The Strangled Queen

by Maurice Druon

  ‘Oh, what splendid subjects I shall have there, what charming people they are,’ she thought, fascinated by this little Italian who, in her eyes, had become the representative of the whole of France. She felt almost guilty in his presence; because of her, he had had to leave his love; because of her, a young girl in France must suffer separation.

  ‘Will you tell me her name,’ she went on, ‘or is it a secret?’

  ‘It can be no secret from you, if it please you to know it, Donna Clemenzia. Her name is Marie, Marie de Cressay. She is of noble lineage; her father was a knight; she awaits me in her castle thirty miles from Paris. She is sixteen years old.’

  ‘Well, I wish you all happiness, Signor Guccio; be happy with your beautiful Marie de Cressay.’

  When he had left her, Guccio positively danced down the corridors. He already saw the Queen of France attending his wedding. It was, however, still necessary that Donna Clemenzia should become queen, and also that the Cressay family should agree to give him, a young Lombard – that is to say in the eye of public opinion rather more than a Jew but rather less than a true Christian – Marie’s hand in marriage! He was suddenly aware, too, that for the first time he was seriously thinking of marriage with the beautiful lady of the manor of Neauphle whom he had seen in fact but twice in his life. It is thus that imagination can in the end determine destiny, and it but needs our future actions to be given shape in speech so that we are obliged to give them the reality of accomplishment.

  Guccio found Hugues de Bouville in the apartment he had been given as a lodging, surrounded by heavy furniture decorated with painted leather. The official Ambassador of the King of France was in process of turning himself about in search of a good light, looking-glass in hand, to tidy himself and smooth his greying locks. He was wondering whether he should have his hair dyed. Travel enriches the young; but is not always without disquiet for those in their sixth decade. The Italian air had completely intoxicated Bouville. The austere man had betrayed his wife in Florence and had wept. But when he had betrayed her again in Sienna, where Guccio had found two childhood friends who had become prostitutes, fat Bouville had ceased to be afflicted with remorse. In Rome he had felt twenty years younger. Naples, prodigal of facile pleasures, provided one had a little gold in one’s belt, had been an enchantment. What elsewhere would have been considered vice, here took on a disarmingly natural, an almost naïve aspect. Young pimps of twelve years old, bronzed and ragged, boasted of the charms of their elder sisters with an antique eloquence, then sat like good little boys in the antechamber scratching their feet. Besides, one had the feeling of doing good when one paid for a whole family’s food for a week. And then the pleasure of walking about without an overcoat in the month of January! Bouville had dressed himself in the latest fashion and now wore surcoats with the sleeves striped horizontally in two colours. Of course he had been robbed at every street corner! But how inexpensive were the pleasures of life!

  ‘My dear fellow,’ he said when Guccio entered, ‘do you know that I have lost so much weight that it is even possible I shall recover my figure?’

  This remark was audacious, to say the least of it, since, to every eye but his own, Bouville’s figure was as round as a butter dish.

  ‘Messire,’ said the young man, ‘Donna Clemenzia is ready to receive you.’

  ‘I hope the portrait isn’t finished?’ said Bouville.

  ‘It is, Messire.’

  Bouville sighed heavily.

  ‘Well, that is the sign that we must return to France. I regret it, because I have developed a feeling of friendliness towards this country, I admit, and I would willingly have given the painter a few florins to prolong his labours. Well, well, even the best of things comes to an end.’

  There was something conspiratorial in the way they smiled at each other. And, as they went to the Princess’s lodgings, fat Bouville even took Guccio affectionately by the arm.

  Between these two men, so different in age and origins, a true friendship had been born and had burgeoned upon their journey. For Bouville, the young Tuscan was indeed the symbol of their journey, with its freedoms, its discoveries and its renewed youth. And, through Bouville, Guccio travelled in the train of a great lord, and lived familiarly with princes. They revealed unknown worlds to each other and were each other’s perfect complement, forming a curious relationship in which the adolescent more often than not was the greybeard’s cicerone.

