‘I did not realize you cared so much,’ he joked.
‘There is nothing wrong with you except that you have exhausted yourself with too much love-making,’ she scolded. ‘I should have let you suffer.’ And they smiled at each other, once again in perfect accord.
They both knew that with no one to trust in this pernicious court, they must needs rely upon each other. Margot had no more wish than Navarre to be constantly at the King or Queen Mother’s mercy. The recent attack on Bussy, and Navarre’s sudden illness, served as a sharp lesson to them all.
The two princes quickly reconciled their differences and began to plan their escape in earnest. They were now both of the opinion that they faced as much danger in staying as they risked in attempting to break free of their imprisonment.
Tensions between the two royal brothers remained edgy and Henri was constantly threatening to put Alençon in the Bastille. Since Henri’s accession to the throne both he and Navarre had been allowed a little more freedom in that they could now join the hunt, or visit friends nearby, although every move they made was kept under close scrutiny by du Guast and his guards.
Alençon resolved to escape and join the Politiques. As always, he sought his sister’s help, and between them they devised a plan.
One afternoon Alençon decided to visit his latest mistress in the Rue Saint-Marceau, not de Sauves on this occasion. Muffled in the folds of his cloak, and with a hat pulled down to his nose, he slipped quietly out of a side door of the Louvre, sauntered past the guards without being apprehended, and walked to her house. Once safely inside, he thanked her with a hasty kiss before exiting by a back door where his men were waiting with horses. Alençon quickly mounted and rode out of Paris without a backward glance. Somewhere along the road he met up with Bussy and a mounted escort, and together they made their way to Meudon and finally Dreux, which was in the Duke’s apanage. He had found a safe haven at last.
Knowing that the arrangements she’d so painstakingly put in place had gone smoothly, Margot took care to keep out of the way of the King and the Queen Mother. She walked in the gardens, visited friends, even challenged Guise to a match with their cross bows as they had done in the old days, and said not a word to anyone. No one noticed Alençon was missing until past nine o’clock when her mother asked why her youngest son had not come in to supper.
‘Is he unwell?’
‘I know not,’ Margot blithely replied. ‘I haven’t seen him since early afternoon.’
The Queen Mother sent word to his room, enquiring after his health, and when the report came back that he was not in his apartments, utter mayhem broke out. The Duke of Alençon was missing from court. He had vanished. Where could he be? Catherine sent pages scurrying here, there and everywhere, shouting at them to search every nook and cranny of the Louvre. Henri ordered the courtiers to scour every corner of the gardens, nearby streets and squares, and houses of his brother’s friends, but no trace of him was found.
Yet again they sent for Margot and cross-examined her closely, firing a volley of questions at her.
‘When did you last see him?’
‘Early this afternoon, as I said.’
‘Did he say where he was going?’
‘No.’
‘Has he gone to join the Huguenots?
‘I know not.’
‘Did you help him to escape?’
‘How would I dare after all that has happened?’
Somehow Margot held her nerve and maintained a wide-eyed innocence throughout. Henri lost his temper completely, screamed and shouted, stormed back and forth, and finally summoned all the princes, lords and nobles of the court and barked orders at them. ‘I want my brother found and brought back here, dead or alive.’
No one moved.
‘Are you deaf? Did you not hear what I said? He means to make war against me.’
‘Sire, we would lay down our lives for you, but the Duke is a Prince of the Blood,’ said one brave soul. ‘None would wish to pursue a prince to his death. He is the heir apparent.’
‘He will be a dead one if ever I get my hands on his neck. I will teach him the folly of threatening a monarch as powerful as myself.’
But the ensuing silence told Henri that none would wish to be involved in so hazardous a business. Why would they risk attacking a royal personage, when Alençon or his retainers could as easily turn upon them once they came into power? Henri was furious. His brother was free. There was no way to bring him back, and God knows what mischief he would wreak against the crown now.
