Le Roi de fer

📙 This series of books by Maurice Druon are just unforgettable. I've read them all in both English and French and in either language they are superb. The English translations are excellent. This first book in the series lays out the themes of them all and contains the scene where the head of the Templars, when he is about to burn at the stake lays his curse on Francis I and his heirs. It is one of the themes carried out in subsequent books. There is plenty of palace intrigue in this story, all of it documented by historical fact but embellished with human weaknesses and passions to bring the color of reality. Once into these stories you will want to read them to the very end.