by Robert Merle
“Ah, My Lady!” I said with vehemence. “That’s the Jesuit I told you about, who, while he was alive, hatched more plots and designed more intrigues than any son of the shadows in this world. His body was perpetually on edge, his brain hazy; he was zealous, always in a hurry, bustling about, in turn gentle, imperious, insinuating; a compulsive liar, false as Janus, without a trace of humanity or morals; he had a cross around his neck and a sword in his hand, dispatching his neighbours with a clean conscience and always in the name of God.”
“Hush!” cautioned Lady T., taking me firmly by the arm and dragging me away. “You’re talking too much and too loudly. Someone may have heard you!”
And, indeed, five or six rowdy young workmen who were hanging about, pushing and shoving each other, now came towards us. One of them, a large, fat and brazen fellow, at least six feet tall, blocked our way and asked my Lady T. with utter insolence:
“Madam, is the man a foreigner? A Frenchman?”
“He is neither,” replied my companion, without blinking an eye. “He is Welsh and, alas, poor thing, a lunatic. He was talking to that traitor’s head and expected it to answer him!”
And taking my cue from her, I began rolling my eyes and made so many grimaces with my mouth and contortions with my body that the young workmen burst out laughing and accompanied us to our coach, making jokes about my “poor condition”. Lady T. later explained that some Englishmen find it diverting to visit the asylum at Bedlam of a Sunday and make fun of the inmates there…
Surrounded by her council, Elizabeth I received Monsieur de Bellièvre with great pomp and circumstance on 28th November, not at Whitehall, but at Richmond, another of her palaces, and very beautiful. As for me, I had eyes only for this great queen of the reformed Church of England, our ultimate recourse and last defence, without whom our Huguenot faith would be promptly and everywhere stamped out by Felipe II. As far as I could tell, given that she was seated on her throne, she wasn’t very tall, but she held herself very straight. She was superbly bedecked with jewels, wore a purple and gold dress, of which I’ve never seen the equal, unless it was the dress Queen Margot wore for her wedding to Henri de Navarre. She wore a ruff that was open in front to permit the view of a necklace on which the largest ruby I’d ever seen was surrounded by a set of pearls. Her earrings were studded with another set of enormous pearls. Yet another set decorated the headband that adorned her immense, luminous forehead, which was framed by two ringlets of Venetian-red hair. She had, I must say in all truth, a somewhat masculine jaw, a nose that was slightly too long and thin, prudent lips. Her eyes, on the other hand, were very beautiful and lively—eloquent, even—and full of mirth, looking constantly about her, yet never losing sight of the essential, which, on this occasion, was the behaviour and bearing of Monsieur de Bellièvre.
The Pompous Pomponne, who had been polishing and repolishing his little speech ever since we’d left Paris, certainly lived up to his sobriquet and spoke for a full hour, much happier with himself than the queen was with him, and infinitely more boring than a rainy day in London. Everything got thrown into the pot: Alexander the Great, Homer, Virgil, David and Saul, Caesar and Augustus—this last cited as the most beautiful and rare example of clemency in history. As the translator of the ambassador, I had to interpret as he pronounced, and was constantly trying to attenuate his language, especially when he evoked some veiled threats that the king of France was said to have made as to the consequences were his sister-in-law Mary Stuart to be condemned. I could tell that Elizabeth appreciated my softening of his speech, for her eyes shone with a particular luminosity when I did this, and I decided that Lady T. had been right when she claimed that Her Majesty spoke very good French, Italian and Latin in addition to her native tongue. I suspected that if she didn’t interrupt me to say that she understood Monsieur de Bellièvre quite well without my help, it was to allow her counsellors, some of whom must not have been as good linguists as she, to follow the thread of this voluminous verbiage.
When Pomponne de Bellièvre had finished, she replied in French with a thoroughness and a vehemence that left the ambassador speechless, since she spoke both as a queen and as a woman, and reduced him to silence both by her reasons and by her volubility.
