At her wits’ end, Marguerite went to the window and, braving the threatening rabble, begged to speak to someone—anyone—in authority. “At length, after much bawling from the window, the burghermasters came to speak to me, but were so drunk that they scarcely knew what they said. I explained to them that I was entirely ignorant that the grand master of the Bishop’s household was a person to whom they had a dislike, and I begged them to consider the consequences of giving offence to a person like me, who was a friend of the principal lords of the States.” In her desperation, Marguerite began naming the Flemish lords of her acquaintance, which naturally included the comte de Lalain.
This turned out to be an inspired move. “The principal person amongst them asked me, with some hesitation and stammering, if I was really a particular friend of the Count’s,” Margot reported. “Perceiving that to claim kindred with the Count would do me more service than being related to all the Powers in Christendom, I answered that I was both a friend and a relation.” (Under the circumstances she may perhaps be forgiven this small falsehood.) “They then made me many apologies, stretching forth their hands in token of friendship; in short, they now behaved with as much civility as before with rudeness.”
She had won over the town, but the relief from peril was only momentary. For in the morning appeared an envoy named Du Bois, representing Don John. Henri III had expressed his concern for his sister’s safety to the Spanish governor, Du Bois revealed. Don Juan had thoughtfully sent Du Bois and a troop of armed horsemen, led by one captain Barlemont, to escort Marguerite and her party to the castle of Namur, where they would again become guests of Don John’s hospitality. All that was necessary, said the smiling Du Bois, was for the queen of Navarre to explain the situation to her hosts and prevail upon them to let the soldiers into the city so that they could adequately protect her and her small company and begin their journey to safety.
It seems that Don John, as a result of his initial encounter with Margot, had formed a rather indifferent opinion of the queen’s abilities. In this he seriously underestimated her. Marguerite was not fooled by the ambassador’s solicitude. “Thus had they concerted a double plot; the one to get possession of the town, the other of my person,” she observed grimly.
Returning Du Bois’s smile, she excused herself for a moment and went to find the cardinal of Lenoncourt, one of her original companions from France. In a few hushed words, she outlined the situation. The cardinal was no more desirous of becoming Don John’s prisoner than was she. They worked out a plan of action together. He would keep Du Bois occupied while she sought out the principal magistrates of the town and asked for their help. “Accordingly, I assembled as many as I could, to whom I represented that if they admitted Barlemont and his troop within the town, he would most certainly take possession of it for Don John,” reported Marguerite. “I gave it as my advice to make a show of defense, to declare they would not be taken by surprise, and to offer to admit Barlemont, and no one else, within their gates.” Margot then quickly explained how she intended to circumvent Don John’s men without risk to the city. The magistrates “resolved to act according to my counsel, and offered to serve me at the hazard of their lives,” she remembered appreciatively.
The inhabitants of Dinant did as she suggested, and there then occurred an elaborate bit of theater by the city gates. Barlemont was ushered cordially into the town, but as soon as he had entered the great doors were slammed shut and bolted behind him, leaving the rest of his force waiting impotently outside the thick walls. “Hereupon, the citizens flew into a violent rage, and were near putting him [Barlemont] to death. They told him that if he did not order his men out of sight of the town, they would fire upon them with their great guns. This was done with design to give me time to leave the town before they could follow in pursuit of me,” Marguerite explained. Completely outnumbered and in fear for his life, Barlemont had no choice but to order his men to draw back a substantial distance from the city.
Meanwhile, the queen of Navarre had once again assumed the role of innocent royal princess on holiday. She graciously allowed Du Bois and Barlemont to convince her of the necessity of allowing Don John’s soldiers to escort her and her helpless companions to the safety of Namur. Of course, being a devout great lady, she had to hear Mass first, which was then followed by a short repast to prepare her for the hardships of the road. This gave the townspeople a chance to organize, so that when she was finally packed and ready to go, the Spanish envoys found the queen of Navarre “escorted by two or three hundred armed citizens, some of them engaging Barlemont and Du Bois in conversation. We all took the way to the gate which opens to the river, and directly opposite to that leading to Namur. Du Bois and his colleague told me I was not going the right way, but I continued talking, as if I did not hear them,” she observed sweetly.
In this manner they reached the gate in question, Du Bois and Barlemont still protesting that they were not taking the correct route. A quick look confirmed that the Spanish soldiers were nowhere in sight. Someone had thoughtfully left a number of vessels moored to the city side of the waterway. With the townspeople huddling closely around Don John’s two representatives, forming a barrier between the queen and her adversaries, Margot and her entourage made a break for the river. “I hastened onto the boat, and my people after me,” she recalled. “M. de Barlemont and the agent Du Bois, calling out to me from the bank, told me I was doing very wrong and acting directly contrary to the King’s intention.” But the two men were helpless in the throng of townspeople, and the soldiers, unaware of her escape, were still waiting on the opposite side of the town, by the road to Namur. “In spite of all their remonstrances we crossed the river with all possible expedition, and, during the two or three crossings which were necessary to convey over the litter and horses, the citizens, to give me more time to escape, were debating with Barlemont and Du Bois concerning a number of grievances and complaints, telling them… that Don John had broken the peace and falsified his engagements with the States; and… that if the troop made its appearance before their walls again, they would fire upon it with their artillery,” noted the queen of Navarre. “I had by this means sufficient time to reach a secure distance, and was, by the help of God and the assistance of my guide, out of all apprehensions of danger from Barlemont and his troop.”
