Catherine Medici
Paris, France
Orphan. Queen of France. My life has been privileged. Yet the challenges and disappointments have outweighed the joys. 10 children. Loveless marriage. My husband's childhood friends, the Guise brothers would poison both his reign, and that of my firstborn, Francis. Their obsession with destroying the Huguenots nearly destroyed France itself. History may one day lay blame for those atrocities at my feet, yet I did what I could to bring harmony to a fractured country.