Catherine de Medici: We Heard She Ate Babies for Breakfast

you know her name. And that is because Katherine lad a very big life and there is a lot in the historical record about her. Really, right, we'll unpack that problem. Katherine may or may not have introduced the artichoke to France, and she may have been at least partly responsible for starting the French Wars of Religion. Nothing big, really, um. She's also famous for being the mother of three three kings.

Our primary focus though, today is to untangle whether or not the accusations that Catherine was a homicidal poisoner actually had any truth to them, or even were at least plausible. Catherine may have been a Queen of France, but she was not actually born in France. She was born in Italy,

in Florence in April of fifteen nineteen. Her mother was Madeline de la Tour du Verne, cousin of Francis, the first King of France, and her father was Lorenzo de Medici, who was the ruler of Florence and had several other titles, but at the end of the day he was the ruler of Florence. She Kather herself actually was said to have exhibited the same physical traits as her father and the rest of the Medici clan um. And we quote this from a Venetian envoy um right around the time

of Catherine's forty birthday. She was described as her mouth is too large and her eyes too prominent and colorless for beauty. I dream that one day someone will write that about me. Your eyes, Holly, are too colorless. I'm dead inside. Um. I think that's where it comes from. Right, She's got the shark, guys. But this is not the only way that she was described. She was also described as quote a very distinguished looking woman with a shapely figure,

a beautiful skin, and exquisitely shaped hands. So this is clearly an eye of the beholder situation, right, I mean yeah, I mean if you like hands, like she's got the dead eyes and gorgeous hands. Uh, we'll see. I mean like hands do come up a little bit later. So, um, she was she's from a famous political family. The Medicis were UMU the ruling wealthy class of Tuscany in Italy, which was they're also known as the House of Medici, and they came to their wealth and political power long

before Catherine. It was back in the thirteenth century and um primarily they came to it through banking and commerce. But if you know the Medicis, but probably banking is not the first thing to do. No, no, not at all. It's like a really good interest rates um three point two. They went on to become patrons of Leonardo da Vinci, Barticelli, Michelangelo, and Galileo, among other names that you would recognize today.

They were considered the first family of the Italian Renaissance. UM. But the Catherine herself, her story is it begins tragically. So she was orphaned when she was less than a month old. So when she was two weeks old, her

mother died. Her father's death, which was probably the result of syphilism, happened very quickly after her mother, and she spent her childhood being cared for and educated in convents, and then in fifteen thirty three, when she was fourteen, Catherine's uncle, who happened to be Pope Clement the seventh, arranged for her to marry the Duke of Orleans, calling it the greatest match in the world, in the world, I mean, I like how he builds it, like my

wrestling matches. I thought I was like like w W E or like like a monster truck race. He's like Sundays, there's like a monster truck marriage thing that we can put together. Here, everybody's got a little flag, you know. Um. So, the duke who would become her husband, he was the second son of the King of France UM and he despite being the second son, he did go on to be crowned um. He was crowned Henry the Second in

March of Fife. So during her first ten years of marriage, Catherine lived with the fact that Henry the Second had a mistress, Dianne de Poitiers, who had been his caregiver during his childhood. That's got some baggage. We're not unpacking today, and we're just gonna let that stay where it is. Oh, Henry, right, Deanne had all of the influence, and Henry actually wore her colors just sort of a way to symbolize his his affinity for her rather than his wife Katherine's, which

had to be both just personally upsetting any embarrassing. Can you even imagine she would be at different various you know, events that were happening, and there's Henry and like whatever the Diane wore, you know, and she just had to sit there and clap, just shove it all down inside Katherine and I'll be fine. So Henry's mistress actually kept all of the influence that she had over him through childhood, it and into adulthood. Um she kept it through until

