Juliette Benzoni - Catherine de Montsalvy

I am very happy to present you the first "Catherine de Montsalvy Fansite" in English. Even though this is not my native tongue, I chose to launch the site in English, believing to reach as many fans as possible. The reason for this Website is swiftly told, I adore Juliette Benzoni's first historical books series Catherine. Written with so much knowledge of precise historical facts. Her credible style of narration, her fictive characters seem to come alive during reading! Who can ever forget the touching moment when Arnaud de Montsalvy has to go to the valley of Calves? Catherine's joy when
she became his wife in "Belle Catherine"? Her unforgettable friends like Sara, Jean de Xaintrailles, Gauthier Stronghitarm, Barnaby, Jacques Coeur or Queen Yolande of the four Kingdoms?

The first five books were written, when the word stress was not yet known as today. At a time, when people still loved to read a good romantic book, with a beautiful heroine, a brave and handsome hero! There existed no video-recorder, no cell phones, no iTunes and last but not least, no Internet.

The Catherine-Series are translated into more than 25 languages and they have over thirty-five million readers! From France to Iceland, Brasil, Israel, Poland, Germany, Italy, Finland, Russia to list some.
I had read the first of the Catherine books: Catherine, One Love is Enough" over 39 years ago. I fell in love at first sight so to say, with the heroine and her almost impossible dream, to be Arnaud de Montsalvy's beloved wife. I waited like I am sure, millions of readers, year after year for the next book to be published! Desperately to know, if there would be a happy end between Catherine and her "deathly injured, arrogant, stubborn, proud handsome lord Arnaud"! In 1979, finally the last of the Catherine books "La Dame de Montsalvy" was published. Unfortunately not all countries seemed to think it was neccessary to the faithful readers of Juliette Benzoni, to translate the last of the books. I know from the letters I receive, there are thousands of readers who were made to believe, the series ended with "A Snare for Catherine"!!

I had not re-read the story of Catherine for more than ten years. Some time ago, searching for something, they caught my eyes, out of curiosity, to see if the magic still worked, I sat down and started reading. Great was my joy and pleasure, to find out that the adventures of Catherine and Arnaud, were still able to fascinate me, like the various times I had read them before.
This is when the idea started in my mind, to create a Fan site, dedicated to my beloved story, synchronous having the opportunity to give a summary of the seventh book "La Dame de Montsalvy" which has so far never been translated into English and many other languages. Luckily my sister LaLuna shares my passion for Catherine .Together we have spent months, working for the Catherine de Montsalvy Fansite. LaLuna is the one we can say thank you for most of the creations on our site.

One important aspect I would like to mention! For those of you, who have never read the Catherine books , but were introduced to Catherine through the TV-Serie Catherine, Il suffit d'un amour, I follow mainly the seven books and not the TV-Serie! By no means does this imply, that I do not love the tv-production by Marion Sarraut. I adore it more than I like to admit!! The chosen actors have all my admiration for their performances. Claudine Ancelot as our heroine "Catherine " is so adorable as is Pierre-Marie Escourrou as her only reason to breath "Arnaud de Montsalvy". For me, the books come first and they have my priority.

So do not be surprised if you hear me talk about "Gauthier Stronghitarm" Loyse, sister of Catherine, or Landry instead of Barnaby (who died in book one) Thank you for your understanding, after all, books or tv-serie, we all share the same passion.
For some it may be "kitsch" for fans like us - a good opportunity to return to Catherine

and her long road to happiness. We hope you enjoy it and are pleased to rediscover with us

and
Switzerland , September 2008

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Almost two years have gone by, since this website has been launched. To my immense joy I have had the extraordinary honor to meet and call myself friend now, of the author of the Catherine books the one and only Juliette Benzoni. I cannot describe in words what that does signify for me. Last October 2009, Frédérique, my very dear friend of the bibliojbenzoni.unblog.fr blog in France and I, had been invited to Saint-Mandé, to spent an afternoon in the house of Juliette Benzoni. It was an unbelievable and magnificence meeting - a once in a life time dream come true. A true bond has been woven between the three of us. We were enchanted by the Queen of historical romance - spellbound by what she told us. At the same time, I must not forget to mention Anne, Juliette Benzoni's adorable daughter and my own daughter Claudia - who proudly accompanied her mother to meet her most favorite author of them all. I have written a report and reccomend it to those of you who would love to know how it was on that first meeting. Juliette, as we are allowed to call her now, had told us to return as soon as possible, so we might continue and cultivate our new found friendship.

We promised and in February we returned joyfully to Saint-Mandé. Me, as the Catherine fan, got to know many interesting facts about the story of "Catherine". I can now count myself the lucky owner of the very first "Catherine" book cover "Il Suffit d'un amour" published by Editions de Trévise in 1963. I still cannot believe that I was presented this incredible gift, together with Juliette's choice of bookcover, the French 1968 edition of Catherine, Il suffit d'un amour.
Proudly I can announce also now, that my site has the honor from now on, to call itself "Official Homepage of the Catherine de Montsalvy books by Juliette Benzoni, approved by the author herself! And if not enough of the honors, we have received a letter by Juliette Benzoni, trusting us to
to give her sincere thank you to all of her faithful readers,

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through us "her girls" as she calls us now. How can we ever repay her generosity with us?
While talking about generosity, I must not forget to mention Marion Sarraut, the director of the TV-Serie Catherine Il Suffit'un Amour, Isabelle Guiard, (Jeanne d'Arc) Gérard Chambre, (Jean de Xaintrailles) Pierre-Marie Escourrou, (Arnaud de Montsalvy) Pierre Deny, (Jean de Dunois) and Philippe Caroit (Pierre de Brézé). We have been in contact with them and they have spoiled us with interviews, Autographs and guest book entries. I have had the great pleasure last year, to meet in person Gérard Chambre who is as charming in natura, as in his role of Arnaud de Montsalvy's best friend "Xaintrailles".

I like also to mention some of my dearest Online friends, who have accompanied me from the moment I have created a video clip about Catherine on youtube. Catherine, Aleksandra, Hélène, Kristina, Jean and not forgetting one moment, Frédérique my âme-soeur in France. I salute you, what would I have done without your moral support ;-)

My thanks goes also to all those visitors, who have sent us some of their book covers which were missing - to those who went to the trouble to take "Catherine" books home, take photos of them and scan them for us! What can I say - it is a reward beyond believe - convincing me, I was not the only fan of these wonderful books. The timing was perfect, to launch a Catherine de Montsalvy fansite :-) I am very happy about this.

I shall continue with all the "passion" I always had for "Catherine" even more so, knowing that Juliette Benzoni adores what we do. I try to entertain all of you and share whatever I believe could interest a true Catherine fan.

Our sincere thanks goes to the Queen of storyteller "Juliette Benzoni" the whole reason this website exists.

Very fondly

I would like to thank Frédérique on behalf of all our French visitors, or whoever enjoys
to read our website in French. I cannot say enough how I appreciate her work. And it
must not be forgotten that she herself has a big website on her own, about all of
Juliette Benzoni's now 75 books.
Merci JouJou

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions to us, then this is the webpage for you!
Should you like to share any Catherine - related news or images, long forgotten book covers - it would be lovely if you contact us at: mistral@catherinedemontsalvy.ch
The website is best watched on Internet Explorer, to see all of our "extras" like falling stars, description on certain pages or the different blends, when clicking on another page. Also we use mainly four fonts " Tahoma ,Verdana, Magic Medieval and Tiranti Solid"