  Thus they entered the presence of Donna Clemenzia; but their expressions of careless happiness disappeared as soon as they saw the old Queen-Mother Marie of Hungary. With her granddaughter and Oderisi on either side of her, she was looking with displeasure at the portrait.

  The two visitors went forward hesitantly, for everyone walked carefully in the presence of Marie of Hungary.

  She was seventy years old. Widow of the King of Naples, Charles II, the Lame, she had had thirteen children and had already seen about half of them to their graves. These maternal activities had given her person a certain breadth, and her bereavements had marked the shape of her toothless mouth. She was tall, grey of complexion, white of hair, with a general expression of strength, decisiveness and authority which had not diminished with the years. She had worn a crown since her birth. It was this aged Queen, related to the whole of Europe, who had claimed the vacant throne of Hungary for her descendants, and had fought for twenty years that they might obtain it.

  Now that the son of her eldest son was King of Buda, her second son, the deceased bishop, was on the point of being canonized, her third, Robert, reigned over Naples and Apulia, her fourth was Prince of Torrento, her fifth Duke of Durazzo, and her surviving daughters were married one to the King of Majorca, the other to the King of Aragon, Queen Marie, nevertheless, did not as yet appear to have finished her task; she was concerned with her granddaughter, the orphan Clémence, whom she had brought up.

  Turning abruptly to Bouville, whom she had perceived as a mountain-hawk marks down a chicken, she signed to him to approach.

  ‘Well, Messire,’ she asked, ‘what do you think of the portrait?’

  Bouville stood before the easel in meditation. He was looking less at the Princess’s face than at the two shutters which had been constructed to protect the portrait during its journey, and upon which Oderisi had painted on one side the Castel Nuovo and on the other side the great window of the chamber with its view of the bay of Naples. Gazing at this landscape, which he must leave with so much regret, Bouville was already subject to nostalgia.

  ‘Its artistry appears to me beyond reproach,’ he said at last. ‘Though perhaps the frame is somewhat too plain to enclose so beautiful a face. Do you think perhaps that a golden festoon …’

  He was trying to delay his departure for a day or two.

  ‘That is of no importance, Messire,’ interrupted the aged Queen. ‘Do you think that it is a good likeness? You do. That is the important thing. Art is a perfectly frivolous affair and I should be astonished if King Louis cares tuppence about garlands. It is the face that will interest him, am I not right?’

  As opposed to the whole Court, who spoke of the marriage only by circumlocution, and pretended that the portrait was for Monseigneur of Valois because of the love he bore his niece, Marie of Hungary did not mince her words. She dismissed Oderisi saying, ‘You have done your work well, giovonotto; you will be paid what is due to you by the treasurer. And now go back to painting your church and make sure that the devil is particularly black and the angels peculiarly bright.’

  And in order to get rid of Guccio, she ordered him to help the painter carry his brushes.

  Then, when they had gone, with low bows which she scarcely acknowledged, she went on, ‘And so, Messire de Bouville, you are leaving for France.’

  ‘With infinite regret, Madam, and with all the kindnesses that have been shown me here …’

  ‘But,’ she interrupted him, ‘your mission here is finished. Almost, anyway.’

  She fixed Bouville with her
dark eyes.

  ‘Almost, Madam?’

  ‘I mean to say that the business has been arranged in principle and that the King, my son, has given you his consent. But this consent, Messire’ – and owing to a sort of nervous tic which frequently attacked her, the tendons of her neck jutted into relief – ‘this consent, and don’t forget it, is always dependent upon a certain condition. For though we are highly honoured by our cousin the King of France’s request, though we are always ready to love him with Christian loyalty and to give him numerous progeny, because the women of our family are fruitful, it is nevertheless a fact that our definite answer depends upon your master being free of Madame of Burgundy, and that quickly.’

  ‘But we shall have the annulment soon, Madam, as I have had the honour to assure you.’