In the following few days Margot was in agony, constantly glancing over her shoulder, starting at shadows, fearful for her brother’s life, and her own. The Queen Mother sent out half a dozen of her most trusted agents to locate her recalcitrant son. ‘Offer him every assistance, and then arrest him. Bring him home in whatever state you find him.’
But they too failed.
Margot wept, terrified lest he be captured and put to the sword, or brought back to court and executed. Why had she been so reckless as to help him to escape? Would she live to regret getting involved in his schemes, if she lived at all? She loved intrigue, was always willing to face danger, but it was the waiting that unnerved her, the not knowing what was happening. And the King was in such a black temper, she feared what he might decide to do next.
She made a desperate bid for calm. ‘I dare say he will be at his estates. Go there yourself, Madame. I beg you don’t arrest him, but talk to him. Try to understand his motives.’
Catherine agreed to consider the suggestion.
As if she did not feel bad enough, Margot was then laid low with a bad cold, and after a week of misery the Queen Mother came to her bedchamber one morning to see how she was faring. Margot had hardly slept, her eyes were red raw and swollen with her cold and with tears. Now she trembled, as she always did when in the presence of her mother.
‘I come to inform you that a letter has arrived, in which the Duke writes that he has escaped for the sake of his liberty and because he has been in daily expectation of the ultimate resolution. The morceau Italianizé.’ Catherine laughed, as if highly amused by the notion of her youngest son being in mortal fear of his own mother. ‘What a coward that boy is. He says that on more than one occasion he has been made sick by drinking a certain wine, when we all know that he simply drinks too much. The danger is all in his head.’
Margot was unconvinced, but attempted to smile. ‘Will the King send his forgiveness?’
‘I am to set out within the next few days to find and meet with the young absconder as you suggest, and hope to knock some sense into that silly noddle of his. While I am gone, you, Madame, are to remain in your room, strictly confined until he is found.’
‘I – I don’t understand. He is innocent!’
‘If so, then why does he run?’
Margot could find no answer to this.
Catherine’s lips curved into a cold grimace that might pass for a smile. ‘Do not fear, I shall find him, but until I do you will remain as a hostage for him. You will regain your freedom only when he has relinquished his threats to the crown and the Catholic Church, and returned to the Louvre.’
Margot listened in dawning dismay. Her beloved younger brother may be free at last, but she was to be held captive in his place.
Catherine doggedly pursued Alençon until they at last met up towards the end of September near Chambord, where they spent a tearful day of reconciliation.
Word had reached her that young Condé was gathering men in Germany and heading for the French frontier to join forces with Damville. She dreaded the threat of invasion, which would be certain to strengthen the Huguenots still further. Their demands were already growing more audacious. It felt almost as if the Admiral and their leaders were not dead, as if they had 50,000 men still at their beck and call.
And Alençon, her own son, saw himself as King of the Low Countries, set to be her enemy in yet further warfare, and confident of victory.
She cared little that people were starving due to extortionate food prices, but France could not support another war, nor wanted one. Morale was low, and the populous less willing to pay for more bloodshed, or to obey a profligate King whom they treated with open contempt. Even their interest in religion was taking second place to the need to put food on the table. Yet even as Catherine negotiated with her youngest son and his fellow leaders for peace, she sent a message to the other to start preparing for war, just in case it became necessary. As ever, Catherine was in two minds on what was the best way to proceed.
Fighting did indeed break out again, and in one of the bitter battles on 11 October, during which the Duke of Guise won a fine victory at Dormans against the German Reiters, he was wounded in the face, which resulted in a scar very like that suffered by his father. He was now given the same nickname of Le Balafré.
On 31 October, on All Hallows’ Eve, du Guast was found murdered in his bed, killed by a musket shot while recuperating from a venereal disease. There was much speculation over the perpetrator of this deed, some laying the blame upon Alençon, while others whispered that the Queen of Navarre herself was involved.