Not quite. Don John had not secured his reputation as the most able commander in Europe by conceding so easily. Discovering his prey to have slipped from his grasp, and correctly anticipating that she and her party would attempt to make for the safety of a particular castle belonging to one of the comte de Lalain’s vassals, he sent a further three hundred men to entrap her. Marguerite managed to arrive at her destination only minutes ahead of the pursuing Spanish soldiers. The drawbridge was lowered, and she and her party were ushered inside the castle’s strong walls just as the enemy force loomed on the horizon.
But she had no sooner escaped the Spanish than “I had intelligence sent me that a party of the Huguenot troops had a design to attack me on the frontiers of Flanders,” she related with dismay. To circumvent this latest ambush, she decided on a desperate predawn flight. She called for her coaches, but her steward once again opposed her plan and attempted to prevent her departure. Strongly suspecting that he was in league with the Protestants, she thwarted capture by impetuously mounting her horse and, leaving her beautiful carriage behind, riding as fast as she could through the darkness of early morning, accompanied by only a handful of loyal retainers. The deception worked, and she was safely across the border of France before midday.
Never before had she been so close to fear; never had she such need of all of her talents; never had she felt so alive. To return directly to the royal court and the stifling dominion of her brother the king—particularly after Henri’s connivance with Don John—was anathema. She went instead to her fortified château at La Fère. Soon after she arrived she was joined by François, who had also found the atmosphere in Paris, where Catherine and He
nri had lately returned, unbearable. For two months brother and sister remained together. “I consider it amongst the greatest felicities I ever enjoyed,” Marguerite would later write. François reciprocated this sentiment. “Oh Queen! How happy I am with you!” he told her. “Your society is a paradise wherein I enjoy every delight, and I seem to have lately escaped from hell, with all its furies and tortures!”
The excessively rhapsodic language employed to describe their joy in being together at La Fère has led many to suggest—as usual—that Margot’s relationship with François was incestuous, just as her former attachment to her older brother Charles IX had been assumed to be carnal. But of this again there is no evidence. The siblings’ affection was rooted in their political and emotional needs, not in sex. They shared a common enemy in Henri III and realized that each had a much greater chance of surviving their older brother’s reign if they stood together against him. They might even manage to exert a measure of control over their lives that would not be possible if they faced him individually. More than this, as the youngest and least loved of Catherine’s children, they naturally turned to each other for support. Their happiness was based as much on being free from the restrictions and indignities suffered at court as it was in the pleasure they took in each other’s company. Henri and Catherine might have the privilege and power, but Margot and François were a team.
And as a team they used these two months—“which appeared to us only as so many days”—as a political summit to formulate their plans. For despite her ignominious retreat, Marguerite’s espionage mission to Flanders had in fact been a success. By personally interceding on François’s behalf, she had won her brother the regional support he needed to pursue his northern ambitions. The promised meeting with Monsieur de Montigny, the comte de Lalain’s brother, came to pass, and there was also a letter from the steadfast Monsieur d’Ainsi reiterating his fealty and pledging the fortress at Cambrai to the queen of Navarre’s younger brother. Don John’s ferocity and her near escapes had in no way dampened Marguerite’s spirits; if anything, her brush with danger had legitimized her participation in the venture and made her a far more active partner. Using her diplomatic skills and his martial abilities and rank as heir to the throne of France, they had won the Peace of Monsieur. Why not try again, but this time reach higher?
To wrest Flanders from Spanish rule was not treason against Henri III but a valid outlet for François’s—and French—aspirations in the Netherlands. “M. de Montigny delivered his brother’s declaration and engagement to give up the counties of Hainault and Artois, which included a number of fine cities,” Marguerite recalled. “These offers made and accepted, my brother dismissed [the Flemish officials] with presents of gold medals, bearing his and my effigies, and every assurance of his future favor; and they returned to prepare everything for his coming.” Having her picture engraved on the emblems as well as François’s was very unusual. This was clearly meant to be a joint venture.*
And so it was decided. François would return to court, but only to acquaint Henri and Catherine with his plans and ask for their help in raising the necessary men and supplies as a prelude to his leading an army into Flanders. As he would also require Huguenot assistance—or at least their neutrality—Margot would accompany him to court and again formally request permission to join Henry in Navarre. During the long weeks of summer, while she had been away taking the cure at Spa, Henri III had run out of funds with which to pursue his vendetta against the Huguenots and had been forced to sue for peace, so he no longer had a legitimate reason to keep his sister from her husband. Once back in Navarre, she could resurrect the old triumvirate of herself, Henry, and François. They had proved a potent combination in the past; who knows what they could accomplish in the future? At the very least, this would aid François’s efforts in Flanders. Once her younger brother established his sovereignty to the north while her husband held his realm in the south—well, let Henri III try to harm her then.
