Queen Margot, or Marguerite de Valois

A historical novel set in sixteenth-century France during the Wars of Religion. Marguerite de Valois, sister of King Charles IX, is married to the Protestant Henri of Navarre in an attempt to bring peace between the religious factions. The wedding takes place amid deep mistrust at a court full of plots, rivalries and fear.

Dumas follows the queen, her unusual husband and two young men caught up in the dangers around them. The book mixes romance with a vivid, dark picture of the Valois court and the violence of the period, and it is the first of his Valois novels.