Donald Trump's Greenland gamble
The ultimate short-sighted move
On August 18, 1572, ten years into a bloody religious war between the Catholics and Huguenots of France, the future King Henry IV married Marguerite de Valois.
It was a tense moment, since the two 19-year-olds were of different faiths: Henry was a Protestant and Marguerite a Catholic, and thus they could not both be present at a mass.
So the wedding vows were exchanged outside Notre Dame Cathedral on a platform “hung with cloth of gold,” the bride would later recall. “I wore a crown on my head…and I blazed in diamonds.” Cardinal de Bourbon conducted the ceremony at the church’s door. Once wed, the couple separated: The bride went into the cathedral for mass while Henry, the groom, left the church.
The illusion that the interfaith wedding of Henry and Marguerite would bring an end to the war between France’s Catholics and Protestants was shattered six days later on St. Bartholomew’s …
