The Italian Woman

by Виктория Холт

  Little Charles gave his sister, as a present, a horse with a saddle ornamented with precious stones and pearls; other gifts were exchanged, and the tournaments, balls, masques and banquets, which were to last for days, began. The peasants danced their native dances before the royal visitors and their suites; others played on the musical instruments which were indigenous to their particular region. The Provençaux played their cymbals; the Champenois showed their skill with the hautbois, while the Bourgignons joined them; and the Poitevins performed on the bagpipes. Great prominence was given to all things Spanish; music from Spain figured largely in the entertainments; Spanish dances were danced by all; and Ronsard had composed poems for the occasion which were read aloud, and all these praised the greatness of Spain.

  But the two parties had not met merely to dance together and to praise each other. Under cover of these festivities they met as opponents in the game of statecraft – Catherine with little King Charles for France, and Elisabeth with the experienced Duke of Alva for Spain.

  The Duke of Alva was about fifty-five at this time, a finely made man with all the solemnity and dignity of a Spanish don. His thin face, with its yellowish skin, looked like that of a man already dead, but Catherine was aware of those keen and piercing eyes and all the shrewdness which lay behind them. She knew she would have need of all her cunning, and that King Charles would be of little use to her in their game of wits.

  They met – the four of them; and when they did so Catherine felt a momentary anger against the Queen of Spain. She had never liked children who were not docile to her command, and Elisabeth, very lovely now with the abundant black hair which she had inherited from her father, and those black eyes and the dazzling, white skin, seemed more Spanish than French, far more the wife of King Philip of Spain than the daughter of Catherine de’ Medici. Elisabeth hated those whom she called ‘heretic’ as much as did her husband; and it was startling to see her beautiful face grow almost ugly with hatred whenever the word Huguenot was mentioned.

  She talked to Catherine of the religious troubles in France, but Catherine did not wish to discuss these matters with one who had become as rigorously Catholic as her royal husband.

  ‘Your husband suspects me of favouring the Huguenots,’ said Catherine.

  ‘What cause have you to think, Madame, that the King mistrusts your Majesty?’ asked Elisabeth. ‘Only evil-minded people could give you such ideas.’

  Catherine sighed. Here was some of that deceit of which she herself was mistress. She said: ‘Oh, dearest daughter, you have become very Spanish.’

  ‘You are afraid of war with Spain,’ said Elisabeth, ignoring the comment. ‘If that is so, why do you not talk to the Duke? That is why he is here, Madame – that you may come to terms which will bring peace to our two countries.’

  Catherine turned to the Duke and talked of the marriages she wished to arrange. First, Don Carlos and Margot. They could see for themselves what a bright little Princess Margot was, and Don Carlos would be surely enchanted with her. And, second, Philip’s sister Juana and Prince Henry. It was true that Juana was a little old for Henry, but in royal marriages a difference of age must not be looked upon as a barrier.

  The Duke of Alva smiled his thin smile. ‘I notice that you do not mention religion, Madame. And that, I assure you, should be the main subject of our discussion.’

  As there was no help for it, Catherine began to talk of all that had happened in recent years in her country – always from her point of view; but Alva insisted on giving his version of affairs, which was a little different from that of Catherine.

  ‘Well,’ said Catherine at length, ‘what is the remedy which will put an end to our troubles? Tell me that.’

  ‘But, Madame,’ said Alva suavely, ‘who knows better than you do? Is it not you who should say what has to be done? Tell me, and I will pass on your wishes to my royal master.’

  ‘Your royal master knows better than I do what is happening in France!’ retorted Catherine. ‘Tell me by what means he proposes to suppress the Huguenots.’

  ‘To take up arms would be useless,’ said Alva. ‘Strong measures must suffice. Banish the sect from France.’

  The Queen of Spain put in: ‘Why does not my brother, King Charles, chastise all who rebel against God?’