Henry's death. She was always there. And it took for Catherine years of living with infertility and some extraordinarily humiliating treatments for that infertility, often involving urine and animal parts, before the cause of the problem that they were having she and Henry conceiving a child was finally uncovered. What actually was revealed was that the king had a physical

issue called hippospadius, which makes conception really difficult. Oh, I was gonna say, also, he probably had to have sex with her like regardless of the fact that he had a physical issue, you know, I mean, he was doing it with Diane, so like they needed to be in the same room as well, So for ten long years

like this is this is crazy. So even though this was revealed to be a problem of Henry's physiology, Catherine was still considered to be the and to blame, and she was often called frigid by the people at court and the people of the country. Yes, so society was not nice to her at this time. Um. And So Henry had one living brother, UM, who was unmarried and childless, and I can only imagine that that would have made Catherine feel like the entire fate of that dynasty was

in her hands. Um and so for her to have that first child was just incredibly important. There are actually even some accounts of Catherine tearfully pleading with the King, her father in law, Francis the first before they had ascended to the throne, to please allow Henry to marry a woman who could give him an heir. But Francis the first was not interested in this. He considered their marriage to be God's will and thus not something that could be dissolved. Greatest pairing in the world. I think

he was on board with Pope right. The Pope made it happen, So it's God's will, God's will. Okay, so ten years. It took ten years of their marriage and all of his treatment of fertility treatment, societal treatments. Catherine finally gives birth to her first child with Henry UM and after that they went on to have a total of ten children, UM, of whom seven survived into adulthood. That was four boys lived and and three girls. UM. Her final pregnancy was just terrible and tragic, and she

was pregnant with twin girls. UM, it wasn't going well. One of them died in the womb, the other died shortly after delivery, and Catherine herself almost died giving birth to them. And that was the last time, um, that they tried to have children. Uh. Yes, it is not really within the purview of a poison podcast to discuss it, but if you ever just in the market for a really horrifying pregnancy story, look that one up. It's gruesome.

So Before we move on, we're gonna take a little breather of our own, and when we return, we will talk about France's teenage kings and why they had no interest in the throne. Welcome back to Criminalia. We're about to talk about how much Catherine's life changed about the time she turned forty. So Catherine is best known for being the Queen consort of Henry, the second of France.

Consort in this context means that she did not come from a royal bloodline and that she became a queen through marriage, but she also ruled as queen regent for her two sons, Francis and Charles, who came to power when they were just fourteen and ten, respectively. Um, I can't imagine any ten year old really being super interested in ruling France so or prepared. I don't want to be ruled by a ten year old, thank you so much, right,

I mean, that's just that's just crazy right there. So m her third son, Henry, also came to power and she remained He was an adult when he did, but she remained heavily influential in his court too. So if you actually add up all of the years that Katherine was ruling as a regent and was the de facto ruler of France. It totals two about thirty years, which is amazing, amazing, Like who gets to say they ruled France for thirty years and a woman Catherine de Medici.

That's who Catherine gets too. She doesn't need anybody to wear her colors. She's got her own colors. So her life actually really begins to take shape around this time when she's forty years old. Um, she's got teenagers, she's got a four year old. Um, she has a husband who um it was in an accident. Uh So Henry was killed um in a crazy sounding um and certainly painful sounding jousting incident. Yeah, this is another one. If you're squeamish, maybe like la la la for the next

ten seconds. So Amazingly, after he took a aunts in the eye and into his brain, Henry the Second did not immediately die. He in fact went on to live for ten we're imagining very long days. So Henry did die, um, and when he did, his eldest son, Francis, who was fourteen, was proclaimed king. So, just in case you're wondering, why didn't Catherine ascend to the throne. She was never able to rule his queen because women were excluded from succession to the throne under Sala law in France. So then

let's take a moment and talk about Francis. Francis was always considered weak. He was young, and by week I mean physically weak. Um, and he was never particularly interested in being the King of France or in charge of anything or royalty. I kind of imagined him as a kid who liked to sit in his room and play video games with his friends. Uh, they didn't have Xbox. Then think of how history would change if they had. Um, well, we wouldn't have ten year old kings. Even though he

was a ten year old, he was a husband. He had been married to Mary Stuart, Queen of Scott's, when he was just four years old, and at that time Mary was six, so sugar an older woman. It sounds off putting and really strange to modern ears. Obviously it is, But this sort of thing happened often when it came to arrange marriages among royal families as kind of a whole uh you know, political move These marriages were meant to be alliances, and in this case, an alliance between

