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Catherine Medici

 

            
             The Character That Determines Her Role Today.
             Throughout the years, many women have tried to make a lasting impression on the world, but few have succeeded. However, there are some able to make an impact and break the tradition of the "women's role" in society. These women form an immense impact on their time period and overall history. One of these women is Catherine de" Medici, an Italian women who became the Queen of France. If this woman were to be elected the President of the United States in 2004, displeasing reactions would occur because of her past actions.
             To start off, Catherine had a nasty habit of intermingling her political and social lives. In 1560, she arranged for her daughter, Elizabeth of Valois, to marry Phillip II, the powerful Roman Catholic king of Spain. She also found it necessary to persuade her daughter, Margaret of Valois, to the Protestant king Henry of Navarre in 1572. Later that year, she found her son, Charles the King of France, greatly influenced by the Huguenots. Knowing this, she set up a plot to assassinate the Protestant leader Coligny, which lead to his death and the deaths of about 50,000 other Huguenots in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572. Although Catherine tired to maintain a balance and lost it, she was looking out for her own good, and not the good of the people. She wanted to preserve the Valois dynasty and uphold the monarchy, which she did for many years. In today's society, Catherine's actions such as strategically marrying her daughters to leaders and causing a massacre would not exactly make the people of the United States happy. In the United States today, religious freedom is practiced, and plotting to assassinate someone is bound to be unlawful if discovered. The people, assuming they are aware of Catherine's actions and see the big picture, would be greatly angered by these actions. However, Catherine probably would not be able to cause as much damage today as she did in the 1500s because we have a separation of powers, and a system of checks and balances, which would make it greatly difficult to obtain a power large enough to succeed.


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