  Charles looked in fear at his mother, who said sharply: ‘He does all that is possible.’ She saw the fanatical gleam in the eyes of her daughter and in those of Alva. To avoid the subject of religion, she tried to speak once more of the proposed marriages, but Alva stopped her. He dispensed with the customary etiquette and solemnity of Spain and spoke bluntly:

  ‘Madame, we must settle this matter of religion. Give it your consideration, and we will discuss it later. I shall tell you the wishes of my master, and I think you will agree with him.’

  And so it was that later, in a quiet gallery of the Bayonne Palace, Alva and Catherine talked earnestly together. It was comparatively cool in the shaded gallery, sheltered as it was from the great heat of the midsummer sun. Alva in his darkly severe Spanish dress and Catherine in her long black robes paced back and forth, their garments flapping as they walked, like the wings of giant birds.

  ‘… the heads of Condé and Coligny, Madame, should be severed from their bodies,’ said Alva quietly. ‘Condé is a man whom many will follow, but he is not a great man. Nevertheless, we shall not be safe from these heretics until he is dead. The Admiral of France too must die. He is a leader of men, a man who knows how to bind men to him. He is a great soldier; and yet you allow him to lead your enemies!’

  ‘My lord Duke, how could I lay hands on such a man?’

  ‘Madame, Monsieur de Guise was a great man, yet he was shot by a spy of Coligny’s. Coligny works fast, while you hesitate. Can this hesitation be due to your fondness for these Huguenots?’

  ‘You have been listening to evil tales concerning me. I have no love for the Huguenots. I am a true Catholic.’

  ‘I wonder how your Majesty can administer justice when it has to pass through the hands of your Chancellor, Michel l’Hôpital … the Huguenot!’

  ‘He is not a Huguenot, my lord Duke.’

  ‘You, Madame, must be the only person in France who does not think so. In your husband’s lifetime he was known as a Protestant, and as long as he is Chancellor, Huguenots will be favoured. My Catholic King wants to know what you propose to do to remedy these matters. This is the reason why the Queen and I are here at Bayonne.’

  Catherine could only reply: ‘I am a true Catholic. You must believe this.’

  ‘Your Majesty will have to prove it.’

  ‘That I will do. But … in my own way. I will not plunge my country into civil war. These things must be done slowly, cautiously, and over a long time. I have a notion that I might, on some pretext or other, gather in one spot all the most influential of the Huguenots, all their leaders and thousands of their followers.’

  ‘And then, Madame?’

  Catherine’s eyes shone. ‘Then, my lord Duke, I would suggest that the Catholics should deal with them, take them by surprise.’

  The Duke nodded. ‘His Catholic Majesty would need to see such evidence before he felt he could have complete confidence in your good faith.’

  Catherine went on talking as though she had not heard him. ‘It would be in Paris – for Paris is our most loyal city, Paris is Catholic. Yes, some pretext … I know not what as yet. For that we must wait. This must not have the air of being arranged; it must happen naturally … a sudden annihilation of the heretics by those of the true faith. All the important leaders would surely die – Condé, Coligny, Rochefoucauld … every one of them and all their followers, every single Huguenot in the city.’

  ‘I will carry your plans to his most Catholic Majesty.’

  She laid her fingers to her lips. ‘Never let it be mentioned in despatches. It is a matter for our ears alone and those of his Majesty. I do not know when it will be possible, but I give you my word that it shall be.
I must wait for the opportunity … the perfect moment. It may not be for years. His Majesty must trust me till then.’

  ‘If this scheme were put into effect,’ said Alva, ‘I doubt not that his Majesty would recognise you as a friend. He would never wish to make war on such a friend.’

  ‘He shall see,’ said Catherine. ‘All I ask is patience – patience and secrecy.’

  Alva was so satisfied with that conversation that he gave up the rest of the time to discussing the proposed marriages; and at last came the moment for the two parties to say farewell.

  Fondly the Queen Mother kissed her daughter. As for Charles, he was so affected by the parting that he burst into bitter tears. It seemed to him that it was indeed a terrible thing to be a princess of a royal house, to marry and to leave your home and country for a strange land, a strange people. He could not restrain his tears, even though he knew that the Spaniards, such sticklers for etiquette, must be very shocked at the sight of them. His mother and his ministers regarded him coldly.

