‘My son,’ she said, knowing full well that comments on his health could irritate him when he was in certain moods, ‘you tire yourself.’
He turned angry eyes upon her. ‘Madame, I am the best judge of that.’
He was at the beginning of one of his violent moods. She, who knew him so well, could see it encroaching on his sanity. In a short while that whip of his would descend on his horse, on his dogs and on his huntsmen as they happened to come within his range. She saw the foam on his mouth and heard the familiar hysteria in his voice.
‘What is the matter with you all?’ he shouted. ‘My horse slackens speed. My dogs seem asleep, and my men are a lazy good-for-nothing lot. By God!’ Down came the whip on his horse’s flank.
Catherine watched, smiling a little. That is well, she thought. Beat the creature to madness. May it bolt and throw you, and let that be an end to your madness and you, for I am heartily sick of you, and it is time Henry was King.
He caught her eyes fixed on him, and fearing that he might have read her thoughts she said quickly: ‘Hé, my son. Why do you get so angry with your dogs and horses and these poor men whose delight it is to serve you, while you are over-meek with your enemies?’
‘Over-meek!’ he cried.
‘Why are you not angry with those wretches in La Rochelle who are causing death and suffering to so many in your army?’
The King’s brow puckered. He said: ‘Wars . . . wars . . . It is all wars. It is all bloodshed in this land.’ He glared at Catherine and began to shout. ‘And who is the cause of it all? Tell me that.’ He shouted to his men: ‘Tell me! Who is the cause of this, eh? You . . . you tell me. Who is the cause of all the misery of this land? Answer me. Have you no tongues? We will see . . . we will see . . . and if you have, we will have them out, since they appear to be no use to you.’ He lifted his whip and slashed his dogs. ‘Who is the cause of all our misery, eh?’ Then he turned his fierce, mad eyes again on his mother. ‘We know!’ he cried. ‘All know. My God! It is you . . . you, Madame . . . you are our evil genius. You are the cause of it all.’
Then, digging his spurs into his horse, he turned and galloped madly away from them—back the way they had come.
The huntsmen looked at Catherine in dismay, but she was calm and smiling.
‘His Majesty is out of humour today,’ she said. ‘Come, let us ride on. We have come to hunt, so let us hunt.’
And as she rode on she was thinking: this is rebellion. He flouts me . . . even before his lowest servants. It cannot be allowed to continue. I will not be treated thus. Assuredly, my son Charles, you have lived too long!
And when she returned to the palace it was to find that ambassadors from Poland had arrived.
* * *
Anjou was sulky. He could not bear the thought of being sent away to Poland. How could such as he was endure life in the barbarous country which Poland must be? Since he had tired of Renée de Châteauneuf, he had formed an attachment with the Princess of Condé, young Condé’s wife. He could not, he now declared, endure the thought of parting from her.
The situation was alarming, for the King had made it clear that he intended Anjou to accept the Polish throne. Their mother would do all in her power to frustrate the King, but Anjou was fully aware that Catherine’s influence with Charles was waning fast. Charles looked upon Anjou as his enemy, and wished to exile him as soon as possible; moreover, it was said that the King would not be greatly disturbed if the Queen Mother decided to accompany her favourite son to Poland.
Catherine went to Anjou, who was fuming in his apartments, surrounded by three of his young men. The three young men were in tears at the prospect of losing their benefactor or, failing that, accompanying him far from the civilized land of France to the barbarous one of Poland.
‘The King is obstinate,’ said Catherine. ‘He declares you must go. It is no use bewailing. We must think of something that we can do.’ Her eyes alighted on her son’s table with its bottles of perfume and pots of cosmetics. She looked at the sprawling yet completely elegant figure, and she thought: what will those barbarians think of his elegance, of his young men, and his preoccupation with his own beauty?
Then she laughed suddenly. ‘Why, my son,’ she said, ‘you will appear to these men of Poland as strange, unlike themselves. I think they will not wish you to show yourself to your Polish subjects. They will wish you to send a lieutenant to rule for you—someone coarse, crude, more like themselves. I have it. We will make you even more elegant than usual—if that be possible. Let us paint your face more vividly; let us perfume your body; let us curl your hair We will show them that you could not live among them. Then I will bring forth one of our big rough men and show him to them . . . a man such as these savages would understand.’
Anjou smiled. ‘My dearest mother, what should I do without you?’
They embraced warmly and Catherine was momentarily happy.
He wore his jacket open at the throat and a string of pearls about his neck. He loaded his ears with pearls; his hair was curled in a most elegant fashion; his face more vividly painted than usual.
The young men clapped their hands and declared that he had but enhanced his beauty.
Catherine chuckled. ‘I shall enjoy seeing their faces when they set eyes on you.’
When Anjou was presented to the Polish ambassadors, they stared in astonishment, for the moment completely forgetting the etiquette of greeting their new King.
Anjou smiled sardonically while the King looked on with anger; some of the courtiers could not restrain a titter. Never before had Anjou looked so completely unlike a King, and never, said some, more like a female courtesan.