France and Scotland. It had nothing to do with love, right, I mean thinking it more like a business transaction that involved her children as ponds. Um. Not that that's much better, but it would at least let us get away from any of the romantic notions that we today hold with marriage. Right. And history suggests that it was actually Mary who ran things instead of Francis, much to Catherine's displeasure. And since he was only a teenager, it was Catherine who was

technically in charge as Queen Regent and not Mary. So it's not surprising to discover there was constant friction. Can you even imagine? So? Um, it didn't actually go on for very long. Francis only ruled for less than a year. Um. And he too died reportedly from something fairly minor like an ear infection um or you know, I kept coming across ear infection, uh, something small that today we would just have drops to take care of. Uh. He's always

described as having a weak constitution. Um. And soon after Francis died, Katherine made sure that Mary had a one way to get back to Scotland. Thank you for your service. We're done now. Pink slipped so Henry and Catherine's second son at this point, Charles, was crowned King Charles the Ninth at age ten. Because of his age and his lack of interest in being king again, I don't want

to be ruled by a ten year old. Uh. Catherine once again acted as Queen Regent throughout his reign, which was also fairly short, though not nearly as short as his brother's. Charles died at age twenty four, so fourteen years right, right, and um, I actually don't think that she ever really gave up her ruling during his reign. I don't think he ever turned onto it. I don't

think you ever got interested. I imagine when you've grown up with all of the benefits and doing none of the work, even when your age changes over to adulthood, you're like this, this arrangement is still working for me so exactly, Like I'm a team now and I've got plenty of time to go look at the other royal ladies while he ruled for me. Mom, you're doing a great job, mom keeping up well, I'm sure Katherine was like, yep, go out, I'm my god, I'm on it. Thanks, Thanks,

got your homework right here. Yep doing it. It's rumored that Catherine had a favorite child, and I asked all of my friends if favorite favorite child, and they all lie and tell me that they don't. But I know that it's true and that you all do. UM. When Catherine's son Charles died, her son Alexander Edouard was next in line to take a spin at being the king UM. But he was an adult at the time. He was twenty two when he came to the throne as King

Henry the Third. And one thing that we know for certain about Catherine de Medici is that she wrote extensively, both to her children and also to her European political peers. And while she was not technically serving as regent for Henry the Third, since he was an adult, she was hugely influential in his life and his reign. In this way, she really was UM. In fact, she wrote to advise him, for example, UM that when contemplating going to war, which you know comes up a lot when you're a king, UH,

that he should remember that quote. Pieces carried on a stick. Big stick diplomacy is often attributed to US President Theodore Zavelt, whose foreign policy was speak softly and carry a big stick, you will go far. And and didn't Tony Stark say that peace means having a bigger stick than the other guy. I think they both stole the idea from Catherine. I think so too, uh so Off the battlefield though, UM Catherine, like her Medici relatives, UM, was also a huge patron

of the arts. Indeed, this is the part of her I love, because she was known to commission drawings and paintings. She had extensive architectural projects carried out UM and her court was known for its extravagant entertainment UM and she featured everything from plays, ballet and other types of dance, UM, jousting, and she also had fireworks displays. Yes, she's considered to have introduced the concept of ballet to France, and then