  ‘But I cannot help it,’ said Charles. ‘I do not care if she is the Queen of Spain. First she was my sister. I remember how I used to love her, and I do not want to be parted from her.’

  Charles watched on the river bank while his sister, accompanied by her train, was carried away from him. He wept so bitterly that, afterwards, people said he must have had some premonition that he would never see her again.

  * * *

  Catherine was mistaken when she thought that the conversation in the gallery had not been heard by any but herself and Alva.

  Young Henry of Navarre had a guilty conscience. He had been separated from his mother for what seemed a long time, but he did not forget her teachings. He was being brought up with the little Princes and Princess of France. There were occasions when he saw his mother; he had seen her as they had journeyed down to Bayonne; he knew how she longed to take him back to Béarn with her and bring him up in their own religion. But this was forbidden; it was forbidden by King Charles, and that meant that it was forbidden by the Queen Mother. Henry was in awe of Catherine as everyone else was, and he kept out of her way as much as possible. She was not unkind to him; in fact, she had implied that she found his quick wits amusing. Sometimes he thought that she compared him with Charles and Hercule, and not unfavourably. ‘He is droll, that little Henry of Navarre,’ she would say. Or: ‘Would that his mother could see him now!’ Then she would laugh loudly in that rather terrifying way of hers, so that he knew that he had done something of which his mother would not approve, and he would be unhappy about it until he forgot.

  He was, he feared, not a very good little boy. He imitated the Princes; he swaggered about the court; he used oaths, and listened to, and repeated, coarse jests. He had learned a good deal of matters of which he knew his mother would rather he remained in ignorance; and he neglected to learn those things which she would have wished him to learn. Already he knew that there was something about him which made him very attractive to the opposite sex. Women liked to kiss and fondle him; and he was not averse to being kissed and fondled, for the truth was that he liked them every bit as much as they liked him. He longed to be fourteen, so that he could be a real man.

  When his mother had last seen him at Macon, on the journey down to the border, she had been more shocked than usual. He had overheard her express her fears to the Queen Mother, who had laughed aloud and said: ‘Oh come. Do you want him to be a prude? He is a Prince who will have to live among men and women. Let him grow up. Let him be a man … for it is my opinion that that is something neither you nor I will be able to prevent.’

  And his mother had said to him: ‘Henry, my son, try not to follow in the footsteps of these licentious people whom you see about you. That is not the right way to live. Try to remember always that you are a Huguenot.’

  He nodded, very anxious to please her, very sorry that he was as he was, liking so much those things which it was not good for him to like.

  ‘I am forced to go to mass with the Princes,’ he said.

  ‘I know, my son.’

  ‘It is much against my will, but I never forget what you have told me.’

  ‘They can send you to mass, my son, but they can never make you participate in it.’

  ‘They will not. I swear they will not.’

  That satisfied her in some measure, and he was determined to show her how he loved her and that he would remember all that she had taught him.

  He was an intelligent boy and very interested in everything that went on around him; and he knew there were times when his mother was in acute danger. He knew too that what happened to his mother affected him closely. The times were dangerous, and he was a boy who knew how to keep his ears open.

  The Pope had excommunicated his mother, and had wanted to declare Henry and his sister illegitimate on the grounds that his mother was never really married to his father because she had previously been married to the Duke of Clèves. There was yet another plot to kidnap his mother and take her before the Inquisition, to torture her into changing her faith, and then finally to burn her at the stake. This would have been brought about but for the plot’s reaching the ears of the Queen of Spain. Elisabeth, Catholic though she was, had been unable to bear the thought of such a near relative’s enduring such a fate, and she had warned Jeanne in time.

  Henry did want his mother to know that, although he was forced to attend mass and was becoming very like the Princes of France, he never forgot her and was true to the Reformed Faith.

  He had seen some of the methods of spying in palaces; and it was not very difficult for a little boy to secrete himself in the great gallery where he had discovered the Queen Mother was to confer with the Duke of Alva.

