‘Madame,’ he said, with a low bow, ‘I present to you one Whom you have so missed, and for whose sake you have been distressing yourself.’
Catherine laughed with relief. ‘Oh, we were not unduly concerned, my son,’ she said. ‘We were well aware that you could take care of yourself.’
The King frowned at his brother-in-law, but he was too relieved to feel angry. Catherine thought: off on some romantic adventure, I suppose. We were foolish to worry about Navarre. He is too lazy to be over-concerned with matters of state. He likes the life here at the court among the ladies even though he is restricted. It might be that his disappearance was just to tease. That would be typical of him. He is a joker, nothing more.
Two days later Navarre suggested to Guise that they make up a party and hunt the stag in the forest of Bondy, close to Paris. They could, pointed out Navarre, visit the fair of Saint-Germain that morning and enjoy themselves there before going off to the hunt.
No one was perturbed at this suggestion. Navarre would be surrounded by Guise’s men in addition to the two members of the King’s Guard whose duty it was to accompany him everywhere he went.
Catherine watched them set off—Navarre and Guise riding together.
‘I would,’ Navarre was saying to Guise, ‘that you might ride incognito, for I declare this adoration which the people of Paris have for you, can be embarrassing.’
‘The scars of battle amuse them,’ said Guise.
‘Le Balafré Fils!’ cried Navarre. ‘Vive le Balafré! The people have changed their cry. Once I heard nothing in Paris but that other one—Jezebel. And now it is always Le Balafré. These people must either abhor or adore. They never do things by halves, these ladies and gentlemen of Paris.’
‘The hero of today is the enemy of tomorrow,’ said Guise lightly. ‘It does not do to attach too much importance to the cries of the mob.’
‘Ah, but the Paris mob has always been faithful to you. I have heard it said that you are the King of Paris. That is a fine title. “The King of Paris!” It suits you, Monsieur.’
Guise was not displeased. He was human enough to enjoy flattery, and, moreover, he was beginning to wonder if this show of friendship meant that Navarre was considering throwing in his lot with him. Guise had not a very high opinion of Navarre’s stability, but friendship was always welcome when a man was as full of projects as was the Duke of Guise.
They went through the fair arm in arm.
‘See!’ cried Navarre. ‘The people even love me this morning! It is because they see that their hero is my friend, and any friend of Monsieur de Guise is a friend of theirs. I like my new popularity.’
He bowed; he smiled; he ogled the women; and he enjoyed himself thoroughly in his light-hearted way.
He had so successfully allayed Guise’s suspicions that it was not until he had lured the Duke away from the fair that the latter realized that he had left his followers behind in the bustling crowd, while a dozen or so of Navarre’s Bearnais surrounded him and the two guards.
‘You will now come and hunt with me in the forest, Monsieur de Guise?’ asked Navarre.
Guise hesitated.
‘Oh come,’ continued Navarre. ‘Do not let us wait for those men of yours. The day will be done before we make a start if we do.’ He turned to his followers and said with a laugh which contained a hint of mockery: ‘Gentlemen, shall we take my dear friend, Monsieur de Guise, by force, if he will not come of his own accord?’
Guise looked down at the mocking face and wondered what lay behind Navarre’s banter. He realized it would be folly to ride off into the forest with Navarre and his men, with only the two King’s guards on whom he could rely in an emergency.
‘I will assemble my men,’ said Guise warily; ‘and we will set off for the hunt as soon as possible.’
‘In the meantime,’ said Navarre, ‘we will go on. Do not leave it too long before you join us.’ He thereupon galloped off, fol- lowed by his men and the two guards, leaving the discomfited Duke looking after them.
Guise shrugged his shoulders. It was not his responsibility, but that of the King’s guards, Monsieur de Martin and Lieutenant Spalungue, to look after Navarre.
Meanwhile Navarre himself was feeling delighted by the way he had managed to elude Guise and his men. He glanced at the two guards. Very charming gentlemen, he thought, but the Queen Mother would not be very happy if she knew I should built today without Monsieur de Guise and his attendants.
As the hunt began his thoughts were more on those two guards than the stag; as for his men, they watched him with alert eyes, waiting for the signal which would mean they were to throw off the guards and escape with their master.
One of the men came close to him as they pounded through the forest.
‘We could rid ourselves of these two at once, sir.’
‘Nay,’ said Navarre. ‘Do not harm them, for they are a charming pair and I have grown fond of them while I have been under their care. Let us forget the strength of our arms and allow our nimble wits to have full play.’
It was February, and Navarre knew that it would soon be dark; the sky was already overcast, and the bitterly cold night was almost upon them. They had started late and the time was fast slipping by. The guards did not seem to notice this; they took great pleasure in the hunt, and Navarre had lulled their suspicions by his exploit of a few days ago. It did not require, as Navarre had guessed, a great deal of cunning to allow them to go full speed ahead after the stag, to keep well behind and then gallop off in the opposite direction.