France kind of took it over for themselves. So Italian born Katherine is also often credited with introducing a lot of food innovations to France, something that France is known for now. And really some of those seeds are with Katherine's reign. She was sometimes called in in history books. She sometimes referred to as the foodie Queen, which I actually didn't know. I thought this was particularly great about

her um. She is said to have introduced the fork to the French table at a time when using a fork was seen as pretentious, and she was also don't use that, how I put it down, I love the idea of someone like picking up a fork, and so would be like, what are you the pope? We don't want to be pretentious, but she She also introduced foods to France that I think of today as being French, like quint essentially French, like the puff pastry. Yeah, Catherine, it gets a lot of things attributed to her. It

is also said that she introduced underwear to France. That's a bunch more complicated topic and the truth is really kind of less exciting than that makes it seem. In addition to her love and of the arts, she was also really curious about science. But remember that like science at the time is a little bit different than science

and modern times. So like many of her peers, she was known to regularly consult astrologers and it's with an L, not astronomers, because they were able to predict or they at least they claimed they were able to predict the future by the position of the stars um and this was all considered just as important as art, literature and all other studies at the time, you know, as one

does during the Renaissance. Astrology and astronomy very tightly linked during this period, and Catherine also became an admirer of Nostradamus, who was her contemporary. But then her story starts to take a turn and and in a strange way. Okay, so um, so let me describe this Catherine. Um. It was believed among some in French society that Catherine had commissioned an amulet from Nostradamus um, and she wanted it

made from a mixture of metal and blood. Um. That would be human and goat blood if we're going to really get into the guts of this amulate. But it may or may not have happened, right uh. And another one of her contemporaries, the philosopher Jean Bodine, claimed in his fifteen eighty book on Witchcraft, that Catherine invented the black mass invented. That's that is a statement right there, right. This would have actually been about nine years before her

death when he wrote this. But there is no record of Katherine acknowledging or commenting on this claim. You know, one of the things that I really like about Catherine Um as we were learning about her for this episode, was that she doesn't really seem to read the comments, you know what I mean, Like she she knows that they're out there, she knows that they're happening. If they're not right in her face, she just sort of seems to go on. She she doesn't put out any statement.

She has no PR department that is really worried about whether or not she invented the Black Mass. She just kind of nods along and does everything. I just I thought that was great. I have a sneaking suspicion that there's also an element of fine, let him think I can do witchcraft, absolutely right, I mean, if you were in charge of France when she wanted people to think that she were a sorceress. Although I mean it's actually

highly unlikely she was a sorceress. Um. It's highly unlikely that there's any truth to either of these allegations about the Black Mass or the amulet Um. But the real press, Yeah, it's the no no press is bad press ideology of ruling exactly exactly. But what is worth noting is that in France at this time, um Italians in general. Uh,

and most definitely Italian women. Um. They were very often suspected of being poisoners or at least regarded as being the murderous type, regardless of whether or not they actually were, or whether they were in Italy or France. The French just pointed and said poisoner, right, Uh, it was. It was pretty well established truth and we got to use the air quotes there in French society at the time that Catherine ordered the poisoning of probably a handful of people.

She was credited with being involved with the poisonings of Jeanne Deaubray, who was the Queen of Navarre, as well as the Cardinal of Lauren, Cosse, a Marshal of France, and the Duke Donjou. It's also important to remember that during this period in history, poison wasn't really well understood. It was really hard for authority to determine whether or

not it was the cause of a person's death. Um. And consequently, you can imagine that there were people accused of being poisoners willy nilly, who weren't actually poisoners, as well as people who poisoned and totally got away with it. Right. Remember this is a time when astronomy and astrology are both considered equal sciences. What are it saying? So this is another good moment where we're going to laugh ourselves into a little break. But when we return, we're going

to talk about Katherine's alleged epic stash of poison. Welcome back to criminal Lea, where we're about to talk about the accusations that Catherine poisoned people with a pair of gloves. The massive Chateau de Blois has been home to many notable members of the French aristocracy, including seven kings and ten queens of France, and that includes Catherine. It was known for its beautiful three story external spiral staircase, and for its gargoyle downspouts, and it's five hundred plus rooms,