  He was excited by this adventure; imagining, all the time, what would happen to him if he were caught. With madly beating heart, he hid himself in a cupboard, covered himself with old clothes which he found there, and with his ear to the cupboard door, caught snatches of that momentous conversation between Catherine and Alva. As soon as possible, Henry escaped from the cupboard and went to one of his attendants, a man named de Calignon; and he told this man all that he had heard.

  De Calignon said that he was a wily little diplomat, and later that day showed him a letter in code which he was despatching at once to the Queen of Navarre.

  Henry was delighted. He felt that he could now swear and swagger, kiss and be kissed to his heart’s content. Surely a little wickedness might be forgiven such a wily diplomat?

  * * *

  Since she had become a widow, Jeanne had thrown herself wholeheartedly into the cause of the Huguenots. Energetic in the extreme, she needed some such great cause, that she might forget the bitterness of her married life. Now at least she was free from Antoine, free of those continual thoughts of him which had tormented her for so long. All her hopes now were in her children, and Henry, her heir, was the one who caused her great anxiety. He was a delightful boy, but he was his grandfather and her uncle, King Francis the First, all over again. That much was obvious; he was already showing signs of the sensuality which had characterised these men. Had she been able to look after him herself – which was her dearest wish – this would not have worried her unduly. His virile masculinity would have been guided into the right channels. But what could happen to such a child at the decadent Valois court? The cynical attitude of the Queen Mother disturbed her. Catherine would be amused by the boy’s frolics, delighted by them, and no doubt she encouraged them.

  Her sweet little daughter gave her no such anxieties. Catherine was pretty and clever, yet meek and docile, a lovely little girl of whom to be proud. Jeanne was proud of Henry, of course – proud and afraid on his account.

  Jeanne knew that ever since the death of Antoine her danger had been acute. Since there had been a temporary lull in the civil war, other methods had been used to attack her – more sly, more insidious than the sword.

  She had been excommunicated. Much she cared! For the Pope of Rome s
he had nothing but contempt. But when she remembered how nearly she had come to being captured by the Inquisition, she could not help shuddering. She was no coward, but she knew something of the terrible tortures inflicted by those men. Sometimes she dreamed that she was in their hands, that the cruel eyes of the torturers gleamed at her, that harsh hands, wielding red-hot pincers which would tear her flesh, were laid upon her; she dreamed she heard the crackle of faggots at her feet.

  There was danger all around her. She had been robbed of her beloved son; her kingdom and his was in perpetual danger. Indeed, had it been in the interest of France to support Spain, she would now have lost her territory; she would have been a prisoner in the dark dungeons of the Inquisition. Catherine, oddly enough, had been her friend in this; Catherine had defended her against Spain; but Jeanne did not for a moment forget that this was a matter of expediency for Catherine, as Catherine did not want to see Spaniards encroaching on more Navarre territory.

  Jeanne grew cold now, thinking of the plot to make her children illegitimate, to seize her person and carry her off to Spain. She was never free from the unpleasant attentions of Spain. She knew a little of the character of the tyrant of Madrid, who ruled such a large section of the world. He had once asked the hand of Jeanne in marriage, and the marriage had not taken place. For that slight to his most Catholic Majesty death was too good for Jeanne of Navarre. The same characteristic showed in his attitude to Elizabeth of England. He wished to see the utter destruction of Jeanne of Navarre and Elizabeth of England, for both had been offered the hand of the King of Spain, and neither had taken it.

  The plot had failed, but very narrowly. Its object had been to put her in one of the prisons of the Holy Office and her children into a Spanish fortress. When she and they were disposed of, the Spanish troops would seize Lower Navarre. There were many people in this plot apart from King Philip, and one of these was the licentious, crafty Cardinal of Lorraine. Jeanne believed fervently that God was with her, for a certain Dimanche, who had been taking messages to Spain, had fallen ill and in his delirium had disclosed the plot. This had come to the ears of Elisabeth of Spain, who, braving the wrath of her husband – as no one else would have dared to do – had warned Jeanne in time, so that she had been able to fortify her frontiers to such effect that the plot was defeated.