The Strangled Queen

by Maurice Druon

  It was Philip the Fair’s favourite pet, present of the banker Tolomei, the same dog that had been found near the King when he had fallen motionless during his last hunt.

  ‘Four days ago this hound was at Fontainebleu, how has he managed to get here?’ asked The Hutin furiously.

  An equerry was called.

  ‘He came with the rest of the pack, Sire,’ explained the equerry, ‘and he will not obey; he runs away at the sound of a voice and I have been wondering since yesterday where he had hidden himself.’

  Louis ordered that Lombard should be taken away and shut up in the stables; and, as the big greyhound resisted, scraping the floor with its claws, he chased it out with kicks.

  He had hated dogs since the day when, as a child, he had been bitten by one as he was amusing himself piercing its ear with a nail.

  Voices were heard in a neighbouring room, a door opened and a little girl of three appeared, awkward in her mourning robe, pushed forward by her nurse who was saying, ‘Go on, Madame Jeanne; go and kiss Messire the King, your father.’

  Everyone turned towards the little figure with pale cheeks and too-big eyes, who had not yet reached the age of reasoning but was, for the moment, the heiress to the throne of France.

  Jeanne had the round, protruding forehead of Marguerite of Burgundy, but her complexion and her hair were fair. She came forward looking about her at people and things with the anxious expression of an unloved child.

  Louis X stopped her with a gesture.

  ‘Why has she been brought here?’ he cried. ‘I don’t want to see her. Take her back at once to the Hôtel de Nesle; that’s where she must live, because it’s there …’

  He was going to say, ‘… that her mother conceived her in her illicit pleasures.’ He stopped himself in time, and waited till the nurse had taken the child away.

  ‘I don’t want ever to see the bastard again!’ he said.

  ‘Are you really certain that she is one, Louis?’ asked Monseigneur of Evreux, moving his clothes away from the fire to prevent their scorching.

  ‘It’s enough for me that there is a doubt,’ replied The Hutin, ‘and I refuse to recognize the progeny of a woman who has shamed me.’

  ‘All the same, the child is fair-haired, as we all are.’

  ‘Philippe d’Aunay was fair too,’ replied The Hutin bitterly.

  ‘Louis must have good reasons, Brother, to speak as he does,’ said Charles of Valois.

  ‘What’s more,’ Louis went on, shouting at the top of his voice, ‘I don’t ever again want to hear the word that was thrown at me as we passed through the hall; I don’t want to go on imagining all the time that people are thinking it; I don’t want ever again to give people the chance of thinking it.’

  Monseigneur of Evreux was silent. He was thinking of the little girl who must live among a few servants in the deserted immensity of the Hôtel de Nesle. He heard Louis say, ‘Oh, how lonely I shall be here!’

  Louis of Evreux looked at him, surprised as always by this nephew of his who gave way to every impulse of his mood, who preserved resentments as a miser keeps his gold, chased dogs away because he had once been bitten, his daughter because he had once been deceived, and then complained of his solitude.

  ‘If he had had a better nature and a kinder heart,’ he thought, ‘perhaps his wife would have loved him.’

  ‘Every living man is alone, Louis,’ he said gravely. ‘Each one of us in his loneliness undergoes the moment of recognition of sin, and it is mere vanity to believe that there are not moments like this in life. Even the body of the wife with whom we sleep remains a stranger to us; even the children we have conceived are strangers. Doubtless the Creator has willed it thus so that we may each of us have no communion but with Him and with each other but through Him. There is no help but in compassion and in the knowledge that others suffer as we do.’

  The Hutin shrugged his shoulders. Had Uncle Evreux never anything to offer as consolation but God, and as a remedy but charity?

  ‘Yes, yes, you are doubtless right, Uncle,’ he said. ‘But that is no answer to the cares that oppress me.’

  Then, turning to Artois who, his backside to the fire, was steaming like a soup-tureen, he said, ‘So you’re certain, Robert, that she will not yield?’

  Artois shook his head.

  ‘Sire, Cousin, as I told you last night, I pressed Madame Marguerite in every way in my power: I gave her the most convincing arguments,’ replied Artois, with an irony which was valid only for himself. ‘I ran up against such a hard core of refusal that I can assure you with certainty there is nothing to be got from her. Do you know what she’s counting on?’ he added perfidiously. ‘She is hoping that you will die before her.’