Margot, innocent of the charge, nonetheless received the news with joy. She was ill in bed herself at the time, and regretted only that she was not fit enough to dance on his grave.
Catherine returned to Paris in January 1576 to meet with a storm of distrust and anger from the King. Henri was gravely dissatisfied with what she had achieved, believing she had made too many concessions, and mother and son had yet another of their disagreements, which were becoming distressingly frequent.
Nerves were just beginning to steady and tempers cool when one day a rumour spread like wild fire around court that the King of Navarre had not been seen for more than twenty-four hours. Henry had come to be on friendly terms with the King, obediently taking Mass and doing all that was expected of a good Catholic, and they had foolishly thought he could be trusted. Now he too had gone.
Catherine flew into a rage and blamed the King, while Henri indignantly shouted that it was no failure on his part. The next day, while they were at worship at Sainte-Chapelle, Navarre suddenly appeared before them, booted and spurred, and grinning from ear to ear.
Catherine almost gaped at him. ‘Son, we thought you gone.’
Navarre kissed her on each cheek, trying not to turn up his nose at the stale odour of white lead that she used to keep her face pale. ‘I was out hunting, as I believe I am now permitted to do. I suppose it would have been easy to run away, had I so wished, but the thought never entered my head.’
‘I dare say it would not,’ she agreed quite equably, thinking him a great fool.
‘Besides, I heard you were fretting for me, so here I am, at your service.’
‘A pretty little scene,’ Margot murmured as he moved away. ‘I might almost believe you myself, did I not know you to have more wit than you let on. You are not quite the idiot you pretend.’
‘Nor quite so relaxed in my southern ways as people imagine,’ he agreed. ‘Did I not play the fool well?’
‘Indeed, very well, and with a light heart.’
‘Yet the game is deadly serious.’ He was not laughing now.
‘Were they taken in? That is the question.’
He smiled lazily at her. ‘We shall see, my dear. We shall see.’
When, a day or two later, on 3 February, Navarre did indeed go missing, nobody paid the slightest attention. He rode out to hunt in the forests beyond Paris with Guise, stopping at the great Fair of Saint-Germain on the way, where the pair of them strolled, arms about each other’s shoulders in brotherly fashion.
‘Now we’ll go on to Senlis,’ Navarre urged. ‘Come, we’ll have good sport.’
Guise agreed, but once in the forest it was easy to give him the slip and for Navarre to ride ahead and take a different path with his men. Once out of sight of Guise and the guards, he dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and rode hard, not stopping until they had crossed the Loire.
Here he reined in his tired horse, lifted his eyes to the heavens and cried, ‘Thanks be to God for my deliverance. They were the death of my mother at Paris; they murdered the Admiral and all my noblest servants. And they would not have done much better by me if God had not preserved me. I would not return there if they dragged me.’
But at this poignant moment, when he was at last a free man, Henry of Navarre added in his usual jocular fashion, ‘I only regret Paris for the sake of two things I left behind. The one is the Mass, the other is my wife. As for the first, I must try to do without it. But as for the latter, I cannot do without her, and would wish to see her again.’
‘He has gone without saying goodbye,’ Margot mourned to Madame de Curton. ‘Did he say farewell to his mistress?’
‘I know not, my lady.’
‘I did not even hear him go, but then we occupy separate beds, although in the same room.’
Margot was deeply thankful that he was safe, yet oddly sorrowful at his departure. With both brother and husband now gone, she was quite alone.
The next day the King strode into Margot’s privy chamber in a rage such as she’d never seen in him before. She’d grown used to Charles’s tantrums, but lazy, indolent Henri could rarely summon the energy to disagree with anyone, let alone lose his temper. The King spent hours each day lying on a divan, lazily drinking sherbets, since he never touched wine, fondling or teasing his lap dogs into a frantic excitement. Lately, though, his behaviour had been growing ever more erratic, and now he was beside himself with rage, shouting and abusing her, calling her all manner of names.
