MARGARET OF VALOIS, or OF FRANCE ( 1553-1015). A French princess, daugh ter of Henry II. of France and Catharine de' Medici, and wife of Henry IV. She was born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, May 14, 1553, and received all excellent education. Her marriage to Henry of Navarre at Paris on August 18, 1572, was intended to he a bond of perpetual reconcilia tion between Catholic's and Huguenots, but was followed after a week by the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. With no love lost on either side, husband and wife, during Henry's forced sojourn at the French Court, lived in good-natured tolera tion of each other's transgressions. After the flight of Henry of Navarre in February, 1570, she was detained for some time as a hostage, but in 1578 rejoined her husband at Pau, in Gascony. There she remained for four years and then re turned to Paris. Her intrigues at Court aroused the resentment of Henry Ill., who subjected her to repeated humiliations, imprisoned her, and finally destroyed her reputation entirely by a public investigation into her condnet (1583).
From 1587 to 1605 she lived at the Chateau of Usson in Auvergne, and there wrote her .11('moires, which are frank and light-hearted in tone. and evince but an elementary grasp on certain moral truths. In 1599, after the death of Gabrielle d'Estr6es, the favor ite of Henry IV., whom Margaret greatly de tested, she consented to a divorce from the King, who for a number of years had been desirous of an heir. In 1000 she returned to Paris. where she lived on the best of terms with Henry, even a ttendiwr the coronation of her successor, Maria de' Medici, in 1610. Her hotel in the Pile de Seine was a centre for Paris learning and fashion her death, which occurred March 27, 1615. With her the House of Valois became extinct. I fer Hemaires, POsirs, and Lettres were published by rd ( Paris, 18421. Consult Saint-Policy, Histoire de Harguerite de Valois (Paris, 1587).