Marguerite was born in 1492 in Angoulême. Her mother, Louise of Savoy, was sixteen. Her father, Charles, Count of Angoulême, a member of the House of Valois-Angoulême, was thirty-three.

In 1483 two little girls arrived at Chateau Amboise to be brought up by the Regent of France, Anne of Beaujeu.

Louis XI’s daughter, Anne of France, was born when he was the Dauphin living on charity in the splendid Court of the duke of Burgundy.

Of all the children from the Courts of France who stay in my mind, Louis (XI) is right up there. The boy came into the world when the English army was at the peak of its brutal strength and his father, the Dauphin Charles (VII) had been disinherited in favour of Henry V of England.

The Capital of France was wherever the King was. Because Paris was under English occupation, Charles VII established his Court in Tours. All of his and Marie of Anjou’s children were born and grew up in the Loire Valley.

Marie, who grew up an orphan in the magnificent Pitti Palace in Florence, was the richest heiress in Europe.

Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu better known as Cardinal Richelieu, was Louis XIII ’s right hand man for the eighteen years prior to the Cardinal’s death. He was sixteen years older than the King.

In this portrait of Gaston of Orléans, he is wearing the crown of a prince of the blood an elaborate lace jabot and an ornate doublet.