  ‘Messire,’ she said, ‘we are now talking between ourselves. Do not assure me of something that is not yet accomplished. When will you receive the annulment? Upon what grounds will you obtain it?’

  Bouville coughed to hide his embarrassment. The blood began mounting to his cheeks.

  ‘That is Monseigneur of Valois’s business,’ he replied, endeavouring to assume an air of ease. ‘He will manage things in the best possible way and is certain of obtaining it immediately.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ grumbled the old Queen, ‘I know my son-in-law! When it is a question of words he is invincible and all his geese are swans.’

  Even though her daughter Marguerite had died in 1299, and Charles of Valois since then had twice remarried, she continued to call him ‘my son-in-law’ as if his other unions were of no account.

  Standing apart by the window, looking out across the sea, Clémence felt embarrassed at being present at this conversation. Must love be burdened by these preliminaries which resembled discussions about a treaty? After all, it was a question of her happiness, of her life. To become Queen of France seemed to her an unhoped for destiny, one which she was prepared to await with patience. Already she had waited till the age of twenty-two, wondering whether she should not enter a nunnery! So many matches, judged insufficiently good, had been refused on her behalf, without her opinion being asked. She thought that her grandmother was taking too intransigent a tone. Afar off in the bay a ship of the line was setting sail for the coast of Barbary.

  ‘Upon my return journey, Madam, I am to go by Avignon, with instructions from the King,’ Bouville was saying. ‘And I assure you that we shall shortly have the Pope we now lack.’

  ‘I would like to believe you,’ replied Marie of Hungary. ‘But we want everything arranged by the summer. We have other offers for Clémence; other princes desire her for wife. We cannot imperil her future, nor consent to a longer delay.’

  The tendons of her neck jutted out once more.

  ‘You must know,’ she went on, ‘that Cardinal Duèze is our candidate at Avignon. I very much hope that he is also the candidate of the King of France. You will obtain the annulment all the more quickly should he become Pope, because he is entirely in our confidence and owes us a great deal. Moreover, Avignon is Angevin territory of which we are suzerain, under the King of France of course. Don’t forget it. Go and take leave of my son the King, and may all turn out as you wish. But before summer, I repeat, before summer!’

  Bowing, Bouville withdrew.

  ‘Madam, my grandmother,’ said Clémence in an anxious voice, ‘do you think …’

  The old Queen tapped her on the arm.

  ‘It is all in the hands of God, my child,’ she replied, ‘and nothing happens unless it is His wish.’

  And she too went out.

  Left alone, Clémence thought, ‘Perhaps King Louis has other princesses in mind. Is it really sensible to put so much pressure upon him, and may he not make his choice elsewhere?’

  She was standing in front of the easel, her hands clasped at her waist, having automatically adopted the pose of the portrait.

  ‘Could a king really take pleasure,’ she asked herself, ‘in placing his lips upon those hands?’

  6

  Chasing Cardinals

  HUGUES DE BOUVILLE, GUCCIO and their escort took ship next day at dawn. Busy with their preparations, they had slept little, and it was with the melancholy disquiet which follows upon too short a night that, leaning side by side upon the rail of the sterncastle, they watched Naples, Vesuvius and the islands receding. Fleets of white sails were leaving the shore for the day’s fishing. Then they were upon the high seas. The Mediterranean was superbly calm; there was only gentle breeze enough to give the ship way. Guccio, who had not embarked without a certain alarm, since he remembered his detestable crossing of the Channel the year before, was delighted not to feel seasick; and it needed no more than twenty-four hours for him to become proud of his own valour, and to compare himself in some sort with Messire Marco Polo, the Venetian sailor, whose voyages to the country of the Great Khan were beginning to be known and read pretty well throughout the world. Guccio came and went from forecastle to sterncastle, learning nautical terms and imagining himself an adventurer, while the head of the mission was still regretting the wonderful city from which he had had to drag himself away.

  Messire de Bouville recovered some of his vitality only five days later when they disembarked at Aigues-Mortes.

