The very name Catherine de Medici, even now almost four hundred years after her death, is synonymous with cruelty, ruthlessness and treachery. Feared and hated in her own time, she has come down to us as one of history's dark figures.

In telling the story of this brilliant, tortured woman, Marguerite Vance, whose biographies of Elizabeth of England, Lady Jane Grey and Carlota and Maximilian of Mexico, among others, have brought these historical figures to vivid life for young readers, recreates the society and the period in which Catherine lived. Here is an honest portrait of the woman whose degree of responsibility for the horrors of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre is still debated by scholars.

Queen of France and mother of three kings of France, Catherine de Medici was driven by a consuming ambition for power. Unscrupulous and seemingly heartless, she vacillated from friend to enemy depending on what best suited her needs at the time. She manipulated and in the end destroyed almost everyone around her, including her own children.

Marguerite Vance has written an accurate, and at the same time, understanding account of this woman, her children and their times.

From the dust jacket