The Italian Woman

by Jean Plaidy

  A few days before they were due to set out for Rheims, Catherine was sitting with some of her ladies when the talk turned to Anne du Bourg, whom Catherine’s husband, the late Henry the Second, had sent to prison for holding heterodox views. Anne du Bourg was now awaiting his trial, and there was more unrest than ever in the country on account of this man. As they talked, Catherine realised that the ladies about her all had Huguenot leanings – the Duchess de Montpensier, Mademoiselle de Goguier, Madame de Crussol and Madame de Mailly. Catherine was stimulated, for her sense of intrigue warned her that the gathering together of such ladies was not an accident. She let them talk.

  ‘Ah,’ she said at length. ‘But, ladies, it would seem to me that there are two parties of Huguenots in France to-day: those who devote themselves to their Faith – and these I honour – and those who make a political issue of religion. Nay, Madame de Mailly, do not interrupt me. Some of the party, I have reason to believe, plot with Elizabeth of England. I understand it is their wish to depose my son and put the Prince of Condé on the throne.’

  Her thoughts went to Condé as she spoke, and she could not prevent a little smile. Condé! What queer thoughts this man aroused in her! She knew that she would not hesitate to use him, even to slip a little potion into his wine if need be; but she could never hear his name without a slight emotion. That was folly for a woman of her age, particularly as she had no great desire for physical passion. Yet, try as she might, she could not overcome this excitement with which she was filled at the prospect of meeting Condé. He was a man of immense vitality, and his magnetism affected every female who set eyes on him; this must be so if it could touch Catherine de’ Medici. She heard that many women were in love with him. He was small, yet enchanting; he was hot-tempered, quick to take offence; and, she imagined, quite unstable. He would need much guidance, but it was said that he got this in good measure from his wife Eléonore, a fervent defender of the Reformed Faith. He was a practised philanderer, this Condé, as was his brother, Antoine de Bourbon. Philanderers both – yet held in check by over-devoted wives!

  She had missed a little of the conversation while she had been thinking of Condé, which showed how unlike herself she became at the very mention of the man’s name.

  ‘Ah,’ she went on. ‘You would not expect me to support those who ill-wished my son!’

  ‘Madame,’ cried Madame de Montpensier, ‘the Huguenots are loyal … absolutely loyal to the Crown.’

  Catherine shrugged her shoulders. ‘There are some,’ she went on, ‘who wish to have no King at all. A republic, they say they prefer … ruled by Calvin!’

  ‘Nay, Madame, you have heard false tales.’

  ‘It may be that you are right.’

  And when she dismissed these women, Madame de Mailly remained behind and whispered to Catherine: ‘Madame, the Admiral of France would wish to have a word with you. May I bring him to your presence?’

  Catherine nodded.

  Gaspard de Coligny. She studied him as he knelt before her, and as she looked at his stern and handsome face, it occurred to her that such a man, after all, might not be difficult to use. She knew a good deal of him, for she had made his acquaintance when she had first come to France. He was of Catherine’s own age, and his mother had been the sister of Montmorency, the Constable of France. He was handsome in quite a different way from Condé. Gaspard de Coligny had a stern and noble look. Yet in his youth he had been a gay figure of fashion, spending his time between the court and the battlefield. Catherine remembered him well. He had been seen everywhere with his greatest friend, Francis of Guise; now the greatest friends had become the greatest enemies, Francis of Guise being the nominal head of the Catholic Party, while Coligny was the hope of the Protestants. Coligny was a power in the land; as Admiral of France, he controlled Normandy and Picardy. He had been a good Catholic until, during three years’ captivity in Flanders, he had taken to the Protestant religion. A quiet and serious man he had become, and he was married to a plain and very wise wife who worshipped him and to whom he was devoted. In the presence of Coligny, Catherine was aware of strength, and such strength excited her as she wondered how she could use it.

  When Coligny had risen, she asked him what he wished to say to her, and he answered that it was the Queen Mother to whom the Protestants were now looking with hope. She smiled, well pleased, for it was amusing to discover how successfully she had managed to hide her true self from the people about her.

  ‘They are aware of your sympathy, Madame,’ said Coligny earnestly.

  Then she spoke to him of what she had mentioned to the ladies; of plots with England, of plots with Calvin. He in his turn assured her of his loyalty to the Crown; and when Coligny spoke of loyalty she must believe him.

  ‘Madame,’ said Coligny, ‘you are on your way to Rheims. A meeting could be arranged there … or somewhere near. There is much which should be discussed with you.’

  ‘What would be discussed with me, Admiral?’

  ‘We shall ask for the dismissal of the Guises, who hold so many offices; we shall ask for the redistribution of offices; the convocation of the States General. All this would be in the true interest of the Crown.’

  ‘Ah, Monsieur l’Amiral, when I see poor people burned at the stake, not for murder or theft, but for holding their own opinions, I am deeply moved. And when I see the manner in which they bear these afflictions, I believe there is something in their faith which rises above reason.’

  ‘Our people look to you for help, Madame,’ pleaded Coligny. Madame de Mailly cried out: ‘Oh, Madame, do not pollute the young King’s reign with bloodshed. That which has already been shed calls loudly to God for vengeance.’