“Monsieur de Bellièvre,” she said in a voice both sweet and strong, “I have a very clear sense of your speech, having heard it twice—once by you and a second time by your interpreter. I have understood it so well than I haven’t missed a single word. And I’m quite angry, Monsieur de Bellièvre, that a person of your character should have crossed the Channel to speak to me of an affair in which there is neither honour nor profit for anyone in attempting to change my will in this matter, because the thing is so clear and the cause so evident. Although Mary Stuart is of an inferior rank to me—since she is in my kingdom, not I in hers, from which she was exiled by her subjects after her murder of Darnley—I offered her my infinite friendship. But this did not deter her from her ill will towards me, so that I no longer feel secure in my lodgings, or in my own kingdom, but assailed and spied on from all sides. She has incited so many enemies against me that I no longer know which way to turn. I am no longer free, but a captive. I am her prisoner rather than she mine! If she were to triumph, it would be, as you know all too well, the end of me and of my people, whom I’ve sworn before the Lord God to protect. I would perjure myself, Monsieur de Bellièvre, if I granted you the pardon you’re asking of me—a pardon I would never ask of the king of France, my good brother and your master, in circumstances that would threaten his person or the safety of his state, as is the case for me and my kingdom in this affair. Indeed, on the contrary, I desire, pray for and wholeheartedly wish that my good brother the king of France be protected and preserved from all his enemies, as I am from mine, who am but a poor woman and have such trouble resisting the assaults and snares that threaten to overwhelm me.”
While the queen was speaking, my eyes wandered from Monsieur de Bellièvre and the gentlemen in his retinue whom I judged to be Guisards to the faces of the counsellors of Elizabeth, gleaning very different impressions from the French and the English. As for the first, despite the courtesy of the court, which had polished their faces somewhat, I found them troubled, bitter and uneasy, especially when Elizabeth spoke of the enemies of her good brother Henri—which could only mean Guise and the League. As for the second, they seemed both happy with the adamant firmness of their sovereign and very moved by a virile sense of protectiveness when she spoke of being “but a poor woman” assailed by snares on all sides—or, at least, all of them who spoke French, who were quietly translating her words for the others. As for me, I found the queen extremely dexterous at capturing the hearts of her subjects, deploying at the same time, in her effort to seduce them, the force of her resolution and the weakness of her sex.
Monsieur de Bellièvre, who, despite the pomp with which he strutted, knew very well the ways of the court, and was not so stupid that he didn’t understand the sense of what the queen had said. He clearly felt that that nothing was to be gained by insisting further and ended up delivering a long speech of thanks for her benignity in receiving him. The queen responded with a few amiable compliments (although she’d laid into him brutally during her speech) and gave him leave to depart. His counsellors, who weren’t so obliged to counterfeit their feelings, remained as stony-faced as the cliffs of Dover.
As we left Richmond, I asked my leave of Monsieur de Bellièvre, who granted it straightaway, while some members of his retinue betrayed knowing smiles as they watched me climb into the elegant coach of Lady T., who was waiting for me in front of the palace.
“Well, My Lady!” I cried, taking her hand, as soon as the curtains had been drawn around us, and covering it with kisses. “What an admirable queen! What a marvellous mind—a remarkable mixture of masculine and feminine! How perfectly she understands statecraft and how to govern her subjects! How I would love her and wholeheartedly devote my life to her service if I were English!�
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“Monsieur,” she countered with a delicious smile, “I beg you not to lick my hand so much: you go at it with such French fury that one would think you were going to swallow it whole!” (At this the chambermaid sitting opposite us burst out laughing so hard she nearly choked.) “Besides, this swallowing isn’t necessary since we’re not in public.”
And with her free hand she reached over and gave me a tap on my hand as a sign that this reproach was really a form of tenderness, one that expressed her affection mingled with her English sense of humour. As for me, sitting nestled by her side in this cosy coach, leaning against her beautifully rounded shoulder, I looked at her delightedly through the lens of our complicitous friendship and thought how much she might have loved me had we not each been constrained by our obligations to others. It occurred to me that, rather than resent a woman who refuses us, we should be grateful for her virtue (if that’s the reason she rejects our love), which makes her even dearer, since this is such a rare quality in these times and elevates our esteem for her sex.
