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In 1575 a heavily slanted piece of propaganda called the "Marvellous discourse on the life, actions and misconduct of Catherine de Médicis, queen mother" disparaged France's acting regent as "a woman, a foreigner, and hated by everyone." The first two charges were undeniably true, and she had double-crossed enough people to make the third nearly true as well.

Catherine became queen of France by family connections and chance. A member of the ruling Médicis family of Florence, she was betrothed at age 12 to the prince who would later become France's King Henri II. France sought the match not because Catherine had money or beauty (she was described as being small and thin, having indelicate features and bulging eyes, a Médicis trait), but because of her distant relation to Pope Clement VII.

She married in 1533, at age 14, then failed to bear children for the next 10 years. The entire court wished Henri to divorce her, but he chose instead to take a mistress, Diane of Poitiers. Upset by the affair but powerless to do anything about it, Catherine turned to astrologers and magicians in a frantic quest to bear a child. In 1544 she finally delivered a future king, Francis. She eventually bore seven other children, two of whom would also rule France in turn. Still, Henri rejected her.

When she could not win Henri's love, Catherine befriended Marguerite of Navarre, Henri's aunt. Marguerite was a great friend of John Calvin and supported the Protestants with money and position. According to Protestant writers, Marguerite persuaded Catherine to begin reading her Bible. An archbishop was so horrified that he confiscated the Bible, likening Catherine's behavior to eating from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge.

Catherine's true religious views are unknown. Raised a Catholic, at times she seemed to sympathize with the Huguenots, but it is unclear whether she favored their doctrine or simply wished to keep peace in her kingdom. Her political aspirations certainly outweighed her piety. A Catholic official, Nuncio Frangipani, once wrote, "This queen no more believes in God than does any member of her suite."

Pretence or not, her sympathy for the Huguenots abruptly ceased while her son Charles IX was king. During his reign, the Huguenot leader Gaspard de Coligny became good friends with Charles and gained influence over him. Fearing for her position, Catherine conspired against the Huguenots with Henri, duke of Guise, the Catholic leader. After convincing a reluctant Charles to go along with her plans, she arranged to have the French Protestants—including her erstwhile friend Coligny—massacred while they were in Paris to attend her daughter Marguerite's wedding.

In the long view, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre backfired, because instead of eradicating the Huguenot faction, it plunged France into a series of bloody conflicts that would destroy the Valois-Médicis line. Catherine repeatedly switched confessional loyalties and attempted to forge ties with both Protestant and Catholic countries, but no one trusted her (the Spanish called her "Madame la Serpente"). Both sides reviled her, producing massive quantities of libelous propaganda. Catherine amused herself by reading the articles and correcting them.

At age 70, Catherine died an embittered woman. Supposedly her last words were, "Blood! Blood! There is a river of blood! … The devils are after me! They are dragging me down to hell!"

Emily Alger is a freelance writer and contributing editor for Suite101.com's Christian Books section.

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