Encre, collection Mémoire des Femmes, 273 pages (Reissue, original published under the title Je m’appelle Kristine, 1959).
The Memoirs of Hadrian , Marguerite Yourcenar’s monumental work published 7 years earlier, can only come to mind when reading Françoise’s novel. And it is not the transparent clues that she left that will invalidate this observation. One could think of a stylistic imitation, when it is necessary to see there what these two great authors shared: a real knowledge of the Greeks and the Latins.
Knowledge that Françoise puts at the service of her purpose which, always, will have been to say: Women ! Be proud to be! It is thanks to this statement that I will have quite naturally, from my childhood reading, been led to consider that an epic hero could just as well be a heroine.
With Kristine from Sweden, Françoise paints a historical figure that lives up to her intentions. Friend and correspondent of the greatest intellectual and scientific figures of her century, linchpin of the Treaty of Westaphalia, adventurous and combative, diplomat and peacemaker, Queen Kristine was unquestionably one of the most important figures in the Europe of her time. (Vincent)