But now the Poles had recovered from their astonishment and were bowing low over the scented hand. It was obvious that they had never before seen anyone like their new King, and yet, instead of being disgusted by his appearance, they were delighted with it. They could not take their eyes from him; they laughed with pleasure every time he spoke to them. They whispered together that never, in the whole of their lives, had they seen such a glorious creature.
Catherine watched in dismay.
‘A King in very truth,’ said one of the Poles in his odd French.
‘Our people will never let such a man go, Madame,’ said another to Catherine. ‘They have never seen any like him. They will love this King.’
And they continued to gaze at him with delight, certain that such a wonderful creature must receive the admiration of all who beheld him.
* * *
Anjou was distrait; Catherine was furious; but Charles was adamant. Here was a Heaven-sent opportunity to rid himself of the brother whom he hated; and no pleading, no threats from Catherine, no sarcasm from Anjou, would make any difference to the King’s decision. Anjou was to go to Poland.
Anjou declared that if he were parted from the Princess of Condé his heart would be broken. His natural wit seemed to have deserted him; he could do nothing but bemoan his cruel fate.
Catherine made her preparations calmly enough, successfully hiding her fury from all but her intimates.
When the royal party set out to accompany Anjou to the border, the King declared his intention of going with it. He wanted, he said to his friends, to have the great joy of seeing Anjou leave the soil of France.
Marie Touchet begged the King to take care; Madeleine joined in her entreaties.
‘What do you fear?’ asked Charles. ‘Anjou knows he must obey his King, and do not doubt that he will.’
Neither Marie nor Madeleine dared say that it was not Anjou whom they feared.
Catherine rode beside Anjou, who noticed that she seemed to be unconcerned at the prospect of their parting. He was inclined to be petulant. ‘I cannot understand you,’ he said. ‘You seem to contemplate my departure with the same pleasure as does my brother who hates me.’
Catherine shook her head and said in a low voice: ‘To contemplate parting with you, as you must know, could bring me nothing but grief.�
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‘Madame, you have a strange way of expressing your grief.’
‘Oh my darling, have you not yet learned that I am an adept at masking my feelings?’
‘I feel that this departure of mine seems to you like one of the court comedies which you so much enjoy.’ He turned to smile at her. ‘No doubt your joy seems so sincere because it is real joy. Dear mother, you are an adept at providing the drama or the comedy as well as wearing the mask.’
‘Ah, I knew your ready wit would tell you something of this.’ She leaned towards him. ‘You may go to Poland, my darling, and . . . on the other hand . . . you may not.’
‘What? Can plans be changed at this late hour?’
‘Surely you can imagine circumstances in which they might be.’
He caught his breath, and there was silence between them for a few seconds. Then Catherine continued: ‘If you did, by some ill-chance, reach that barbarous land, you may be sure that your stay in it would be a short one.’
Madeleine overheard those words and trembled. Madeleine was surprised to find what a good spy she had become. It was, she guessed, because the good God endowed mothers with some special sense when their little ones were in danger; and she had always looked upon herself as mother to the King.
Now she began to watch what was brought for the King to eat or drink; but it was not possible for her to taste everything that he took. How could she, his nurse, take her place at the banqueting table in the various castles at which they stayed? She became so anxious that at last she decided to speak to him of her fears.
She asked that she might be quite alone with him and indulgently he granted that permission.
‘Sire,’ she said, ‘you know that I love you.’
He kissed her hand tenderly. ‘I have no doubt of that, dear Madelon.’
‘Then you will listen with attention to what I have to say. I believe there are some in this company who are trying to shorten your life.’
He was startled. The fear of death was stronger than it had ever been. ‘What have you discovered?’ he asked.
‘I cannot say that I have actually discovered a plot. It is some sense . . . that warns me. I am as a mother to you, Chariot, and I sense that you are in danger.’
‘You think that someone is trying to poison me, Madelon?’
‘I am sure of it. I am not always with you to supervise what you eat and drink, and this gives me great cause for anxiety. It occurs to me that it would be an easier matter to kill you on a journey like this than at home, at court, where you are surrounded by friends and doctors.’
‘Madelon, speak frankly to me.’
‘There are some who are grieved that Monsieur d’Anjou is leaving us, and moreover do not intend that he should. There are some who would like to see him in your place, and those would be pleased if you were no longer with us.’
Charles flung himself into his nurse’s arms. ‘Oh, God,’ he cried, ‘I am afraid of her. I know you speak truth, dearest Nurse. I would that you were my mother in truth. What can I do? Oh, Madelon . . .’ He looked furtively round him. ‘Monsieur de Coligny was my friend. He said she was my evil genius. He warned me, as you do now. Would I had taken his advice. Then I should not have been led to that wicked slaughtering of innocents . . . that bloodshed. I cannot escape from it, Madelon. It pursues me . . . continually.’
‘You must banish it from your mind, my darling. It was no fault of yours. But let us think of this danger which now lies before us.’
‘Madelon, what can I do? If it is decided that there shall be a morceau ltalianizé for me, then so it will be, I fear. Those who are marked down never escape.’