  This port, from which Saint Louis had once set sail upon a crusade, and whose building had been finished only under Philip the Fair, was France once more.

  ‘Come on,’ said the fat man, doing his best to throw off his nostalgia, ‘we must now set about our urgent tasks.’

  The weather was sharp and cloudy, and Naples already seemed no more than the memory of a dream.

  Forty-eight hours later they came to Avignon. The journey on horseback, with twelve equerries and the servants of the escort, had been no sinecure, particularly for Guccio, who dared not for an instant risk letting the iron-bound chests containing the gold delivered by the Bardi of Naples out of his sight.

  Messire de Bouville had caught a chill. He spent his time cursing a country which no longer seemed to him his own, and in which the slightest shower seemed to be personally directed against himself.

  Their arrival, upon the second evening, amid great gusts of mistral, was a sad disappointment, since there was not a single cardinal in Avignon. And this was most odd in a city where a conclave was, in principle, supposed to be in session! No one could give the envoys of the King of France any information, no one knew anything, no one wished to know anything. It was only by going to the garrison of Villeneuve, which was at the end of the bridge upon the other bank of the Rhône, that at ten o’clock at night Bouville learnt from an officer, sulky at having been awakened, that the conclave had returned to Carpentras.

  ‘This captain of archers,’ said Bouville to Guccio, ‘is not very forthcoming towards those who come in the King’s name. I shall report him when we return to Paris.’

  Carpentras is thirty-five miles from Avignon and it was impossible to think of going on there during the night. The Papal palace16 was closed and no one replied to their knocking. The two men returned to the inn where they had supped and where they had to share a communal room with their escort. The whole company slept pell-mell before a fire amid a strong smell of boots. Alas, how far away were the beautiful girls of Italy!

  ‘You lacked firmness in dealing with that captain,’ said Guccio, showing for the first time some irritation with Bouville. ‘You should have ordered him to give us lodging.’

  ‘It’s quite true, but I didn’t think of it,’ replied fat Bouville. ‘I am not firm enough.’

  The following morning everyone was in a bad temper, which grew worse when they reached Carpentras; there was not the shadow of a cardinal there either. Moreover, it was freezing. Also, added to everything else, they had a curious feeling of insecurity, of being the victims of a plot, for, when Bouville and his men had scarcely left Avignon at dawn, two horsemen had passed them, without saluting, galloping hard towards Carpentras.

  ‘How very odd,’
Guccio had remarked; ‘one might think those fellows are determined to reach our destination before we do.’

  The little city of Carpentras was deserted; the inhabitants appeared to have gone to ground or to have fled. ‘It is here that Pope Clement died,’ said Bouville. ‘Indeed, the atmosphere of the place seems far from gay. Or is this apparent emptiness due to our arrival?’

  At the name of Clement V, Guccio had made the sign against the evil eye, and touched the relics he wore about his neck through the thickness of his cloak. He remembered the Templars’ curse.

  At last, in the cathedral, they found an old canon who at first pretended to take them for travellers, who wished to make their confessions, and led them towards the sacristy. He was deaf, or pretended to be so. Guccio’s manner was absent; he was concerned for his money-chests, and also afraid for his own skin. He put his hand to his dagger, ready to stab the old canon at the first alarm. The old fellow, after having had every question repeated half a dozen times, having reflected, put his head on one side and wiped the dust from his threadbare habit, at last consented to inform them that the cardinals were at Orange. He had been left behind all alone.

  ‘At Orange!’ cried Messire de Bouville. ‘But, good God! These are not prelates but carrier pigeons! Are you quite certain that they are there?’

  ‘Certain?’ replied the old canon, shocked by the oath uttered in the sacristy. ‘Certain? Of what can one be certain in this world except of the existence of God? However, I think you will find the Italians at Orange.’

  Then he fell silent, as if he feared having already said too much. He certainly had some angry thoughts in mind, but did not dare vent them.

  Guccio wished only to leave Carpentras; the town oppressed him and he did all he could to hurry their departure.