Dr. Estelle Paranque
speaker
144 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard Feb 2025
Dr. Estelle Paranque’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Easier to say.
For 11 years of marriage negotiation, 11 years, Elizabeth said, yes, I will. No, I won't. Yes, I will. No, I won't. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. I will. I won't. 11 years. I mean, you can call the French stupid. You can.
About 20, 25 years. And they've met each other twice. He came to England twice. And they partied together. I'm going to tell you a story. Did he sit on her lap and play the liar? I hope he didn't. I don't think she was the type of woman. But they had so much fun that she promised in front of everyone, I will marry you. in front of everyone, 1581. He's so happy.
He's like, oh my God, finally, you know, after 10 years. Can you imagine? But imagine like thinking that someone's going to marry you for 10 years and they don't. And the next morning she said, oh yeah, about last night. I didn't mean it, but it doesn't sound to you, Shappi, tell me your honest answer that she was absolutely hungover. Like, oh, my God, what did I say?
Well, you promised to marry someone. I didn't have that, but she did. And I think it's hilarious that, you know, the next day. Oh, my God, what did I what did I say? Oh, no, I didn't mean it. It's not going to happen.
She is the grandmother of Europe.
Well, she's the grandmother of the infanters of Spain.
Because she married her first daughter to Philip II.
And they had two daughters.
And then she has people in Lorraine, in Tuscany. She is the grandmother of Europe.
Well, for her, it's very hard because in 1585, there's the eighth religious civil war that is triggered, obviously, by the death of her son, her last son. Also, you have to realize that now, you know, she's counting her kids. Oh, my God. And there's still Henry.
But Henry and herself, so her favorite son, are going to drift apart because Henry III is going to make a secret alliance with Elizabeth I because he understands now that the Protestants don't want his crown, but the Guises and Mary Stuart... want much power in Europe.
So he's going to make a secret alliance and Catherine is going to get closer to the Guises, wanting to preserve the Catholic faith ultimately in France. So they drift apart. Catherine ends up hating Elizabeth I. And when Elizabeth ordered the execution of Mary Stuart in 1587, Catherine is almost like, who does she think she is? Like, I hate this woman.
And so you really have, those two are drifting apart. They're fighting. And Henry III is going to commit a very horrible thing. He's going to order the murder of the Guises. And Catherine de Menchie is going to know. That's the end. I think she really gets very ill. Mm-hmm.
At that time, so it's December 1588, she gets very ill and she has nowhere to recover because the country is in, honestly, it's hell. France is hell at that point. And she dies on the 5th January 1589. And I'm so glad she didn't see her favorite son, the beautiful Henry, murdered. He's murdered a few months later, in August 1589.
He's assassinated.
It ends because, obviously, Henry dies in 1589 as well. It's the end of the Valois. And then you have Henri de Navarre with his wife, Margaret of Valois, who become king and queen of France. That's the end of the Valois dynasty.
It is.
Well, I would like people to remember that Catherine is not the Dark Queen. All of this is absolutely untrue. And to show it to you, I'm going to discuss two things briefly with you. The first thing is the fact how much she loved her children, but also her grandchildren. She wrote loving letters to her granddaughters, the Spanish granddaughters. She sent them gifts, monkeys, part of these gifts.
I know, quite unusual. Not unusual for the time, if I'm really honest with you. But the thing that I find it very touching about Catherine is the way she treated Henry III's wife, Louise de Lorraine Vaudemont, who was a guise. by blood, but of Valois. by choice. And she gave her, at her death, Chenonceau.
Showing 121–140 of 144 · page 7 of 8
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