  Instinctively Louis X touched through his shirt the little reliquary he wore about his neck, and for a moment turned away, wild of eye, his hair in disorder. Then, speaking to the Count of Valois, he said, ‘Well, Uncle, you see it’s not all as simple as you promised, and it seems that my annulment is not to be had tomorrow!’

  ‘I know, Nephew, I am thinking of nothing else,’ replied Valois, his brow wrinkled in thought.

  Artois, standing face to face with The Hutin, whose forehead came up only to his shoulder, said to him in a whisper that could have been heard twenty yards away, ‘If you are afraid of a celibate life, Cousin, I can always furnish your bed with charming young females, whom the promise of a purse of gold and the vanity of pleasuring the King would render most agreeable to you.’

  He spoke with a certain relish, as if of a fine roast or a dish with an exquisite sauce.

  Monseigneur of Valois spread out his ring-laden hands.

  ‘Of what use is an annulment to you, Louis,’ he said, ‘so long as you have not chosen the new woman you wish to marry? Don’t be so anxious about your annulment; a Sovereign can always obtain one in the end. What you need to do at once is to set about finding the wife who will make a suitable figure as queen beside you and give you a fine posterity.’

  Monseigneur of Valois had the habit, when an obstacle presented itself, of glancing at it contemptuously and of immediately leaping forward to the next step; in war he disregarded islands of resistance, by-passed them and went on to attack the next fortress.

  ‘Brother,’ said the prudent Count of Evreux, ‘the matter is not as easy as all that, considering the position our nephew occupies, if he does not wish the wife he chooses to be of inferior rank.’

  ‘Nonsense! I know ten princesses in Europe who would overlook a great many things to wear the crown of France. For instance, without having to look further, there’s my niece Clémence of Hungary,’ said Valois, as if the idea had only just occurred to him, when in fact he had been considering it for the last three days.

  He waited for the effect of his suggestion. No one uttered a word. But The Hutin raised his head in interest.

  ‘She is of our blood, since she is an Anjou,’ went on Valois. ‘Her father, Carlo-Martello, who renounced the throne of Naples-Sicily to lay claim to that of Hungary, is dead long ago; that, no doubt, is why she has not yet made a match. But her brother, Caroberto, is now reigning in Hungary and her uncle is King of Naples. Of course, she is a little past the age of marriage …’

  ‘How old is she?’ asked Louis X anxiously

  ‘Twenty-two. But is not that better than these little girls who are brought to wed when they are still playing with their dolls, and when they grow up reveal themselves to be full of vice, lies and debauchery? Moreover, Nephew, it’s not as if you were making a first marriage!’

  ‘All this sounds too good to be true; there must be a fly in the ointment,’ thought The Hutin. ‘This Clémence must be one-eyed or hunchbacked.’

  ‘And what is she like, good-looking?’ he inquired.

  ‘Nephew, I can tell you that she is the most beautiful woman in Naples and that the painters, so I am assured, try to reproduce her features when they paint images of the Virgin Mary in the churches. I remember that even in chil
dhood she promised remarkable beauty, and from everything I hear she has fulfilled that promise.’

  ‘It certainly seems that she is very beautiful indeed,’ said Monsiegneur of Evreux.

  ‘And virtuous,’ added Charles of Valois. ‘I feel sure that she has all those qualities which were her dear aunt’s, who was my first wife, may God keep her. And do not forget that Louis of Anjou, her other uncle, my brother-in-law therefore, having relinquished the throne in order to take holy orders, was that saintly Bishop of Toulouse at whose tomb miracles are performed.’

  ‘Thus we shall have a second Saint Louis,’ remarked Robert of Artois.9

  ‘Your idea seems to me a happy one, Uncle,’ said Louis X. ‘Daughter of a king, sister of a king, niece of a king and of a saint, beautiful and virtuous …’

  He seemed to be dreaming for a moment, and then suddenly cried aloud, ‘Oh, I hope at least that she is not dark like Marguerite, for then I could not do it!’

