The Poisoned Crown

After causing his first wife to be murdered and his mistress exiled, the puny, semi-impotent Louis X becomes besotted with the lovely Clemence, his new Queen. Vacillating between self-pity and vainglory he is caught between the vaulting ambitions of proud, profligate barons...This is the third book of "The Accursed Kings" series of historical novels by Maurice Druon about the decadent, criminal and incompetent monarchs who ruled over early fourteenth century France and brought the country to the utter prostration and weakness which the English invaders exploited in the Hundred Years War.