ABSTRACT
In the Italian Wars, a conflict that had divided European states for more than 50 years, several key political protagonists in France exchanged letters. This chapter examines the epistolary production of feeling by the man who was at the court’s centre, Henri II. The rhetorical expertise of early modern elite women in the genre of letter writing is now receiving important scholarly attention. Henri’s letters were composed both as he led military campaigns away from the court, and as campaigns separated him from his leading political advisors. This generated an exchange of letters between husband, wife and Henri’s senior councillor at the front, Montmorency. Montmorency’s fears about Catherine’s insertion into an intimate political circle around the king had some foundation. Henri’s missives even drew upon the works of contemporary French poets who had been inspired by popular prose romances.