and and and the list goes. You know, it's it's a real tert stream to show. Really, there's one room in particular in this home that is famously part of Catherine's legend because it was believed by many in her at her time that she kept her stash of poisons and a tiny apothecary style cabinet tree work that was in the woodwork um of one of this particular room, and it had as many as two hundred and thirties

seven individual drawers. It was interesting about this particular piece of her story is that there is a story written by the writer Alexander Dumont about a character named Queen margot Um and that is Catherine's daughter Margaret, and she was married to a Hugueno leader in a shrewd political move as if there are any other types of right, So this story, which was written by Alexandra duma Pair, is based on real characters and events. But don't get

it twisted. That does not mean it is historical record. Right. Not only do historians agree that Dumont took a very wide artistic license in his work, he most certainly also engaged in spreading a bit of propaganda about Catherine as well as other influential figures. And he appears to be the original source of this wall of poison's account, which I love the idea of a wall of poisons? Are you kidding me? But like, but he comes from this

like vaguely fictional, vaguely, very untruthful account of semiistory. Right, it's just truthful enough that people believed the rest of it. That was made up and as cool as a wall of poison sounds. Historians believe that this was really more likely a place where Catherine kept small objects or perhaps confidential letters in all of those teeny tiny woodwork to drawers. But regardless, like the French still could not give up on the fact that they wanted Catherine to be a poisoner,

and this was just an idea that they kept harping on. Allegedly, they believed one of Catherine's favorite methods for committing homicide with poison was with poisoned gloves. So Italy in the sixteenth centuries, you recall, where she is from, was a well perfumed country, and since we're used on your skin as well as on your clothing. And it may sound a little bit nutty today, but during the sixteenth and seventeen centuries, perfumed gloves were all the rage across Europe.

They were the must have accessory, and Catherine was said to have introduced them to the French court. So this was the time when people didn't bathe as frequently as we do today, and so perfect gloves, which were called and I love the name of the perfect gloves, sweet gloves. Uh, we're used to mask odors, and the accessory became really popular and it was a pretty easy murder weapon to use during the Renaissance as well. Right, everybody's got everybody

had gloves. Yeah, so let's get into how the French thought Katherine was using these sweet gloves to her advantage. So in fifteen seventy two, Catherine's daughter Margaret referenced earlier also as Margot was engaged to marry Henry of Bourbon, who would later become Henry the fourth of France. Henry's mother was a woman named Jean Dubray, and the story knows the john had been reluctant for her son to

marry Katherine's daughter, who we also mentioned earlier. Um, suspicions were raised about Katherine when Joan died suddenly just two months before her son's wedding, because maybe she wanted her son to marry for love. No nobody wanted that at this phase of the game. Um, maybe she just didn't like Katherine and found her to be kind of mean. She may have just not wanted any kind of alliance

with Catherine de Medici. That's totally plausible. I read a lot about how she just really did think that Katherine never said anything nice to her, was always mean. Um, she probably didn't like being around her, So naturally, rumors started to swirl the June's death was actually the result of poisoning. And even though there was little love between these two women, and that was well known throughout France, many people just assumed that Katherine sent a pair of

sweet gloves to June as a pre wedding gift. In society at the time, it actually would have been considered kind of rude if she hadn't done so. Naturally, um, it was believed, of course that Catherine did it. Uh, she had allegedly gifted her with a pair of perfumed and possibly poisoned leather gloves shortly before the event happened. If if she did kill Jean with sweet gloves, the idea was actually kind of brilliant. Um. And if she didn't,

they were the perfect weapon for the rumor mill. But the sweet gloves tainted with poison would have, you know, changes it a little bit. These gloves were a really common gift of the royal court. Um. They were valued for their symbolism and gifted gloves, especially gloves that came from a queen conveyed with them a certain sentiment of affection and loyalty. So she may have been trying to be like, look, I know we don't always get along, but you're marrying I love gloves made love gloves too,