Of course, it’s easy to arrange the future—to adopt ambitious plans involving the participation of many different, often opposing factions—while sequestered in the dreamlike atmosphere of a secluded country estate. Reality can be somewhat more challenging.
15
Royal Rivalries
Above all a prince must endeavor in every action to obtain fame for being great and excellent.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
AFTER THE TWO MONTHS WITH her brother had passed, with her objectives firmly in mind, Marguerite departed La Fère for the royal court. François had preceded her by a few days, but she soon caught up with him, and together they arrived in Saint-Denis on November 12, 1577. In a show of respect, Henri and Catherine had arranged for the entire court to ride out to welcome the king’s younger siblings. “I was received very graciously, and most sumptuously entertained,” Margot remembered. “I was made to recount the particulars of my triumphant journey to Liège, and perilous return. The magnificent entertainments I had received excited their admiration, and they rejoiced at my narrow escapes.” It was obvious that Henri and Catherine had debated how best to handle this pair of royal truants and had decided to flatter and humor them, at least until they could determine exactly what Marguerite and François had been up to all this time.
They didn’t have long to wait. On her very first evening back, after the grand ball in her honor had ended and everyone was on the way home to Paris, Marguerite sought out her mother and Henri and again requested permission to join her husband in Navarre. Given that the kingdom was officially at peace they could have no objection, she argued, and to her pleasant surprise, “both of them approved of my request and commended my resolution.” Pressing her advantage, the queen of Navarre then reminded her mother that she had promised to bestow upon her the dowry that had never been paid, and again “she [Catherine] recollected it well, and the King thought it very reasonable, and promised that it should be done,” Margot concluded.
But it wasn’t done. Marguerite had intended to stay in Paris for only two weeks and start her journey south to Navarre at the beginning of December. She petitioned repeatedly for her dowry and a means of transportation, but to her frustration found the king and queen mother unceasingly evasive. “Instead of dispatch, I experienced only delay; and thus it continued for five or six months in negotiation,” she complained. François had no better luck with his Netherlands project, which Henri III had also pretended to approve. “My brother met with the like treatment, though he was continually urging the necessity for his setting out for Flanders,” Margot observed. It did not take the siblings long to realize that they were being deliberately misled and that Catherine and Henri had no intention of letting either of them leave the court.
To have arrived in Paris with such high expectations only to find themselves reduced once more to the role of virtual prisoners was infuriating. Worse, both of them found the atmosphere surrounding Henri III, which was simultaneously cloying and dangerous, repugnant. In their absence, the king’s favorites had grown even more powerful. François’s position was especially onerous, as he was openly held in contempt by Henri III’s mignons, to whom the king gave so much latitude that “these licentious young courtiers thought they might do whatever they pleased,” Marguerite reported. The duke of Anjou’s household, also comprised of combative young noblemen at the peak of their testosterone levels, naturally seethed at every slight. Bussy in particular had trouble containing his temper. “Bussy had a degree of courage which knew not how to give way to anyone,” Margot reasoned fondly. In consequence, “some new dispute betwixt them [the mignons] and Bussy was constantly starting.” This was something of an understatement. On January 10, 1578, after enduring two months of heckling and numerous clashes, Bussy stormed into the mignons’ quarters at the head of a band of three hundred like-minded toughs and, drawing his formidable blade, dared his antagonists “to fight it out to the death.” Only a last-minute intercession by Henri III, forbidding the acceptance of t
his challenge, stopped the battle from taking place. Even so, a few of the king’s attendants, led by Quélus, Henri’s longtime favorite, broke into Bussy’s apartments late one evening and killed one of his closest friends, an offense the brilliant swordsman did not forget.
Matters came to a head a month later. As was his wont, by way of a reward for services rendered, Henri III had arranged for another member of his inner circle, a mignon named Saint-Luc, to marry an heiress—an extremely reluctant heiress, it was true, but that was hardly of primary importance to either the king or the courtier. The wedding was planned for the second week in February and promised to be a raucous, drunken affair at which the bejeweled and elaborately coiffed mignons would swagger around at their dandified best, lording it over the other guests. François prudently elected not to attend and urged Marguerite to join him in abstaining from the festivities, a request she had no difficulty granting.
Then Catherine stepped in. Alarmed that Henri might interpret his younger siblings’ absence as an insult, she hastily arranged to cover up at least part of this potential indiscretion by pleading a prior engagement for herself, Marguerite, and François. It was a Monday, and the three went out for the day together to the château of Saint-Maur, one of the queen mother’s favorite residences, just outside Paris. They stayed to dine, but it was still early when they returned from their excursion. The wedding party was in full swing, and Catherine, again fearing repercussions from an imagined slight to Henri, “well lectured my brother, and made him consent to appear at the ball, in order not to displease the King,” Margot reported.* So he went.
The Rival Queens Page 27