Quotes from Nancy Goldstone

She was obviously devastated by her loss. But not so devastated that she did not find the energy to utterly vanquish Diane.

She died early in the morning of February 13, 1662, at the age of sixty-five, one day shy of what would have been her forty-ninth wedding anniversary.

Frederick's wit was impressive. When a descendant of Ghengis Khan, who was wreaking havoc in the Muslim world, wrote threateningly that the holy Roman Emperor should surrender his lands and come to his court to become one of his vassals, Frederick replied that he'd think about it and to please hold open the position of falconer.

Adversity is solitary, while prosperity dwells in a crowd.

They needn't have worried. Three hundred men, it turned out, were not enough to massacre a man like Bussy.* The assassination attempt had not only failed, it backfired completely by adding to the warrior's renown.

Throughout her career, Catherine seems to have believed that simply by reiterating her demands over and over she could either convince her opponents of the correctness of her position or overwhelm them until they conceded to her wishes.

With the departure of the acknowledged head of the Catholic party, the Protestants gained a degree of influence over the royal family completely out of proportion to their numbers in the general population.

A prince should therefore have no other aim or thought, nor take up any other thing for his study, but war and its order and discipline, for that is the only art that is necessary to one who commands.

Huguenot party, as the French Protestants were called. The majority of the Parisian populace loathed and feared the Huguenots. Huguenots attacked Catholic churches, destroying precious relics and statues that they claimed were evidence of idolatry; they refused to attend Mass and worked openly to abolish sacred ceremonial processions.

Parisians had no doubt that, should the Huguenots succeed in seizing power in France, as it was obvious they were trying to do, the Catholic population would be either forced to convert or suffer annihilation. But

These women were not ahead of their time-they were their time. And that legacy-Mary's-endures.

In short, I was constantly receiving some fresh mortification, so that I hardly passed a day in quiet.

Men commit injuries either through fear or through hate.

Thus it is ever in Courts," she observed bitterly. "Adversity is solitary, while prosperity dwells in a crowd.

Although passionate, she required a more complex wooing. The groom's taste ran to more easily available conquests. (Or, as a future scholar would tactfully put it, "Henry needed much affection, openly expressed.")

In twenty cities, or about that number, the godly [Huguenots] have been slaughtered by raging mobs," Calvin noted grimly to his chief disciple, Théodore Beza, in a letter written in May 1561. In Provence, enraged Protestants ransacked Catholic churches and destroyed relics in retaliation.

The day on which he [Épernon] arrives, and so long as he remains, I shall dress myself in garments which I shall never wear again: those of dissimulation and hypocrisy

Whoever thinks that in high personages new benefits cause old offences to be forgotten, makes a great mistake.

The duchess of Retz, who was fluent in Latin and Greek (languages she had acquired as a result of her first husband's frustrating lack of sociability, which had obliged her to live like a hermit out in the countryside for years, with only her books for company), was especially interested in the literary arts.

Fortresses may or may not be useful according to the times; if they do good in one way, they do harm in another.

It was better to take a chance on the devil she didn't know than to leave herself completely unprotected against the man who (despite his recent assurances of devotion) had made it his business to torment her in the past.

It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. —Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

For solace at this time of sadness and confusion, Marguerite turned to a source that would remain a refuge to her throughout her life: books.

As we are ready to give ear and credit to those we love, he believed all she said. From this time he became distant and reserved towards me, shunning my presence as much as possible; whereas, before, he was open and communicative to me as to his sister… What I had dreaded, I now perceived had come to pass. This was the loss of his favor and good opinion; to preserve which I had studied to gain his confidence by a ready compliance with his wishes.