He was quite convinced that she had played a major part in the Princes’ disappearance. ‘My own sister has betrayed me!’ he roared. ‘It would give me great pleasure to kill you here and now.’
Margot cowered before him, shaking with terror, expecting the blow to fall at any moment. It might well have done so had not the Queen Mother intervened. Catherine had always balked at murdering the nobility, and certainly stopped short of disposing of her own family. Now she urged her son to be calm.
‘Let us take a moment to consider, my son. You might well have occasion for your sister’s services at some time in the future. Just as it is prudent not to put too much confidence in friends, lest they should one day become our enemies, so it is equally advisable to conduct ourselves in like manner towards our enemies, if we hope they may one day become our friends. It will be punishment enough to lock the girl in her room. Post guards at the doors of her apartments by all means. Hold her hostage, as she deserves.’
Margot attempted a protest at this indignity. ‘I have not spoken with my husband. He did not visit me when I was recently indisposed, nor did he even take leave of me when he left court.’
‘That is nothing,’ Catherine scoffed. ‘It is merely a trifling difference between man and wife which a few sweet words conveyed in a letter would set to rights. Once he has regained your affections, he has only to write and beg you to come to him, and you would set off at the first opportunity. This is what the King my son wishes to prevent.’
Henri grudgingly allowed himself to be soothed and calmed, and to accept these less radical measures. But his anger simmered on beneath the surface as he glared at Margot, his long Italian eyes hard and unforgiving.
By way of retaliation he ordered the murder of her former lady-in-waiting Madame de Thorigny, whom he had earlier dismissed from her household for an alleged unseemly relationship with her mistress. He sent a party of men to kidnap the poor woman. They took her from her house, bound her arms and legs, and carried her to the Seine where they were about to throw her in the surging river when a troop of soldiers came upon them and rescued her. She would live to tell the tale, but it was a salutary warning to Margot, filling her with fresh fear.
‘The King will not be satisfied till he has my head on the block,’ she sobbed to Madame de Curton. ‘I am done for. There will be no peace for me here. They will hold me as
hostage until I can follow my husband to freedom.’
Life for Margot fell to a new low, far worse than the years of incarceration she’d endured when they’d all three been held in the Louvre following the St Bartholomew’s Eve massacre. She was confined to her own apartment with guards posted at the door to prevent her from leaving, and apart from the ever faithful Madame de Curton, rarely saw a single person. Not the Queen Mother, nor even Queen Louise, who found the feuding and intrigues at court very trying and had little sympathy for her sister-in-law. Margot did not have the same rapport with Henri’s Queen as she had enjoyed with Charles’s, Elisabeth of Austria, who was now back home at her father’s court. Nor did many friends dare come near, in case they too might be accused of being complicit in the Princes’ escape.
‘It is ever thus, Lottie. When one is successful and admired in court, everyone wishes to be your friend. Adversity is solitary, while prosperity dwells in a crowd.’
Margot filled the long lonely days with reading the classics, writing letters, and applying herself to her religious devotions.
‘You make me proud,’ said her old governess. ‘You are showing great fortitude, turning these days of persecution into an opportunity for further study.’
Margot smiled. ‘I trust my love of literature and philosophy will save my sanity. Science conducts us, step by step, through the whole range of creation, until we arrive, at length, at God. Misfortune prompts us to summon our utmost strength to oppose grief and recover tranquillity.’
She was also engaged in secret correspondence with her husband. How Madame managed to spirit these letters in and out of the palace, she did not know and dare not ask, yet her loyal companion somehow achieved this seemingly impossible task without their being discovered.
Navarre wrote first, begging Margot to forget their differences, and be assured that he did wish to love her and have her as his true wife, as soon as she was able to come to him. His kind words brought tears to her eyes and, ever generous, her feelings towards him softened and Margot forgave him his indiscretions. If no one else cared for her, not the King her brother, nor even her own mother, at least she still had a husband who would welcome her back into his arms.
The Hostage Queen Page 27