MEDICIS Catherine (1519-1589) - Lot 133

MEDICIS Catherine (1519-1589) L.S. "Catherine" including 20 lines entirely autographed and undated. Letter addressed to M. Fourquevaux, ambassador to Madrid, Plessis-lès-Tours, November 28, 1565. 2 pp. in-folio. Address on second leaf. Very interesting letter concerning relations between France and Spain after the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559). Catherine de Médicis, anxious to maintain good relations between the allied sovereigns and to protect her children, instructs her ambassador Fourquevaux to submit a memorandum in his own hand to Elisabeth. She expressed her satisfaction with Fourquevaux's conduct, recommending that he ensure that her letters did not fall into hands other than his own. Catherine herself writes to Fourquevaux that it is a matter of giving Elisabeth the memoir she has written, and not that of Frances de Alava, and of convincing her of the merits of what she is proposing, for the good of her daughter, her children and her brothers. She also asks him to show the said memoir to King Philip II and to tell whoever it may concern that she approves of the proposed marriages.