‘It shall not be,’ said Madelon. ‘You are the King. That is a fact which you often forget, my little one. Let us, with those whom we trust, ride back to Paris. You must announce our intentions to leave at once. The Queen Mother, her women and her friends, will go on with Monsieur le Duc to Lorraine. And we will ride back, safe and happy. Do that, my Charlot, to please your old Madelon, who loves you as her own son, and whose heart would break if aught ill should happen to you.’
‘Oh, Madelon,’ he sobbed, ‘how good it is to have true friends. I am not alone, am I? There are some who love me. There is blood on my hands, and some say that I am mad, but I have good friends, have I not?’
‘You will always have Madelon to love and watch over you,’ said his nurse.
* * *
Catherine bade farewell to her beloved son.
‘My darling,’ she said, ‘you must go, but believe me when I tell you it shall not be for long. You should not have gone at all if I had had my will.’
Anjou had to be content with that. He guessed that the King’s sudden decision not to accompany the party farther than Vitry-sur-Marne, and his immediate return to Paris with a few friends, meant that one of the latter had discovered his mother’s plans. This brought home to him afresh the fact that his mother was not all-powerful. People had become more suspicious of her than ever.
He wept dramatically and declared himself to be the most unhappy man in the world.
‘I must leave the Princess whom I love; I must leave my mother, who is my good friend; I must leave my home and my family. Oh, what a sad fate it is to be a King!’
He had desired above all things to be a King, but a King of France, not of Poland. However, he could not but enjoy the role of exile; he played it delicately and with tears which were not allowed to spoil his complexion or redden the lids of his long dark eyes.
But when he had left the French border and was travelling through Flanders—which he was forced to do in order to reach Poland—he began to realize that a really uncomfortable stage of his journey had begun. He entered a small town with his entourage and, expecting to be admired as he had been during the first stages of his journey, he prepared himself to smile graciously on the assembled townsfolk who must, his gentlemen assured him, be as enchanted by the sight of him as those of his Polish subjects who had already seen him had undoubtedly been.
To his horror, he found that numbers of those people in the streets were not foreigners; they were French—men and women who had recently fled from France to escape the Catholic persecution in which he himself had played so prominent a part.
They shouted after him as he rode by: ‘Ah, there he goes, the fop! The dandy! But not too foppish, not too much the dandy to stain his hands with the blood of martyrs. Where were you, Monsieur, on the night of August the 23rd . . . the 24th the 25th? . . . Answer. Answer.’
He look at those people and shuddered. They threw mud and dung at him, and he was horrified to see and smell it on his beautiful clothes. There was nothing he and his followers could do but dig their spurs into their horses’ flanks and ride away to the ironical laughter of the French refugees.
It was a most uncomfortable journey. Anjou dreaded entering the towns; he hated the discomfort of such travel. He longed for his charming mistress; he longed for the luxurious comfort of Paris.
‘And whither are we bound?’ he complained. ‘Only for some foreign land. How can such as. I exist among savages! My mother promised that I should not be away from home for long, but how can she prevent it? My brother ignores her now. How discourteously he left us to continue our journey! She no longer has any power over him. He is jealous of me . . . so he banishes me. It may be . . . for ever!’
But there were worse shocks awaiting the unhappy Anjou. The Elector Palatine received him courteously; he could do nothing else, since he was not now at war with France; but Anjou, remembering his reception by the French refugees and some of the natives of this Protestant land, had one wish, and that was to reach Poland as soon as possible.
‘You honour us indeed,’ said the Elector; but he did not act as though this were an honour he greatly appreciated. He and his fellow countrymen in their simple dress managed to make Anjou feel ill at ease and ridiculous as he never did at home; and while these people entertained him with all the honour due to him, they made him real
ize that they did not forget the St Bartholomew for one moment and blamed him as one of those responsible for the massacre.
The Elector himself, when the banquet in Anjou’s honour was over, conducted the Duke to his chamber. It was dimly lighted and it was only when Anjou was alone—but for a few attendants—that he noticed the murals. Taking a candle to study them more closely, he uttered a scream of horror, and almost dropped his candle. He was looking at a picture of a Paris square, and in that square were bodies piled one on top of the other. There was a headless corpse in the forefront of the picture; and looking on, smiles on their faces—which must have been the most diabolical ever depicted—were men and women, all of whom wore hats with white crosses on them.
Anjou shuddered and turned away, but his eyes were immediately held by another picture. Here was Paris again, showing horrors more terrible than the first. From this he went to a picture of Lyons and then to another, on the same subject, of Rouen.
All four walls of the apartment were painted with pictures of the massacre of the St Bartholomew and, so lifelike were they, so realistic, that Anjou could not avoid the feeling that he stood in those streets depicted there, and that the horrors were still going on.
He turned to his young men, but they were as shocked as he was and could offer no comfort.
‘What do they intend to do to us?’ whispered one of them.
‘They are attempting to unnerve us!’ cried Anjou. ‘To let us know that they remember. As long as that is all, no harm can come to us.’
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