In creating his cycle about the incredible era that defined the future of beautiful France, Maurice Druon meticulously worked in the National Archives, exploring ancient documents. The novels «It Is Unseemly for Lilies to Weave» and «The French She-Wolf» continue the cycle «The Accursed Kings», this unique series of grand historical frescoes, opened by the novels «The Iron King», «The Prisoner of Château-Gaillard», and «Poison and the Crown». The country is losing its second king: Louis X the Quarrelsome, who reigned for just eighteen months, dies, leaving the queen pregnant. The life of the unborn child, the future monarch, becomes the stake in the struggle for power among the most powerful representatives of the French nobility, risking to plunge France into a civil war. Across the Channel, in England, the daughter of Philip IV the Fair, Isabella of France, lives in constant fear and weaves conspiracies, organizing a rebellion against her own husband, Edward II. It seems that the curse cast from the flames by the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay, who was burned at the behest of Philip IV, is coming true. Since 1314, for over half a century, French kings have been succeeding one another on the throne, but none remain for long. Court intrigues, sudden deaths, dynastic upheavals, and bloody wars still accompany this grim procession of the accursed kings.
