Charles IX: One who gives life is no longer a mother once she takes that life back.
Duke of Anjou: Welcome to the family Henry. It's a bit peculiar, but not that bad.
Catherine de' Medici: What is betrayal but one's skill in following the flow of events?...I love my of three children. I mean, all four of them.
Queen Margot is based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas, which was inspired by true events.
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| Henry of Navarre marrying Margot and a portrait of the real Henry of Navarre and Marguerite of Valois. |
The main character is Margot (Marguerite of Valois) of France, daughter of the powerful and conniving Catherine de' Medici (widow of King Henry II) who rules through her feeble son, Charles IX. As sister to the King of France, Margot is an important political pawn. She is married off to Henry, King of Navarre (later he will become Henry IV of France), a Protestant. Catherine, a Catholic, supposedly hopes to try to create peace between the warring Catholic and Protestant (Huguenot) factions. Margot is not happy about it, and refuses to share Henry's bed (though it seems she'll share it with pretty much anyone else). Henry tries to convince her that they should work together, but she is indecisive:
Henry: I came to strike a deal. Will our marriage save me for a month? Days? Help me, and tomorrow I'll give you everything.
Margot: You agreed not to come tonight, or any other night.
Henry: That's true. It was agreed. But give me your hand. Teach me! Lead me! I'm blind here! These halls lead to an invisible trap. They'll kill me.
Margot: No!
Henry: Your brothers will, and you'll be a useless widow. You can rule over them. You can be Queen, Margot!
Margot: Let go of me!
Henry: We were forced to marry. Let's outplay them.
Margot: Quiet!
Henry: Be my ally! Let's strike a deal! Don't be my enemy!
Margot: Be quiet. I'm not your enemy.
Henry: My friend, then? My ally? Will you be my ally?
Margot: Maybe. Now leave. Leave.
Henry [He hears someone at the door]: Is it a brother? A lover? Both? I'd love to know.
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| Portrait of the real Catherine de' Medici, Catherine and Anjou attending Margot's wedding, and a real portrait of the Duke of Anjou, later Henry III of France. |
Following their wedding, for a reason not apparent to me, Catherine and her favorite son, the Duke of Anjou, convince Charles to order the massacre of all the several thousand Protestant wedding guests. He is initially reluctant (he feels very close to the Protestant leader, Coligny, whom he sees as a father-figure in a very childlike way), but they provoke him into a fit of insanity. Catherine rants at him, saying "They'll seek revenge. They're getting ready in the peasant's room. I feel it...Didn't you see their hatred? How they cursed us? The Louvre will fall. They'll kill you, your brother and sister. They'll kill us all! They've been mustering for weeks...If your father were alive, he'd know what to do! He knew that a real King does both good deeds and bad ones...Go on, open an inquiry for Coligny! Listen to Guise! Be a useless King seeking justice! You'll bring ruin to France, when I'm working to make it strong! Since your father died, it's me who's been doing all the dirty work...I'd die to save my children...We have to go all the way now."
Eventually Charles loses it and agrees, raving maniacally:
Charles: So, all the others in France must die too! There must be no survivors! No one left to blame me for this.
Catherine: How many must we kill?
Charles: Eleven. Fourteen. All of them!
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| Anjou and Guise (in silver) and a sketch of the real Henry I, Duke of Guise. |
Amidst the bloodbath, a young Protestant named La Mole survives with the help of Marguerite (he and she had earlier shared a back alley amour on her wedding night when her lover, the Duke of Guise, turned her down and she felt raunchy).
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| Portrait of the real Charles IX of France, and Margot holding Charles up as he sweats blood after being unintentionally poisoned. |
Marguerite and her new husband are held captive in the castle, and La Mole and his fellow Protestants plot to set them free. Catherine accidentally kills Charles in an attempt to kill Henry, making Anjou King Henry III of France (I will still call him Anjou so as not to cause confusion between him and Henry of Navarre), after a soothsayer tells her Henry will become King and she panics:
Catherine: Anjou will live? He'll be King?
Soothsayer: He'll rule years. Anjou will rule after Charles.
Catherine: And Alencon? He'll rule after that?
Soothsayer: Alencon will not live to be King.
Catherine: But his son? One of my sons will have a son, right?
Soothsayer: The liver is to the left: Three deaths followed by decay.
Catherine: Death? My three sons! Decay?
Soothsayer: Henry of Navarre will rule in their place.
Catherine: I thought that horrid night had changed it all! We killed of them. But he's still alive!
The movie ends with La Mole executed, and Henry of Navarre free. The epilogue explains that Margot and her husband divorce after he becomes King Henry IV of France following the death of Anjou.
It's a pretty dark movie. The court is not the glamorous court of Louis XIV, but bleak and violent. The royals are bloodthirsty, mad, and immoral. It's also pretty heavily implied that they're incestuous. There's a lot of sex and nudity.
I didn't quite get Margot. First she's sleeping around, though refusing to sleep with her husband. Then she's helping him, even saving his life (Catherine has his mistress's lipstick poisoned, resulting in her death, but Margot stops him from kissing the mistress in time to save him), and she decides to sleep with him after all:
Henry: Every night I see my people being slaughtered. I hear screams, people yelling murder.
Margot: Hide your grief. Hide your fear and sorrow. Keep a light heart, pretend you're free. You've managed so far. Don't stop!
Henry: Death was on her lips.
Margot: Never show them you're weak! Those you love become their victims. That's how they can destroy you. Never show them your love.
Then she's suddenly in love with her one-night stand ( the man she saved -in real life, the guy she saved was not La Mole):
La Mole: Promise me something. They say death always took your lovers. They say you lock their hearts in gold boxes around your bed.
Margot: They do? What else? That at night, wearing a mask, I roam the city looking for love?
La Mole: One day you'll know who you really are. Promise you won't forget me, the one you shouldn't have loved.
Margot: I promise.
In the end, she's carrying his head home as a keepsake. I couldn't quite figure her out.
Also, what was up with King Charles IX? Was he just completely nuts? And Anjou? This family brings the term "dysfunctional" to a whole new level.
See my review of Henry 4 for a movie set at the same time, with many of the same characters: http://www.kaleenasmith.blogspot.com/2013/06/henry-4-or-henry-of-navarre-2009.html
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