20 November
The film begins with the Catholic Margot (Isabelle Adjani) reluctantly marrying the Huguenot King Henri of Navarre (who should be 19, but is played by the 44-year-old Daniel Auteuil). In the film, as in real life, this causes trouble. The inter-faith match has been fixed by Margot’s mother Catherine de’Medici played brilliantly by Virna Lisi who has thoughtfully murdered Henri’s mother as a wedding gift. Historians generally regard the story that Catherine sent Jeanne of Navarre a pair of poisoned gloves as fiction.