not enough to massacre a man like Bussy.* The assassination attempt had not only failed, it backfired completely by adding to the warrior’s renown.

For solace at this time of sadness and confusion, Marguerite turned to a source that would remain a refuge to her throughout her life: books.

Wlepiał oczy w wymalowane kurwy jak głodny w plastry cielęciny

Although passionate, she required a more complex wooing. The groom’s taste ran to more easily available conquests. (Or, as a future scholar would tactfully put it, “Henry needed much affection, openly expressed.”)

As we are ready to give ear and credit to those we love, he believed all she said. From this time he became distant and reserved towards me, shunning my presence as much as possible; whereas, before, he was open and communicative to me as to his sister… What I had dreaded, I now perceived had come to pass. This was the loss of his favor and good opinion; to preserve which I had studied to gain his confidence by a ready compliance with his wishes.

Margot was utterly unable to control her fury. “I was so greatly offended with this fresh indignity, after so many of the kind formerly received, that I could not help yielding to resentment; and my grief and concern getting the upper hand of my prudence, I exhibited a great coolness and indifference towards my husband,” she admitted. “Le Guast and Madame de Sauves were successful in creating a like indifference on his part, which, coinciding with mine, separated us altogether, and we neither spoke to each other nor slept in the same bed.

Every now and then there comes a moment in history when an individual not previously credited with any particular integrity is elevated to a position of authority and unexpectedly assumes the character of the office and rises to a higher purpose. Although it meant sacrificing her personal happiness, Marguerite, appalled by all she had witnessed and understanding that, as queen of Navarre, she was all that stood between her husband and annihilation, refused to participate in the bloodshed and elected to save Henry.

Throughout her career, Catherine seems to have believed that simply by reiterating her demands over and over she could either convince her opponents of the correctness of her position or overwhelm them until they conceded to her wishes.

The character of people varies, and it is easy to persuade them of a thing, but difficult to keep them in that persuasion.

Fortresses may or may not be useful according to the times; if they do good in one way, they do harm in another.

Nauczyłam się, że albo akceptujemy to, co daje nam życie, albo gaśniemy.

With the departure of the acknowledged head of the Catholic party, the Protestants gained a degree of influence over the royal family completely out of proportion to their numbers in the general population.

A prince should therefore have no other aim or thought, nor take up any other thing for his study, but war and its order and discipline, for that is the only art that is necessary to one who commands.

Thus it is ever in Courts,” she observed bitterly. “Adversity is solitary, while prosperity dwells in a crowd.

In short, I was constantly receiving some fresh mortification, so that I hardly passed a day in quiet.

Whoever thinks that in high personages new benefits cause old offences to be forgotten, makes a great mistake.

The day on which he [Épernon] arrives, and so long as he remains, I shall dress myself in garments which I shall never wear again: those of dissimulation and hypocrisy,

It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. —Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

Men commit injuries either through fear or through hate.

In the charged atmosphere of these months it was easy for exiles to gild insignificant grievances.

Whatever thier individual reasons, Ippolito’s presence in Rome created a focus around which all sorts of people discontented with Alessandro’s reign might coalesce to oppose the Duke.

While Alessandro’s arms were displayed hanging around Cosimo’s residences, Cosimo proved to slow to apprehend Lorenzo.

Lorenzino's Apology for the murder made him famous, a celebrity killer of the Renaissance. Queen Marguerite of Navarre wrote a story about Alessandro's assassination. Versions of the tale featured on the London stage. It let itself to the genre of Jacobean revenge drama.

Lorenzino featured in several stage plays, enchanting one by Alfred de Musset and another by Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Muskateers. His blow for republicanism found favour with nineteenth-century writers and audiences.

A few contemporaries referred to his mother’s slave status, but thanks to chance and contingency Alessandro was able to trump his illegitimate status and rise to the highest level of society, just as his relative Giulia de’Medici, Pope Clement VII, had done before him.

How might Alessandro’s history have looked, if written by his friends? Among the hostility, there are little hints of the qualities they might have emphasised: intelligence, wisdom beyond his years, respect for law and justice.

A long and fruitful marriage might have laid to rest some of the worst tales of sensual excess.

It seems to me unhelpful to insist on categorizing Alessandro’s mother as either black (sub-Saharan) African or North African, as if the people of these two groups never mixed. In reality they did, and for many centuries had mixed with Italians too.

Simonetta may not have been a slave herself, but the descendant of an African who had arrived in Italy decades before.

Medici lacked the talent of her famous predecessor, Catherine de Medici, but she possessed all her treachery, bigotry, and baseness. She was a profound believer in witchcraft, and guided the vessel of the State by her astrological calculations.

My aunt went on, her voice cracking: “Clement should have heeded the emperor’s demands and offered up the money to pay the Imperial troops. Instead, he insisted on standing on his idiot pride and supporting the French, though the soldiers were knocking on his door.” She brandished her fists. “Now the Holy City is in flames and Florence rebels against us. He has doomed us all!

My child, I fear I will not see you again in this life. But I will never stop loving you and I know that God in his Mercy will watch over you. Remember always that you are a Medici and are destined for greatness. You are my hope, Caterina. Never forget it.

I realized being a princess of France was much like being a Medici; the king’s daughters dwelled always under the expectations of their rank.