like sweet gloves all around. So as an example of another time when something like this was done, to give you an idea of how common and important it was, the Queen of Portugal in awarded the winning jousters of her court each with a pair of perfumed gloves. They were again perfumed, but not poisoned. It was actually it wasn't really the easiest thing in the world to make a pair of sweet poisoned gloves. It was kind of time consuming. Um. They were most commonly scented with herbs, spices,

flowers like a jasmine, violet, and orange blossom. I would love to smell like orange blossom all day long. Um right. So, like for clarity, as you're about to hear, this is not a case or someone got a pair of gloves and then infused them somehow with scent like they are from the beginning of the process of making them infused. So the scents that were chosen were mixed with animal

fat or another oil and then boiled. And then a pair of gloves, usually leather but exclusively so was then dipped into the fragrant liquid and then left to dry. And then, depending on the material of the gloves and the strength of the scent that was desired, this process could be repeated several times so that you infused the whole thing with the yummy, yummy scents. It wasn't just

a casual drop of lavender oil on these clubs. It's like a process, right, So regardless of how long it took or how popular speak gloves were, even when they were not poisoned, the French still always just always had a great distress for Catherine, and June's untimely death only

added fuel to that fire for them. So part of it was the Jean, who was a Hugueno, was considered a spiritual and political leader of the French Huguenot movement, and her death came at a time when the Catholics and Huguenots were negotiating a peace treaty, and that possibly ignited the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of the Huguenos. Just a few weeks later, the whole theory of death by

poi and gloves Um. It's since been discredited by modern historians, and it's most likely that she died of tuberculosis, not of poisoned accessories. Um. Yet the suspicion still remains on Katherine today. Even if you do your own independent research on her, you'll you'll find that she is accused of this poison in many places. What's sensational, which means clicks um exactly. So. The other thing is that there were three other rumored victims on Catherine's alleged hit lists, Holly,

were they poisoned? No, they were not. Look, I'm not saying she was above poison a zero evidence. It was Cardinal of Lauren died as a result of surgery, which was a whole other dicey proposition at this point because they didn't have germ theory was not in the picture. Can you even imagine, like, there is absolutely no concrete record of the death of Cossey Immercial of France, but there's also no reason to expect that he was poisoned.

And the Duke donje you once again that player in a lot of historical deaths tuberculosis right, so um, Although the intrigue of this myth continues to have legs, and it's really fun to talk about somebody poisoning somebody else with a pair of leather gloves. Um. What is certain is that Catherine, at the very least um is likely the one who popularized perfumed gloves in France, but without poison. Sometimes the real story is a boring story, sometimes like

she just likes made successory really popular. You guys, Uh, But isn't it interesting how we are all? I mean, it's part of human nature. And I'm not judging anybody who wants to believe the more salacious version, but we all want to believe a rumor rather than a boring reality. You know, it's more fun to think she was a witch, a sorceress. She'll kill you, she'll kill you dead. And it's especially apparently especially fun if you were French in

the NID. Listen, they didn't have television yet, the kids didn't have video games. They had to become kings and dad like life was hard. It's hard. But while it is unlikely she committed these sweet love poisonings, it is not really outside the realm of possibility that Catherine did or may have known how to dabble in poisons. That tendency did. It turns out, running her family. They dabbled in everything. You can't love science without a little poison

in sixteenth century Italy. She she had she had many relatives who dabbled in poisons. But we have a few that we pulled out. Costumo de Medici. He was the grand Duke of Tuscany and a contemporary of Catherine's, which is why I thought he was interesting. Um. He was no and to use poison as a tool for solving his political problems. His son, too, was also a widely suspected poisoner um, and he likely used arsenic as his

weapon of choice. Um. The Medaici poisoners go really far back into their family history, and homicidal poisonings were fairly commonplace in France and throughout all of Europe, frankly during this time, so much so that if you just fell ill, you wouldn't automatically think like, oh, I'm coming down with the flu or I have a little cold. You would naturally lean right into the idea that someone had what

you should have thought, that you had tuberculosis. Um. But the popularity of poisons spread through Europe like crazy at this time. So when it spread from Italy into France, France practitioners became collectively known as the French School of Poisoners. There was also an Italian School of Poisoners at this time. It wasn't really a school. It was you know, where

you went and had textbooks and things. But like, but it was a group of poisoners who helped each other, uh, you know, work out recipes, you know, maybe sharing some things with each other. They inspired at that time as many as thirty thousand poisoners in France alone by seventy two, which is more than a decade before Katherine died. So it was it was in the middle of her life. Poisoning in France wasn't trivial. It was just part of what you did. I like thinking about the School of

