The Italian Woman

by Jean Plaidy

  Catherine lifted the little boy in her arms. That was enough. Perhaps now he would not be so foolish. Perhaps he would think of the torture chambers every time Mary Stuart flashed those bright eyes of hers his way.

  ‘Charles, Charles, my dearest son. My dear, dear boy, your mother is here to protect you. She would let no harm come to you. You are her Prince, her son. You know that.’

  He buried his head against her. ‘Yes, Maman. Yes, Maman.’

  His hand curled round the stuff of her sleeve as a baby’s curls, tightly, for protection.

  ‘There, my little one,’ she soothed. ‘Nothing shall happen to you, for you are my little Prince, and I shall be proud of you. You would never be a traitor to your brother, would you? You would never be so wicked as to desire another man’s wife – and he your own brother!’

  ‘No, Maman, no!’ He was shivering now. She had averted the fit. That was the way she preferred to do it. It was not pleasant to see him lose his reason.

  She soothed him; she laid her cool hand on his forehead; she made him lie on her bed, and she sat beside it holding his hand.

  ‘Have no fear, my son,’ she said. ‘Do what your mother tells you, and she will see that no harm comes to you.’

  ‘Yes, Maman; I will.’

  ‘Always remember that, Charles.’

  He nodded while Catherine wiped the beads of sweat off his forehead. She sat beside him until he was calm.

  She was thinking what a difficult task lay before her. She must dupe the arrogant Guises and the vacillating Bourbons; but she must not neglect to guide her children’s footsteps in the way they must go. She could not guess which task would be the more arduous – the fooling of the rival houses or the controlling of her Valois brood.

  Francis was preparing for a day’s hunting. He was feeling wretchedly ill, but he was happy. He enjoyed hunting when Mary was to be of the party, for whenever Mary was with him he was happy. He never tired of looking at her, of telling her how beautiful she was; and that made them both very happy.

  He wished he could escape from his mother and the Cardinal and be alone with Mary all the time. He wished that his father – his dearly beloved father – was alive. He would like to kill the man who had killed his father. He, Francis, did not want to be King; he had been so much happier when he was Dauphin. Then there had been little to do but dance and play and be with Mary. Now that he was King, he was never free from the attentions of his mother and the Cardinal.

  He was afraid of his mother; he was afraid of the Cardinal. They were both, he knew, so much cleverer than he would ever be. He had to obey them both, and as they did not always wish him to do the same thing, that was very difficult. The Cardinal sneered openly at him, saying those clever, cutting things which hurt more deeply than Francis would admit. He would have liked to have banished the Cardinal, but Mary called him her darling uncle; and the Cardinal was always thinking of things which would please Mary; he could not banish one of Mary’s uncles.

  As for his mother, he would have liked to tell her to do everything she pleased, for he was sure she knew much more about governing France than he did. But always at his elbow was the Cardinal, with his thin, beautifully formed features and his cruel mouth letting fall those unkind words.

  The Cardinal came in unceremoniously, even as he was dressing himself for the hunt, and with an imperious gesture dismissed the King’s attendants. Francis would have liked to protest, but if he did so he would stammer and stutter, and the Cardinal had already mocked stammerers and stutterers, so that Francis was almost afraid to speak in his presence.

  ‘We leave in half an hour, Sire,’ said the Cardinal.

  Francis said: ‘I do not know if the Queen will be ready.’

  ‘The Queen must be ready,’ said the Cardinal testily.

  ‘There … there is plenty of time,’ stammered Francis. ‘The Prince of Bourbon shall be met half an hour’s ride from the palace.’

  ‘Nay, Sire, we shall not meet the Bourbon, hunting to-day.’

  ‘Not … But … But he is on his way. I … I had heard that he was.’

  The Cardinal of Lorraine studied his long white fingers. ‘Sire, the Bourbon rides this way. He comes with a humble following because he has some notion that he is important to the King of Spain and it is well that the spies of that monarch should not know of his movements. Therefore he rides to court like a poor gentleman.’