“The queen,” observed Lady T. as we sat enjoying a light supper in her lodgings, “is as royal in her throne room as she is affable in private, and loves to give her ministers nicknames, calling Leicester her ‘Eyes’, Hatton her ‘Eyelids’ and Walsingham ‘the Moor’. The late brother of your king, the Duc d’Alençon, for whom she had special affection—though she never resolved to marry him because he was Catholic—she called ‘the Frog’, and his private ambassador, the charming Monsieur de Simier, ‘my Monkey’.”
“And why does she call Walsingham ‘the Moor’?”
“Because he has such dark skin and hair, you’d think he was born in Algiers. You’re going to find him quite terrifying when you make his acquaintance.”
Just then we heard noises in the antechamber, and the chambermaid showed in the “lady of the ring” who had woken me up from a deep sleep on the morning of the 22nd at the Pope’s Head Tavern.
“Monsieur,” she said, “it’s time.” (My heart started pounding so fiercely against my ribs, I thought she would hear it!) “Please put on this mask.”
When the mask was removed a few minutes later, I found myself in a throne room—not at Richmond, but in another palace whose name I never learnt. This particular room is called the “Presence Chamber”, a term that seemed particularly fitting since it draws attention not so much to the throne but to the presence of the sovereign, who, even when she’s absent, is still venerated there. This was demonstrated by the way the servants—who were setting the table for the queen, bringing in succession tablecloth, salt, plates, knife and wine—knelt three times before the throne as if Elizabeth were seated there as they entered or left the room. These ceremonies certainly lengthened the time of my interview, but what lengthened it even more was the function of the “lady taster”, who, when the plates arrived, was not there to taste each dish to prevent the poisoning of the queen, as one might have expected, but rather to distribute morsels of food for that same purpose to each of the servants there. The servants seemed to derive a sense of great honour from this custom, as perilous as it might be for them.
This precaution having been taken for each of the dishes, and no one having expired as a result, I expected that the queen would appear, but in her place there appeared a giant usher, carrying a gold-embossed baton, who preceded a swarm of pretty young chambermaids clad in colourful dresses, whose job was to remove everything from the table, including the tablecloth and the place settings; they swirled around in their ample hoop skirts and then disappeared through the door from which they’d just entered. I guessed that the queen had decided to take her supper in her private apartments, and so I prepared myself for an hour’s wait for her to finish her meal. But not ten minutes later, the gentle giant reappeared, announcing that Her Majesty had finished her meal and wished to see me. I supposed (a supposition that was confirmed later by Lady T.) that, unlike her father, Henry VIII, who was excessively fond of wine, meat and women, Elizabeth ate little and drank even less. As for men, although she had herself called the “Virgin Queen”, and was celebrated as such by her poets, it didn’t seem, from what I’d heard, that she practised as much abstinence in this regard as she would have wished her subjects and the wider world to believe.
Although ever since I’d arrived in London I’d daily rehearsed what I was going to say to the queen, my legs were shaking beneath me and my heart was beating like a drum as the usher brought me into her presence. She didn’t see me at first because she was occupied in reading a letter, observed very closely in this activity by a gentleman seated on her right, whom I recognized as Walsingham by the dark colour of his skin—rather than by his hair, of which only a few strands of white emerged from under his skullcap. This little cap clerically crowned his long, thin and austere face, which ended in a sad little pointed beard. His body seemed sickly, old, infirm and broken, though he was but fifty-six, but I found it very hard to tolerate the brilliance of his black eyes, which were sunk deep in their sockets. Behind him stood Mr Mundane, whom I assumed must be his assistant, and who was the only one to smile at me as I entered. As for Lady Markby (the “lady of the ring”), she was standing behind the queen, reading over her shoulder—but with the queen’s consent—and waiting for her to finish before turning the page.