Poisoner's coursework. What's the syllabus? Right? So, I mean, we all really like this twee idea of Katherine using a pair of tainted sweet gloves to make a power play. But sadly, nothing in her story is really there that makes her any more power hungry or bloodthirsty or poison prone than any other leader who was contemporary to her,

as we've seen with many powerful female leaders. Um, whether we've talked about them yet in in this season, whether there to come, whether we're not going to address them at all, it doesn't really matter. But there's a lot of criticism that women received based on the sexist notions in the society that they happened to be living in. And in Catherine's case, to put on top of the fact that she was a woman, she was a foreign woman in a xenophobic culture, and so there are bound

to be stories about her, and not good ones. So the French never really came around to Italian born Catherine, and they always viewed her as a manipulative foreigner with a ponchain for poison and for forks. And because Catherine believed in and supported the sciences UH in particular, she was very interested in astronomy and astrology, again astrology being considered a science at this point in history, this was

enough to accuse her of occultism. The way that we have seen accordingly being accused of occultism matches up with the accusation that she had invented or at least participated in Black mass. UH accusations of witchcraft have long been used to delegitimize women who had any sort of power. Catherine died in January nine. She was sixty nine at this point. She died from natural causes, most likely related to floracy. Today she is buried next to her husband

in the Sandinis Basilica in Paris. She was really influential during a period of really intense religious and civil conflict in France. Um she had been Had she been a man in the society that she lived in, Um, I can imagine that she would very possibly have gone on to be remembered as one of Europe's greatest leaders during the Renaissance. She was, she had a steady hand. She was apparently empowered for thirty plus years. But you know,

the men weren't necessarily playing by the rules either. But instead she remains an object in history as the Italian woman, or Madame Salon, or Queen Jezebon, and maybe our favorite, the woman who eats little children. What is your poison this week? If you look up cocktails related to Catherine de mitt Geese name, you will discover a whole lot of them. Um. There are a lot of bartenders around the world that have come up with some interesting ones. Um.

I landed on one that's a fairly simple affair. That is, I believe from an Australian site Koolatos. And this is a really simple recipe it is. I amended it a little. There's this like they go by Miller leaders uh, and I'm too lazy for that, so I just did roughly one part od vie, so that's also like a white brandy, and then two parts champagne and you basically pour the vie into a chilled champagne flute and then you pour

the champagne on top. I think that sounds like a great Catherine de Medici, or just a Medici in general house of Medici drink. Well, it's certainly tastes like poison. Oh no, really does give it this nice fruitiness. Um, but it's just a little bitey for me. I like a very um like sweet, you know, very um juicy kind of drink usually, so I kind of like to be kicked in the head by it, so I'll have to make it. Well, bravo, you should be drinking earthquakes,

I think. Um. But yeah, so that's the that's the Catherine de Medici. There are a million more. If you're feeling adventurous and you want to have some online time mixing cocktails. But that is the one that I selected for this one. It does seem kind of perfectly appropriate for her. The ingredients seemed pretty great. Um, did you notice that, like a lot of her her inspired drinks had a lot of Champagne's or anything in particular in them,

or they tons of Champagne's. None of it is like, oh, you want to sip twelve of these while you sit by a beach all day long. It's all like you want to drink one maybe two. Yeah, So that's that. So thank you for joining us. Criminalia is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from the land Audio, please visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M HM