  ‘No, no,’ Valois replied quickly. ‘Have no fear, Nephew; she is fair, of sound Frankish stock.’

  ‘And do you think, Uncle Charles, that the proposal would be agreeable to her and her family.’

  Monseigneur of Valois swelled up like a turkey cock.

  ‘I have served my relations of Anjou well enough for them to refuse me nothing,’ he replied. ‘Queen Marie, who in the past held it an honour to give me one of her daughters, will most certainly grant me her granddaughter for the dearest of my nephews, and that she may be queen of the finest kingdom in the world. I shall manage it.’

  ‘Then don’t waste time, Uncle,’ said Louis. ‘Send an embassy to Naples at once. What do you think of the idea, Robert? And you, Uncle Louis?’

  Robert advanced a pace, his hands widespread as if he were proposing to leave at once for Italy. Louis of Evreux, who had sat down, replied that he approved the idea, but that the decision was as much a matter for the kingdom as for the family, and too important not to require consideration.

  ‘It would seem to me wise,’ he concluded, ‘that you should take the advice of your Council.’

  ‘So be it,’ replied Louis excitedly. ‘There will be a Council tomorrow therefore. I will send to Messire de Marigny telling him to convoke it.’

  ‘Why Messire de Marigny?’ said Valois, feigning surprise. ‘I can very well take care of that myself. Marigny has too many duties and summons Councils in haste merely to approve his proceedings without looking into them too closely. But we shall change all that, and I shall convene a Council more worthy to serve you. Moreover, this was your father’s wish. He told me this privately during his last days.’

  By now their clothes were dry and they dressed.

  Louis X gazed intently into the fire. ‘Beautiful and virtuous,’ he repeated to himself. ‘Beautiful and virtuous …’ Then he was attacked by a fit of coughing and barely heard the others taking their leave.

  ‘I know someone who will lie feverishly between the sheets tonight,’ said Artois, once they were outside in the corridor.

  ‘Robert,’ said Valois reproachfully, ‘don’t forget that from now on you are speaking of the King.’

  ‘No, no, I don’t forget it, and would never say anything like that before others. It doesn’t alter the fact that you have put an idea into his head which is already exciting him physically. My God, you managed to sell him your niece Clémence all right!’

  Monseigneur of Evreux was thinking of the beautiful princess living in a palace on the bay of Naples, whose fate had doubtless, all unknown to her, been decided that day. Monseigneur of Evreux always marvelled at the mysterious, unforeseen ways in which human destinies were forged.

  Because a great sovereign had died before his time, because a young king disliked leading a celibate life, because his uncle was impatient to satisfy his needs, because a name had been mentioned and remembered, a young fair-haired girl who perhaps, this very day, a thousand miles away, was beset with melancholy beside an eternally blue sea, thinking that nothing would ever happen to her, was suddenly fated to become the central preoccupation of the Court of France.

  Monseigneur of Evreux had a sudden attack of conscience.

  ‘Brother,’ he said to Valois, ‘do you really think that little Jeanne is a bastard?’

  ‘I am not certain of it today, Brother,’ said Valois, placing a ringed hand upon his shoulder. ‘But I can assure you that before long all the world will know that she is!’

  By this answer Monseigneur of Valois thought that he was momentarily serving his own interests; he did not know what the consequences of his attitude would be, that his own son would owe to it the fact that one day he would become King of France.

  If Monseigneur of Evreux had been able to look into the future some fifteen years, he would have found further reason for reflection.

  6

  The Royal Bed

  MONUMENTAL, SCULPTURED WITH heavy-winged symbolical figures, the royal bed filled a third of the room. The canopy, draped in dark blue samite embroidered with golden lilies, resembled a portion of the nocturnal firmament; and the curtains draped about the dais were like sails looped from their yards.

  The room, overwhelming in its silent, dark and reverential atmosphere, was lit only by an oil-burning night-light, placed in a rose-red lamp suspended by three chains from the ceiling;10 beneath the glow, the counterpane of gold brocade fell in stiff folds to the floor and seemed to shine with a strange phosphorescent light.

