The motto of Louise de Savoie was "God gave me wings! I will fly and rest later." This work explores in detail the relationship of Louise, who came to be the mother of the heir to the Crown of France during the life of Louis XII, and the world of French culture and politics, which included the career of her son François, Duke of Valois. The story of how a woman, who was not a queen, gave birth to King François Ier is complex. The book ends well before her death in 1535, after decades of decision making behind the scenes.
In this era "One was individualist and optimistic, which is to say that one was young....We will get to know one of the particular elements of this society, by entering the small court of Amboise, where Louise de Savoie raised François I and Marguerite de Valois under her wing; one of the rare princely courts which survived in France, and one of the best types of the small centers where the new evolution was taking place. Even today, among delicate minds, François I and his sister retain a certain popularity, less perhaps because of what we know of their lives, (and the sources of our book are almost exclusively unpublished or new, as we will be able to see in the references) only because all that they have left, stories, letters, poems, bear the stamp of clear, distinguished, brilliant individualities. No one bound themselves less than they did to the commonly agreed..." - Clavière
This is the first and only translation of René de Maulde la Clavière into English.
Previous Frank H. Wallis translations:
Blanche of Castile, Queen and Regent of France, 1188-1252 (2015). From Élie Berger, Histoire de Blanche de Castille, Reine de France (Paris, 1895).
Queen Margot and the end of the Valois, 1553-1615 (2021). From Charles Merki, La Reine Margot et la fin des Valois (1553-1615) (Paris, 1905).