  Francis did not laugh. He hated to hear people ridiculed, and Antoine de Bourbon was of higher rank than the Cardinal. He hated the sly, handsome face of the Cardinal; he hated the drawling voice.

  ‘Then we must meet him if he rides this way,’ he said.

  ‘Why so, Sire?’

  ‘Why? Because it is courteous. More than that, it is our custom. Do we not always meet those who come to visit us … out hunting … as if by accident?’

  ‘If the visitor is important, yes.’

  ‘But this is the Prince of Bourbon.’

  ‘Nevertheless, he must learn that he is of no account.’

  ‘I cannot do this, Monsieur le Cardinal. I will not be guilty of such ill manners towards my kinsman.’

  The Cardinal sat smiling at his long white hands until Mary joined them. She was flushed and laughing; the young King was enchanted afresh by the beauty of his wife.

  ‘You are ready, my love?’ she asked. ‘Why do we wait?’

  Francis hurried to her and kissed her hands. ‘We but waited for you.’

  ‘Alas, dear niece,’ said the Cardinal, ‘you will not ride the way you chose. The King has given orders that we must ride south to greet the Bourbon.’

  Mary looked from her husband to her uncle. She took her cue from the Cardinal as always.

  ‘Oh, Francis, but I did not want to go south. I had made other plans. There is something I wished to show you on the north road.’ She grimaced charmingly. ‘And the Bourbon! He wears earrings. He is a fop and a fool, and he tires me so. Francis, please, let us pretend we have missed him. Let us ride the other way. Yes, Francis … darling … to please me.’

  Francis murmured: ‘We will go where you lead us, my love, my darling.’

  And the Cardinal looked on, smiling benignly at his beautiful niece and her little King.

  Antoine was only a few miles from the Palace of Saint-Germain. He was thinking of the new status which was his since the death of King Henry. He was a Prince of the Blood Royal, and young Francis was only sixteen. In such cases it was necessary to have a strong and influential Privy Council, and naturally he, on account of his rank, should have high office in it.

  He thought pleasantly of what he would do for the persecuted Protestants for whom he and his brother felt such sympathy. He felt proud, contemplating that all over the country Protestants would look to him as their leader; they would rejoice when they heard that he was at court. He could almost hear their cries: ‘Vive le Bourbon! Let us make him our leader. All our hopes rest in him!’

  He had talked of this with Jeanne before he had left home, for his wife was fast growing in sympathy with the Reformed Faith; she would soon come out into the open. It was not that she was afraid to announce her belief; she did not fear the enmity of the Guises and Philip of Spain; it was the honour which she felt was due to her father that prevented her from making her feelings known just yet.

  Oh, Jeanne, he thought, how I love you! How I admire you, my darling! You are more than a woman … more than a wife. I am even glad of the profligate life I led before I met you, because my dealings with those light women whom I knew at that time have taught me to appreciate you more.

  Jeanne wanted him to lead the Protestants so that they might rid themselves of these perpetual persecutions. In Jeanne’s eyes he was already a leader. He would come back to Nérac, to Jeanne and his children; and she would be proud of his achievements.

  He said to his attendants: ‘We shall be meeting the King’s party at any moment now. Be prepared.’

  But they rode on, and there was no sig
n of the King’s party; and when they reached the Palace of Saint-Germain, the attendants seemed surprised to see them.

  Antoine, furious at this reception, said coldly: ‘Take me to my apartments at once.’

  ‘My lord Prince,’ was the answer, ‘no apartments have been prepared.’

  ‘This is nonsense. Am I not expected? Conduct me to the King … no, to the Queen Mother.’

  ‘My Lord, they are out hunting. They will not return until the late afternoon.’

  Antoine realised now that this was no accident, but an intentional slight, and he could guess who had arranged it. It could mean only one thing. His perennial enemies, the Guises, were in command.

  Even as he stood there, hesitating and uncertain, he knew what Francis Duke of Guise would have done in his place. He would have drawn his sword, he would have shouted curses; he would have demanded that apartments immediately be prepared for him. And the Cardinal? Antoine could imagine the scorn on those cold, handsome features; he could hear the clear, cutting voice which would strike terror into all who heard it.