  Catherine looked at Madame de Mailly coldly. ‘Do you refer to what took place when my husband was on the throne?’

  Madame de Mailly fell on her knees and begged the pardon of the Queen Mother.

  Catherine looked from Madame de Mailly to Coligny. ‘I think,’ she said slowly, ‘your meaning is this: many suffered at my husband’s command, and you think that because of this a terrible death overtook him.’ Catherine laughed bitterly. ‘You would warn me, would you not, that if there are more deaths, more suffering, I may suffer? Ah, Madame, Monsieur l’Amiral, God has taken from me him whom I loved and prized more dearly than my life. What more could He do to me?’

  Then she wept, for it pleased her to appear before Coligny as a weak woman, and both the Admiral and Madame de Mailly comforted her. But as she wept Catherine was asking herself whether or not it would be wise to agree to this meeting with the Protestants. She decided that it would, for she need commit herself to nothing while she learned their secrets.

  So she promised that she would see any minister whom the Reformed Church cared to send to her; and Coligny and Madame de Mailly retired very well satisfied with the interview.

  When Catherine was alone she thought continually of the Protestants; that led her to Condé; she contemplated his attractiveness, and his weakness. She thought of Antoine and Jeanne; Condé and his Eléonore. And when her women came in for her coucher she thought how lovely some of them were. There were two among them of outstanding beauty; one was Louise de la Limaudière and the other Isabelle de Limeuil.

  She said, when she had dismissed all but the most beautiful of her attendants: ‘Do you remember how in the days of my father-in-law Francis the First, there was a band of ladies, all charming, all good company, great riders, witty, the pick of the court?’

  They had heard of Francis’s Petite Bande, and they said so.

  ‘I have such a band in mind. I shall gather about me ladies of charm and elegance, ladies who will do as much for me as Francis’s did for him. Beauty, daring, wit, these shall be the qualifications; and it shall be deemed as great an honour for a lady to enter my Escadron Volant as it was to be a member of Francis’s Petite Bande.’

  The court had moved to the Castle of Blois on the advice of Ambroise Paré, the King’s surgeon. Francis’s poison of
the blood was particularly severe at this time, and it was thought that the climate of Blois, milder than that of Paris, might be good for the King.

  During these uneasy days, Catherine felt herself to be most unsafe. The meeting with the Protestant ministers which she had planned had not taken place, for the arrangements had come to the ears of the Cardinal of Lorraine and he, in his arrogant way, together with his brother, the Duke of Guise, had made it very clear to Catherine that she could not serve two masters. If she wished to throw in her lot with Coligny and the Protestants, she would immediately and automatically become the enemy of the Guisards. And Catherine – with Francis on the throne, and Francis’s wife, subject to those uncles of hers, in command of the King – could not afford to offend these men.

  If the matter had ended there it would not have been important, but the persecutions of the Protestants had increased. The terrible sentence that he should be burned at the stake had been carried out on du Bourg, and many had watched him die in the Place des Grèves.

  The Protestants were murmuring against Catherine for having failed to keep her promise. The French, of whatever class or party, were always ready to blame the Italian woman.

  Catherine chafed against her inability to get what she wanted; but the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise had followed the court to Blois. They were on the alert. Catherine knew they watched her closely.

  Only the children seemed unaware of the tension. The King knew nothing of what was going on about him. He was only concerned with his happiness in his married life. Mary was happy too, as long as she could dance and chatter and be admired; it seemed wonderful to her to be the most beautiful of all the Queens of France, to be courted and petted by her two formidable uncles.

  Charles was not happy, but then how could he be? His tutors bewildered him by the strange things they taught him. He still longed to be with Mary, the Queen and wife of his brother; he wanted to write poetry to her and play his lute to her all day long.

  Henry was happy with his dogs and those members of his own sex whom he chose for his playmates; these were all the pretty little boys of the court, not the big, blustering ones, like Henry of Guise, who were always talking of fighting and what they would do when they were grown up; Henry’s friends were clever boys who wrote poetry and read poetry and liked fine pictures and beautiful things.

  Margot was happy because Henry of Guise was at Blois. They would wander together along the banks of the Loire and talk of their future; they were determined that one day they would marry.

  ‘If they should try to marry me to anyone else,’ said Margot, ‘I shall go with you to Lorraine and we will rule there together; and perhaps we shall one day take the whole of France and I will make you King.’

  But Henry scoffed at the idea of there being any opposition to their marriage.

  ‘Say nothing of this to anyone yet, dearest Margot, but I have already spoken to my father.’

  Margot stared at him. ‘About us?’

  He nodded. ‘My father thinks it would be a good plan for us to marry.’

  ‘But Henry, what if the King … ?’

  ‘My father is the greatest man in France. If he says we shall marry, then we shall.’

  Margot thought of Henry’s father, the mighty Duke of Guise, Le Balafré, with the scar on his face which somehow made him more attractive because he had received it in battle. There would be many who would agree with his son that Francis of Guise was the greatest man in France; and if he could give her his son Henry in marriage, Margot herself was prepared to believe it.