Though you pitied her,” he said, “you did not hesitate. That is the way of life, ma petite. Sometimes we must strike first, before we are struck in turn.

Despite all my efforts and pain, I had succeeded in surrendering my virginity. Nothing more.

The Prince is famous even here in France. I’ve read it several times.” He met my eyes. “‘From this arises an argument: whether it is better to be loved than feared. I reply that one should like to be both one and the other; but since it is difficult to join them together, it is much safer to be feared than loved when one of the two must be lacking.

I realized being a princess of France was much like being a Medici; the king’s daughters dwelled always under the expectations of their rank. One day, they too would wed, leave for distant courts, where they would be strangers representing their nation.

It was then that my hatred for Diane de Poitiers took root in my heart. I had not even seen her, but if I could have I’d have poured the vial of poison Ruggieri had given me into her goblet.

But we are each created in God’s image and must be allowed to seek our path to Him in our own way.

Huguenot party, as the French Protestants were called. The majority of the Parisian populace loathed and feared the Huguenots. Huguenots attacked Catholic churches, destroying precious relics and statues that they claimed were evidence of idolatry; they refused to attend Mass and worked openly to abolish sacred ceremonial processions.

Parisians had no doubt that, should the Huguenots succeed in seizing power in France, as it was obvious they were trying to do, the Catholic population would be either forced to convert or suffer annihilation. But

In twenty cities, or about that number, the godly [Huguenots] have been slaughtered by raging mobs,” Calvin noted grimly to his chief disciple, Théodore Beza, in a letter written in May 1561. In Provence, enraged Protestants ransacked Catholic churches and destroyed relics in retaliation.

It was better to take a chance on the devil she didn’t know than to leave herself completely unprotected against the man who (despite his recent assurances of devotion) had made it his business to torment her in the past.

Quod de futuris non est determinata omnino veritas’: No truth can be determined for certain that concerns the future.

You will fulfill your destiny. It may not be the destiny you want, Caterina de’ Medici, but fulfill it you will.

Love is a treacherous emotion. You’ll fare better without it. We Medici always have.

I let myself mourn everything I had lost before I decided my course. My life in Italy was over. It might not be what I wanted but it was my fate. Now I must look to the future and prepare. After all, I was a Medici.

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.

I could not afford sentiment; I had no time for it. I had a realm to protect.

I would destroy the Guises. I would not rest until I freed France of their menace. Forever.

That night, I discovered passion as it is meant to be. There was no obligation hovering over us, no watchful mistress, none of the unfamiliarity of strangers committing the most intimate of acts.

When I was thirty-six, I met Michel de Nostradamus.

For she was right: we both must do our duty. It was the price of privilege, of our roles as royal women. Before comfort, before hopes and dreams, our countries must come first.

Birago gave me a wry smile. “This newfound naïveté does not suit you.

I knew then that something in me had died with him and I would never be the same. There was nothing left of the girl I’d been, nothing of the naïve adolescent who’d first come to France.

I felt it build inside me—an eruption of exhaustion, anxiety, and relief so overwhelming that when he reached our pew and sat beside Margot, who turned bitter eyes to me, I threw back my head and laughed aloud. I was still a Medici and I would survive.

I was fifty-seven years old. I had contended with death all my life, burying a husband and four children, killing a lover and countless foes, but this small loss undid me. If death had come for me that day, I would have welcomed it.

But no truth can be certain that concerns the future, I thought, and I pressed a hand to my mouth, stifling an acid burst of laughter. Fate, it seemed, was the cruelest trickster of all.

when overhearing criticism of his late mother-in-law, it was Henri IV who retorted, “I ask you, what could the woman do, left by the death of her husband with five little children and two families who thought only of grasping the Crown—our own [the Bourbons] and the Guises? I am surprised she didn’t do worse.

That night, I discovered passion as it is meant to be. There was no obligation hovering over us, no watchful mistress, none of the unfamiliarity of strangers committing the most intimate of acts. There was just us; and it was the one time our desire met, collided, and became one.

Henri’s body was being desecrated at that very moment by embalmers and she stood here declaring her immunity as if it were a virtue. I knew then that she’d never loved him. She was incapable of it. She was as lifeless as her pantheon at Anet.

Madame,” I said in a low voice, “I might see you impaled on the highest turret this very hour, and no one, not even my son, would be able to stop it.

To be a woman alone in this world requires every weapon you possess, every last bit of strength and endurance. You cut away pieces of yourself without realizing it, until you have everything and nothing at the same time.

but I felt the weight of the years as I never had before, every link with my past severed so that I seemed to stand alone, with a surfeit of memories no one else shared.

And I ask myself, What epitaph will history inscribe for me?

No truth can be determined for certain that concerns the future.

exhaled in relief. “Thank you. I … I love you.” The words were out before I could stop them and he went still. Then he closed his arms around me. “I love you too,” he whispered.

As his smile knifed through me, I suddenly understood. It all came into monstrous focus. He wanted to die. He wanted to perish for his faith, for then he’d wield greater power than he ever had alive. He too had learned his lesson from the murder of le Balafré. He had seen the devotion martyrs could engender.

Have I not struggled as much as any other for my blood? Others live fewer years; accomplish a mere fraction of what I have; and yet they sit enthroned with halos about their brows, while I sink like a villain in my own calumny.

It was mid-December. Together, we conceived my most beloved child.