  But Antoine was no Guise. He did not know how to act. He was not physically afraid; his was a moral cowardice, and an inability to think quickly and to know how to act in an emergency. In battle he would be as brave as any – but this was not battle.

  His friend the Maréchal de Saint-André came to his rescue and offered him his room at the palace, saying that he would help find lodgings in the village for Antoine’s attendants. Antoine accepted this offer with gratitude. He saw now that this had been planned by the Guises, who had decided that he should come to court and find himself in the midst of his enemies with a few – a very few – attendants scattered in the village. He knew that he had been unwise to delay his visit so long and that he should have been at court weeks before, for perhaps at that time the Guises might not have been in such complete power. He should have come in pomp, well guarded by his own men. He had been a fool to listen to evil counsels, and now he knew it. He realised to the full what power was working against him when, on the return of the hunting party, he went into the audience chamber.

  King Francis – looking uncomfortable, it was true, but obviously obeying orders – stood quite still and made no attempt to greet him. The Cardinal of Lorraine, who stood close to the King, did likewise. This was a great insult, for Antoine was of higher rank than the Cardinal, and even if the King chose to insult Antoine, the Cardinal certainly had no right to do so. But Antoine was without dignity. Uncertainly he embraced the King and the Cardinal, though neither gave the slightest response.

  Catherine was present with the young Queen, and as Catherine watched Antoine de Bourbon she felt a desire to burst out laughing. She had been fortunate in not putting her trust in a Bourbon. He was reduced to the position of a chambermaid, she thought. And how meekly he accepted it! The fool! Could he not see that this was no time for weakness?

  He should have demanded the homage of the Cardinal; he could have made the poor little King shiver if he had done so; and the Cardinal also would have realised that he had a strong man to deal with. But no! Antoine had no dignity, no arrogance … only meekness.

  The Cardinal spoke to him most haughtily, and Antoine smiled, glad to receive some attention.

  Poor little popinjay! thought Catherine. Now, there is a man whom it should not be difficult to use.

  Antoine had gone back to his wife, and Catherine laughed to think of their reunion. She was no longer jealous of their love for one another, for she was certain that one day Jeanne was going to repent of her marriage. Jeanne was strong, and as a strong woman she must despise weakness; so she must soon despise her husband. It was amusing to think of Antoine’s creeping back to his wife to tell of his reception at court, of all he had been able to achieve for the Protestants, whose hope he now was since Condé had been tactfully sent away on a foreign mission – for what Antoine had achieved was precisely nothing.

  Condé was in a different class. Condé was not a man to be dismissed as lightly as his elder brother Antoine; but Condé was away, and there was no need to think of him now. This scheming for power was such a difficult task, such an allabsorbing one, so complicated that one could never see more than a few moves ahead.

  Still, there was time to reflect that Antoine was creeping back to his wife, his tail between his legs, to tell her a tale of humiliation and defeat. One day Madame Jeanne would be forced to see what kind of man she had married.

  Thoughts of Jeanne still haunted Catherine a good deal; she would always hate her, would always see her as a political rival as well as a woman who had been successful in love – though with what a partner! – and a woman to watch in the future.

  There was much to think of at home. ‘With the help of the brothers Ruggieri and her perfumer René, who had a shop on the quay opposite the Louvre, she had removed from this life one or two minor characters who had made themselves difficult. Such actions gave her a satisfying sense of her power; she enjoyed giving her smiles to her intended victims and assuring them that they were well on the way to gaining her favour; then would come the removal, sometimes swift, sometimes lingering, whichever suited her purpose. This was like soothing ointments on her wounds, those wounds which had been made long ago by Diane de Poitiers and now by the Guises. Sometimes she thought it would be a clever thing to slip something into the wine of Francis of Guise, something which would improve the taste of the wine, for his was a rare palate; at others she thought how she would have enjoyed presenting the Cardinal of Lorraine with a book, the pages of which had been specially treated by René or one of the Ruggieri brothers; it would have made her happy to have given to that dandy, Antoine de Bourbon, a pair of perfumed gloves, the kind which, when drawn on to the hands, produced death. But such would be only a momentary satisfaction. It was unwise to deal thus with those of rank and importance. Moreover, she was beginning to see that the Guises and the Bourbons would be of more use to her alive than dead, for it would be to her advantage to set one rival house against the other. At the moment it might appear that she was siding with the Guises, but she did not always intend to do that. When she had a chance she would let that weak, vain little Bourbon think that she was on his side – secretly, because of the power of the Guises; she would remind him that Francis could not live for ever.