  And so the little lovers wandered through the castle grounds, talking of the future and the day when they would marry, swearing fidelity, assuring each other that no one should be allowed to stand in the way of their ultimate marriage.

  Francis, Duke of Guise, called a Council at the Castle of Blois. He was grave, but his eyes sparkled as they always did at the thought of adventure; for there was nothing that delighted Francis more than a battle – the bloodier the better.

  ‘Mesdames, Messieurs,’ he said, addressing the Council, which consisted of the young Queen and the Queen Mother as well as the King, the Cardinal of Lorraine and the leading figures of the court, ‘I have news that a plot is afoot. My spies in England have brought me word of this. The King is in danger. A military rising is being planned, the motive of which is to kidnap the King, the Queen, the Queen Mother and all the royal children. These traitors plan that if the King refuses to become a Protestant, another King will be set up to take his place. At the head of these traitors, as you will guess, are the Bourbon brothers. There has been correspondence with Elizabeth of England, who promises them help. Every care must be taken of the King. We must guard the castle.’

  After this revelation all were confined to the castle. There were no more ramblings along the banks of the Loire for Margot and Henry of Guise. They did not care; they were happy as long as they were together; and both were of the kind to enjoy the thought of danger’s being near to them. Not so Francis and his brother Charles. Charles’s fits became more frequent, and he would cry out in his sleep that he was being murdered; he was terrified, on retiring, lest an assassin should be hiding in the hangings of his room. He was becoming more and more nervous. His mother watched him with calculating eyes; it seemed to her that his tutors were having some effect upon him; she was not displeased.

  But at present she must turn her thoughts from her children to the bigger issue – the war between the Catholics and Protestants – in which she would not become involved, unless she might effect, by her intervention, a favourable advantage to herself. Sometimes she laughed at the fervency of the people about her. She was the only one who cared not a jot whether Catholics or Protestants got the upper hand, as long as they were subservient to the will of Catherine. Her religion was neither Catholic nor Protestant; she would fight for no cause but that of keeping the Valois Kings on the throne of France, and the Valois Kings under the control of the Queen Mother.

  So, while listening to the plans of the Guisards, she was busy formulating her own.

  Secretly she sent for Coligny. She had betrayed him once, but she felt that by sending out distress signals she could fool him again. Like most straightforward men, there was little subtlety about Coligny. She wrote to him that she had heard the English were about to attack a convoy of French ships. Now, although Coligny might be in league with England against the Guises and the Catholics, in such a man as he was honour demanded that he must always fly to the help of France; so he came at once to Catherine when he received the message from her. Catherine received him with tears, told him that she was a weak woman completely in the hands of the Guises, and begged him to stand by the King.

  ‘The cause of all this trouble,’ said the Admiral, ‘is the family of Guise. The only remedy, Madame, and the only way in which a terrible civil war can be avoided is by an Edict of Tolerance.’

  Catherine declared that everything in her power should be done to bring this into being; and because it seemed imperative to her to win the confidence of the Protestants, which she had lost when she failed to keep her word with regard to the meetings near Rheims, she issued a decree; it was a decree to stop the persecution of the Protestants; it gave them freedom to worship and contained a promise of forgiveness to all except those who had plotted against the royal family.

  Catherine felt that she had handled a delicate situation rather well; but when, a few days later, Francis of Guise was ushered into her apartments, and the man stood before her, his scarred, handsome face set and determined, those glittering eyes watching her cynically, that cruel mouth smiling a little, she began to realise the mighty force she had to pit her wits against, and her uneasiness returned.

  Francis said: ‘Madame, we are leaving Blois immediately. I can give you thirty minutes in which to prepare yourself.’

  ‘Leaving Blois!’

  The eyes flickered and the one above the scar watered a little, as it did when Francis was exp
eriencing strong emotion.

  ‘Danger, Madame, to the King, yourself and the royal children.’

  ‘But,’ she retorted, ‘the danger is past. The Edict …’

  ‘Your Edict, Madame,’ said the Duke with unmistakable emphasis, ‘will not help us to fight our enemies. We leave Blois for the safety of Amboise. I cannot leave the King exposed to danger.’

  She realised the power of the man, and that wonderful self-control of hers was ready to meet this situation as it had met many more in the past. She, the Queen Mother, would accept the humiliation of bowing to the will of the Duke of Guise, for, she assured herself as she prepared to leave Blois, it would not last for ever.

  Francis the King was very frightened. Why could they not leave him alone? He wanted nothing but to be happy with Mary. He did not ask much – only that he might ride with her, dance with her, give her fine jewels, hear her laughter. It was so pleasant to be a young husband in love; so frightening to be a King. There were so many who wanted to rule France: his mother, Monsieur de Guise, the Cardinal of Lorraine, Antoine de Bourbon, Louis de Bourbon … If only he could have said: ‘Very well, here is the crown. Take it. All I want is to be left at peace with Mary.’

  But that could not be done. Unfortunately, he was the eldest son of his father. Oh, why had dearest Papa died? Why had there been that terrible accident which had not only robbed him of a father whom he loved and who had made him feel safe and happy, but had put a crown on his head!