I have studied various opinions – those of her friends and her enemies – including the Catholic and the Protestant point of view, for it is a fact that the religious controversies of her day still echo about Catherine. In my efforts to understand the real Catherine de’ Medici, I have gone from one authority to another, and listed below are some of the books to which I am particularly indebted:

The History of France, by Guizot.

National History of France: The Century of the Renaissance, by Louis Batiffol.

France the Nation, and its Development from the Earliest Times to the Establishment of the Third Republic, by William Henry Hudson.

Life and Times of Catherine de’ Medici, by Francis Watson.

The Medici, by Colonel F. Young.

The Feudal Castles of France. Anonymous.

The Favourites of Henry of Navarre, by Le Petit Homme Rouge.

Life of Marguerite of Navarre, by Martha Walker Freer.

Life of Jeanne d’ Albret, Queen of Navarre, by Martha Walker Freer.

Henri II, by H. Noel Williams.

Catherine de’ Medici and the French Reformation, by Edith Sichel.

The Later Years of Catherine de’ Medici, by Edith Sichel.

J.P.