THY MOTHER IS A LIONESS

In Foster’s historical novel, a beleaguered Catherine de’ Medici, the Queen Regent of France, prepares her youngest daughter for the political tumult ahead.

In 1561, Catherine de’ Medici finds herself in a position as powerful as it is precarious. Her unfaithful husband and king of France, Henri II, dies foolishly jousting, and her eldest son Francis II, the heir to the throne, falls to an ear infection, leaving her 10-year-old son Charles the new king and Catherine the queen regent. She was humiliated by her departed husband’s long-standing and ostentatious infidelity and is now disdained for her “inferior” Italian ancestry and suspected of poisoning her brother-in-law, Francis, in order to clear the path for her husband to assume the throne. She’s anxious to secure her own political future and the stability of France and to prepare her youngest daughters, 13-year-old Claude and 8-year-old Marguerite, for whatever tomorrow brings, a palpable anxiety subtly captured by the author in this historically exacting novel. Against the custom of the times, she insists that her daughters receive the same education as boys would, a curriculum that includes the use of a rapier and strategies of war. Much of the book revolves around the lessons Catherine imparts to Marguerite, a remarkably precocious girl prone to childishly emotional intemperance. Catherine schools her daughter in their fraught familial history, focusing on Caterina Sforza and Maria Salviati, both women who “had been required to play against forces of a radically changing world.” Each represents different versions of a woman’s strength—Caterina, the Lioness of Romagna, is “all fire and force and power of will,” while Maria personifies the “power of a courageous and giving heart dedicated to whatever was required to protect family and move it forward toward its greatest achievements—its destiny.”

Foster sometimes overwhelms the reader with a farrago of minute historical detail—it is likely that this novel is best suited for those already fairly familiar with the period and Catherine’s extraordinary life. Moreover, the narrative can feel too much like an academic study—so much of the book is devoted to Catherine’s protracted lessons (delivered to her daughter in a “tutorial tone”), which produces philosophical banalities. (“The prime rule in geopolitics is that every state wants something somebody else has. And if you are weak, they will be tempted to try to come take it from you.”) Nonetheless, this is an impressively rigorous portrait of a profoundly fascinating woman, imagined with great dramatic power. Catherine emerges as a kind of Machiavellian savant, a marvel of cold prudence, and it is thrilling to see the gradual evolution of Marguerite, a daughter born into both privilege and peril. Despite the historical denseness of the text, this is a deeply engrossing work, and a portion of its immersive quality might even be the result of the demands it makes upon the reader. For those in search of a fascinating historical novel—one which challenges as it entertains—this is an excellent choice.

A scrupulously mounted portrayal of a captivating time.