After the legendary “invincible” King Philip IV reigned on the French throne, a twenty-five-year-old Louis came to power, nicknamed the Sulky. His wife, Margaret of Burgundy, was thrown into a fortress for adultery.
Maurice Druon (1918–2009) is the most “Russian” writer of France. And because his father was born in Russia, and because he himself loved our country very much. Being not only a writer, but also a famous public figure, a prominent participant in the French Resistance, and later a minister and a member of parliament, Druon left behind many outstanding books. Among them is the cycle of historical novels “The Accursed Kings,” which we devoured some 25 years ago, trading them with the state for scrap paper (those were wonderful times). Of course, Druon’s historical novels are not academic scholarship. They are captivating literary works. Yet historians agree that Druon handled historical facts with great care, inventing only certain traits of his characters and individual actions, thoughts, and feelings of his historical heroes. And the value of Druon’s novels isn’t even to study medieval history of France, but to better understand the present through the lens of that history.