“Well then,” said the queen at last, “that’s all very good, my Moor—you must dispatch this letter tomorrow.”
“May it please Your Majesty to sign it,” replied Walsingham, dipping a pen in ink and handing it to the queen.
“Alas, my Moor,” answered the queen petulantly, “I have a sore thumb and can’t hold the pen. I’ll sign it tomorrow.”
“If Your Majesty’s thumb is suffering from gout, then we must have it looked at,” counselled Walsingham.
“What?” cried Elizabeth, angrily leaping to her feet and beginning to pace back and forth in the room, casting indignant looks at Walsingham, Mundane and Lady Markby. “Who dares accuse our royal thumb of having gout! For the love of God! I’ve never suffered greater impertinence! This thumb,” she continued, brandishing it before her as if to accuse it of lese-majesty, “has committed the grave fault of being hard, swollen and painful. But by all the wounds of the Lord, I affirm that this thumb does not have gout! By God! It wouldn’t dare have gout!”
This said, she smiled suddenly, as if amused at her own declaration, and continued, half seriously, half in jest:
“Moreover, who said I was in pain? It doesn’t hurt in the least! And if I don’t sign this letter tonight, it’s because I don’t want to. Did you hear me, Moor?”
“Yes,” sighed Walsingham, while Mundane and Lady Markby, taking advantage of the fact that they were standing behind the throne, smiled at each other. As for me, I thought to myself that if the English were reputed on the continent to be of a lunatic disposition, it most assuredly comes from on high.
“It is possible,” continued the queen, “that some people at court are not in such good health, but I would ask everyone to remember, and to publish it abroad, that the prince of this kingdom is in adamantine health!”
“I shall not fail to do so, Your Majesty,” conceded Walsingham.
“And while you’re at it,” she added, with an affectionate look his way, “have it reported that her secretary of state is also at the peak of health.”
“As you wish, Your Majesty,” replied Walsingham with a sigh, followed by a dry cough, while a shadow passed over his eyes, as he was already suffering from an illness that he couldn’t cure: his passionate service to his queen, an immensely fatiguing undertaking, without respite or rest, which would literally cost him his life four short years later.
“But,” said the queen, suddenly catching sight of me, “who is this?”
At this, Lady Markby leant over and whispered a few words in her ear.
“Approach, Chevalier de Siorac,” said the queen.
Which I did, though my legs were trembling so badly when I knelt before her th
at I wasn’t sure I’d be able to regain my feet. After considering me quite curiously for a moment, the queen gave me her hand, which I kissed; after this, on a sudden impulse, she gave me her hand a second time—I placed my lips on it again—while with her other hand she patted my cheek several times and said:
“Monsieur, I like your eyes. They are warm and good.”
I can only say that I felt absolutely astonished and incredibly moved to see her so graciously condescend to me in this way, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that, had I not been a Frenchman and in my own king’s service, I believe I would have dedicated the rest of my life to her. Later, reliving this scene (which was similar to many others that Lady T. described to me in which Elizabeth, in a couple of well-chosen words, forever captured the goodwill and devotion of one or another of her subjects), I could appreciate the role of artifice and politics in these little cajoleries of Her Majesty. And yet, at the same instant, I discerned that, far from being false, the sentiment she had just expressed came directly from her heart, which only served her purpose better, since her very sincerity made her caresses even more irresistible.
Meanwhile, the queen had not failed to notice the effect she’d produced on me, being too much of a woman not to feel the heat of my affection; on the other hand, she was doubtless aware, from the dispatches Lord Stafford had sent, that I was bringing her a message from my king that was very different from that which Monsieur de Bellièvre had presented. But she also had to pretend, no doubt, not to be impatient to hear what I had to tell her, since her impatience would have betrayed some fears unworthy of her royal dignity, and so she allowed herself to indulge, for the present, in a kind of joyous, jocular playfulness.