  For the last two hours Louis X had vainly sought sleep in the enormous bed which had been his father’s. He felt stifled beneath the double fur coverings, and shivered as soon as he dispensed with them. Extreme fatigue causes insomnia, and insomnia is the cause of unhappiness. Though Philip the Fair had died at Fontainebleu, Louis felt as uneasy at finding himself in this bed as if he were aware of the presence of the corpse in it.

  All the memories of the last few days, all the fears for the days to come, were mingled in his mind. Someone shouted ‘Cuckold’ from the crowd; Clémence of Hungary refused him, or perhaps was already affianced; the austere features of Abbot Egidius bent over the tomb; ‘From now on we shall say two prayers …’; ‘Do you know what she is counting on? She is hoping you will die before her!’

  He suddenly got up, his heart beating like a crazy clock. The palace doctor, who had examined him before he went to bed, had assured him that his humours were not too heated and that he would have a good night. But Louis had not told him of the two moments of faintness he had felt at Saint-Denis, the chill which had seized upon his limbs, and the way the crowd about him had seemed to reel. Now the same disquiet, to which he could give no precise name, came upon him once more. Tortured by his fears, The Hutin, in a long white nightshirt, which seemed to float about a formless body, walked without respite round the room as if pursued by a doppelgänger, as if he must die at the least cessation of movement.

  Was he to die like his father, smitten in the head by the Hand of God? ‘I too,’ he thought aghast, ‘was present when they burnt the Templars before the Palace.’ Can one ever know the night of one’s death? Can one ever know the night one will go mad? And should he succeed in surviving this abominable night, should he see the lagging winter dawn, in what an appalling state of exhaustion he would have to preside at his first Council upon the morrow! He would say to them, ‘Messires …’ But indeed what words would he find to say to them? ‘Each one of us in his loneliness undergoes the moment of recognition of sin, and it is mere vanity to believe that there are not moments like this in life.’

  ‘Ah, Uncle,’ said The Hutin aloud, ‘why did you have to say that?’

  His own voice seemed strange to him. He continued to hurry round the great bed of oak and gold, gasping like a fish out of water.

  It was the bed that terrified him. It was the bed that was accursed; he would never be able to sleep in it. He had been conceived in it; it was therefore absurdly logical that he should die in it. ‘Must I spend all the nights of my reign walking round and round
so as not to die?’ he wondered. But how could he go and sleep elsewhere, call servants to prepare him another room? Where could he find the courage to admit: I can no longer sleep here because I am afraid,’ and appear before his equerries, chamberlains, and the masters of his household discomfited, trembling and fearful.

  He was a king and knew not how to reign; he was a man and knew not how to live; he was married and had no wife. Even if Clémence of Hungary accepted him, how many weeks, how many months, must he wait before a human presence came to reassure his nights and help him sleep! ‘And will this one love me? Or will she behave as the other did?’

  Suddenly he went and opened the door, awoke the First Chamberlain who was sleeping fully clothed in the antechamber and asked him, ‘Does Dame Eudeline still look after the Palace linen?’

  ‘Yes, Sire. I think so, Sire,’ replied Mathieu de Trye.

  ‘Well, find out. And if she does, send for her at once.’

  Surprised and half asleep – ‘Anyway, he seems able to sleep!’ thought The Hutin with hatred – the Chamberlain asked whether the King wished to have his sheets changed.

  The Hutin made a gesture of impatience.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I want. Go and find her, I tell you!’

  He went back into the bedroom and resumed his anxious pacing to and fro, wondering, ‘Does she still live in the Palace? Will she be found?’

  A few minutes later Dame Eudeline appeared, carrying a pile of sheets. And at once Louis X had the feeling that he was no longer cold.

  ‘Monseigneur Louis, I mean to say, Sire!’ she cried, ‘I knew that I must not put new sheets on your bed. One always sleeps badly in them. It was Messire de Trye who ordered me to do it! He said that it was the precedent. Whereas I wanted to give you thin, well-washed sheets.’

  She was a big fair merry woman, large-breasted, with the comfortable look of a wet-nurse about her, giving an impression of peace, warmth and repose. She was thirty-two years old and her face seemed to preserve naturally, a calm expression of youthful surprise which was pleasant and grateful to behold. From under her white nightcap flowed long tresses of golden hair which fell upon her shoulders. She had hastily put on a dressing-gown over her nightgown.