Catherine de Medici Quotes

“In religious matters she was no fanatic except when her sons and their birthright were concerned. The Catholic Mass suited her, a lifelong habit that she found comforting, almost as though it were another talisman to ward off evil.”
― Leonie Frieda, Catherine de Medici

“The conspirators’ meeting at Hugues was the origin for the name Huguenot’, the term subsequently used for French Protestants.”
― Leonie Frieda, Catherine de Medici

“They called it Catherine’s bible, and it eventually acquired the reputation as a manual for cruel autocrats while the name Machiavelli became synonymous with scheming, evil and tyranny.”
― Leonie Frieda, Catherine de Medici

“He suggested removing or exterminating the inhabitants of the city of Bordeaux and replacing them with a more compliant populace transplanted from another part of France. To Henry’s credit he refused to countenance this idea, but the Constable’s abhorrent methods of punishment could not fail to taint the King in this, the only serious uprising of his brief reign.”
― Leonie Frieda, Catherine de Medici

“This was the most senior rank in the French military hierarchy. The post had been created in the time of the Frankish kings; the word constable deriving from count of the stables. . . . The Constable in the field ranked over even the Princes of the Blood . . . and was regarded as one of the major councillors of the king.”
― Leonie Frieda, Catherine de Medici

“If Chambord were ever destroyed, no record of the pure early style of the Renaissance would be left anywhere . . . [its] beauty was restored by its abandonment.’4”
― Leonie Frieda, Catherine de Medici

“Underlining their importance by patronising the arts, which, from the thirteenth century onwards, became the most visible symbol of Italian wealth and dynamism, the Medici played an indispensable role in the process which produced the Italian Renaissance.”
― Leonie Frieda, Catherine de Medici