When Navarre and his followers reached the edge of the forest they did not stop to congratulate themselves on the first stage of their escape; they rode all night and by daybreak reached Poissy, where they crossed the Seine and continued towards the Loire.
Only when he felt himself to be too far from Paris for pursuit did Navarre pull up.
He burst into loud laughter in which his followers joined.
‘Free at last!’ he roared, ‘My friends, it is well that we have left Paris behind us. My mother died there; the Admiral de Coligny died there; quite a number of our best servants died there too. I doubt that they had any desire to treat me any better. I will not return to Paris unless I am dragged there. There are two things which I have left behind me—the Mass and my wife.’ He grimaced. ‘I will try to do without the first. As for the second, I’ll not have her back again.’
He laughed again for the joy of being free from Paris—free from the Mass and his wife.
‘These which I have lost,’ he said, ‘I must do without. And, my friends, strictly between ourselves, I think I should receive your congratulations for these losses, rather than your condolences.’
* * *
Margot was kept in her own apartments; there were guards outside her door. She knew that the King wished to do her harm and that it was probably due to her mother that she was allowed to live. Although she suffered acute anxiety through her troublesome children, Catherine yet wished to preserve them; there were only three of them left and only through them could she retain her power. Margot was fully conscious of this. ‘I owe my life to my usefulness to my mother,’ she said to her friends. ‘There is no need for you to fear that I shall be given the morceau Itatianizé.’
Margot was more angry with her husband than with anyone else; he had not told her of his plan to escape. It was through her ingenuity that Alençon had got away; they had planned that together; so she was piqued that Navarre had gone off without a word. But then, she asked herself, what could one expect from such a boor?
She was spending her time between reading and writing. Every incident she could remember she wrote in her memoirs—a little highly coloured, a little flattering to Margot. But what a pleasure she found in her writing!
‘I do not regret my illness,’ she said. ‘I do not regret my captivity, for I have found that in life which I shall never lose. While I can read and write I can regret nothing that sends me to these two occupations.’
In the streets they were singing a new song. It Went ‘something like this:
‘The virtue, greatness, wisdom from on high,
Of yonder Duke, triumphant far and near,
Do make bad men to shrink with coward fear,
And God’s own Catholic Church to fructify.
In armour clad, like maddened Mars he moves;
The trembling Huguenot cowers at his glance;
A prop for Holy Church is his good lance;
His eye is ever mild to those he loves . . .’
The Duke was on the alert; he was carefully nourishing his immense popularity. Great schemes were in the mind of the hero of Paris. He was now at the head of the Catholic League, that great federation, which contained in its ranks many members of the nobility and of the Jesuit brotherhood, whose object was to protect the Catholic faith against all who assailed it. The King, it was said, was a fop and a fool; the Queen Mother could not be trusted to work for the Catholics; therefore there must be a League—a Catholic League to protect Catholics all over France. But the League did not concern itself only with maintaining the Catholic faith; of late years there had been much unjust taxation, and the League declared its desire to regain for the people those rights which had been lost. The League looked to the most powerful country in Europe for support, and its members had no doubt that the gloomy Philip would give it aid if the need arose.
Margot knew that the King had not yet learned to fear the League; he was too concerned with his banquets, his lap-dogs and his darlings. But what of Catherine? Could it be that she did not understand, as fully as Margot did, the man who had placed himself at the head of the League? He was a Guise and therefore ambitious; but did Catherine realize how far his ambitions would carry him?
Margot thought not. Clever as her mother was, she believed so firmly in the divine right of Kings—and Queens—that it would not immediately occur to her that any, so far from the direct line of succession, would aspire to the throne. Catherine would not let herself think that Henry might die; and after Henry, there was still Alençon. But Alençon had already allied himself to the Huguenots; and after Alençon there was that other Huguenot, Navarre. One of the objects of the League, which so far had not intruded on state affairs to any great degree, was, Margot was sure, to prevent any possibility of a Huguenot King s mounting the throne.
Continually Margot thought of Guise; but she scarcely mentioned him in her memoirs, for she had no intention of recording in writing her deep preoccupation with the man. When she did mention him it was casually. ‘Monsieur de Mayenne has grown very fat; as for Monsieur de Guise he is the father of many children, for he has a very fertile wife. His face is scarred and there is much grey in his hair. He has aged quickly.’
She was glad when a letter was smuggled to her and she found it to be from her husband. She smiled cynically as she read it. He did not pretend that it was out of love for her that he wrote. Remembering that they were supposed to be allies and that she was a clever spy, it had occurred to him that she could be very useful if she kept him informed of the happenings at court.
He knows full well, thought Margot, that if any letters I wrote to him were discovered—and my brother’s and my mother’s spies are everywhere—the result would doubtless be my death. But what does he care? He would, it is true, have lost a useful spy. Regrettable! But not a matter over which to shed too many tears. No, Monsieur de Navarre! You look elsewhere for your spies.
But eventually she became a little tired of reading and writing her memoirs: and contemplating the strange behaviour of Monsieur de Guise; and she began to consider how she might smuggle letters to Navarre, which dangerous task would rescue her from boredom. It was not long before she was unable to resist an attempt to carry this out.