  When Francis died, Charles would take the crown; and Charles, hysterical and unbalanced, had been taught to rely on his mother. Yet, pliable as he was, she must not forget that streak of madness in him; there was a hint of rebellion also. Catherine had seen how, through Mary of Scotland, her son Francis had been weaned from her control.

  She decided now to put into action a plan which had long been in her mind. It seemed impossible to banish Mary Stuart from Charles’s mind. When Catherine talked to him, rousing that greatest emotion of which he was capable, fear – fear of his mother, fear of torture and death – he was compliant; but when the next day he set eyes on Mary, he would watch her like a lovesick boy.

  Catherine sent for two Italians of her suite, two men whom she trusted as she trusted her astrologers.

  When they were in her apartments she closed the doors and made sure that there was no one hidden in any cupboard or anteroom. Then she explained what she wanted of them. It was possible to speak frankly – or as near as Catherine could get to frankness – to Birago and Gondi, the Count of Retz; for they, as Italians, must obey the Italian Queen, since they knew that their prospects in France depended on her good graces.

  ‘I am alarmed concerning my son,’ she said. ‘I do not mean the King, but my son Charles, who would take the King’s place were the King to meet with an early death. My lords, the little boy has feelings beyond his years … and for his brother’s wife. This is not healthy in a little boy. The French …’ She smiled at them intimately … Italian to Italian. ‘The French, my lords, see nothing wrong in love between the sexes … even in the cases of children. “It is natural,” they say. “What a lover he will become!” ’ She gave
a sudden spurt of laughter. ‘But at the age of my son, it is more natural, I think, to have a fondness for members of his own sex.’

  Her wide, prominent eyes stared blankly before her, and the men watched her closely.

  ‘You think, Madame,’ ventured the Count of Retz, ‘that it would be more natural were he to indulge in the usual passionate friendships with … boys of his own age.’

  ‘How well you understand! I do. Indeed I do. I do not wish to curb his natural emotions.’ She smiled, and they smiled with her, knowing full well that it was a habit of the Queen Mother’s to say what she did not mean. ‘I wish him to enjoy friendships with members of his own sex. He is not strong, and I feel you gentlemen could do much for him. Let him not, at his tender age, think of women.’

  The Italians smiled afresh. They knew that they had been chosen as tutors for Charles because of their perverted tastes rather than for their academic qualifications.

  They understood the Queen Mother. The Prince Henry was as dear to her, so it was said, ‘as her right eye’. Francis did not look as if he would make old bones, and as yet he had no son to follow him. If it should happen that the little Queen of Scots gave him one, they did not doubt that Catherine would know how to remove that little obstacle. And after Francis … Charles. Let the danger of Charles’s producing children be made as remote as possible. He was weak and unbalanced; well, it should not be difficult to turn such a boy from his natural inclinations.

  Some might have been astonished at this interview with the Queen Mother; but Charles’s new tutors were not. They understood perfectly and accepted the task required of them.

  Catherine was preparing to set out for Francis’s Coronation, which was to take place, as tradition demanded, in the town of Rheims. How long, she asked herself, would this little King stay on the throne? He had been such a difficult baby to rear. She remembered how in the first year of his life his body had from time to time been covered with livid patches about which the doctors could do nothing, being absolutely ignorant of their cause. There was an obstruction in his nose which it had been thought at one time would kill him; but he had survived to speak with a nasal accent which was not very pleasant to listen to. It had always seemed that he was too delicate for long life, and now, by the look of him, it appeared that he could scarcely survive his Coronation. Watching him, Catherine felt competent to arrange that matters should go the way she wished.