* * *
Catherine was in despair, for the King was once more in the hands of his favourites, and he had once more given orders that the official dispatches were not to pass through any hands but those of himself and his young men. This hurt Catherine more deeply than anything could have done, for it was fatal to her schemes that she should be kept in ignorance of what was going on. Charles had never flouted her quite so blatantly as Henry was now doing; and when she thought of all her plans for this son, how she had worked for him and removed his enemies, she could not help but weep.
Henry’s young Queen Louise—a kindly creature as devoted to the King as his mother was—found Catherine in tears and, astonished by this strange spectacle, knelt to take her hands, to kiss them, while she tried to comfort her mother-in-law,
‘There is nothing that I do which he does not seem to think is wrong,’ said Catherine. ‘Yet I have always worked for his good.’
‘He knows that,’ said Louise. ‘It is just that, at this time, there are others to disagree with you . .
‘He takes their advice and rejects mine!’ cried Catherine.
‘Madame, he is so firmly Catholic. He does not wish to show the leniency that you would show to these Huguenots.’
Catherine laughed contemptuously. ‘Will his new friends help him to war, do you think? They are experts at curling his hair, I know, at helping to paint his face; and they know more than I do about the set of a jacket sleeve; but when it comes to war . . . what then? Will they help him to steer a safe course between Monsieur de Guise with his Catholics, and Navarre, Condé and their Huguenots?’
She grew calm immediately; she was astonished that she. could so give way before the little Queen, who knew hardly anything beyond the care of lap-dogs. ‘There, my daughter, you are a good, dear child, and I love you deeply.’
‘I wish I could help you, Madame.’
‘Get the King a son. That would please me more than anything.’
‘Ah, Madame! If only that could be!’
Catherine dismissed her and tried to remove the havoc which that tempestuous outburst of grief had caused, by applying a light touch of powder to her face and fresh carmine to her lips.
What had happened to her, and was she showing her age. losing her faculties? She was getting so fat that she could scarcely move with ease. Every winter brought rheumatism. She looked into her mirror and shrugged her shoulders. Her eyes, however, still had the fire of determination, and she knew that would not be easily quenched. She would never loosen her hold on power, for if she did, what would life hold for her? It was not as though—like that arch-enemy of hers, Jeanne of Navarre—she believed there was anything waiting for her after death. She must face the truth. Her children, on whom she had, since the death of her husband, depended for her power, were a treacherous band. She must accept the fact that power—that most precious of all possessions which the world had to offer such as herself—was not easily achieved, and once achieved, not easily held.
Alençon, whom she had neglected in the past and dismissed as of little importance, was now making a nuisance of himself; he was treacherous, conceited and he longed to wear the crown. If he ever became King of France he would not be easy to control. There was Margot, equally treacherous, working with Alençon against her brother the King as well as her mother. She was now spying for her husband. Catherine dared not let the King know this, for if he knew he would demand the death of Margot. Catherine would agree with the King that her daughter was a menace to her mother’s peace of mind and the provider of many anxious moments, but as there were only three children now to bring her power she could not agree to the elimination of any of them. And now Henry—the beloved one, her ‘All’—had broken his allegiance to his mother and given it to a group of silly, simpering creatures.
She had married one of those creatures—Villequier, who had been with Henry
in Poland—to a member of her Escadron Volant. She was surprised at the success of that venture. The woman had been ordered to keep her eyes on her husband and try to lure him from the King and those pleasures which had hitherto delighted him. Villequier was enchanted by his beauti- ful wife, and seemed to have become a normal husband. If only this treatment could be applied to more of that effeminate band!
She must not despair. There were always ways of setting matters right. She must fight this feeling of lassitude which was he inevitable accompaniment of old age.
Looking back, it seemed to her that there had been little else but wars for as long as she could remember—the dreary wars of religion, violent outbreaks, continual bloodshed, linked together by uneasy periods of peace.
But had the scene changed? Something was brewing in the streets of the capital. Had there ever been greater misery than there was among the poor at this moment? Had there ever been so many enemies of the throne? What was in the minds of Guise and his Catholics? What of that sly shrewd creature down in Béarn? Oh, what a pity that he was no longer under her eye! What fresh plots, too, were brewing in the fevered and ambitiously arrogant mind of Alençon?
The King came to her as she sat brooding. His face was white with rage and his lips trembled. She was filled with tenderness, for he had at least on this occasion brought his troubles to his mother.
‘Mother,’ he cried, ‘I have planned such a procession! We were to go to Notre Dame to pray for a child. I had designed our dreses. They were to be of purple, with touches of green about them. They were delightful.’
‘Yes, my darling. But why are you so angry?’
‘The council has refused to grant me the money to pay for it. How dare they! Is it for them to prevent our getting a child? It is small wonder that we have no heir. How does God feel when He sees the meanness of my council? It is an insult to Him!’
Queen Jezebel Page 29