Merchants on command arrived with their wares which they spread on tables in one of the great halls and here the two royal shoppers gazed their fill, comparing, even bargaining, making choices. Behind them their ladies, twittering like sparrows, admired and exclaimed as they reached for the purchases.
Not far from the Louvre was the shop of one Monsieur Rene, a shrewd Milanese with an adopted French name who dealt in exquisite bibelots, perfumes, pomanders and sachets. It was hinted by Catherine's enemies that he was also her toxicologist. From among the treasures he exhibited she now carefully selected a pair of gloves, intricately embroidered and impregnated with a subtle perfume.
She handed them to Jeanne with a friendly, laughing comment, and Jeanne, beginning to think that perhaps she had badly misjudged her hostess, accepted them in the same gay spirit, sniffing deeply of the lovely perfume. A few days later she was dead.
At no time during her reign had Catherine been less popular with her subjects. The French Huguenots distrusted her for her determination to bring Henry of Navarre into the Catholic camp of the Valois; the Catholics saw in the marriage (of her making) a gesture of conciliation to the Huguenots. The murderer of the Catholic Duke of Guise was generally believed to be Coligny, yet here was Coligny at Court, the young King's Councilor-in-Chief. Now Jeanne of Navarre lay dead at the Louvre, her signature still damp on the marriage contract of her Huguenot son and the Catholic Marguerite of Valois. The web of contradictions grew more
and more intricate. What could one think? Whom could one believe?
The Medicis for generations had been noted for their use of poison as a recognized weapon in hoth private and political feuds. They poisoned their enemies; they poisoned one another. The great Cosimo de Medici, head of the senior branch of the family, had in his Florentine palace a laboratory which he alone ever entered and where it was said he distilled some of the deadliest poisons of the fourteenth century, Catherine often had spoken of this remote ancestor s art and never denied bringing it to France herself. Her
enemies, and they were legion, blamed her use of poison for many unexplained deaths during her reign. As to whether Jeanne of Navarre actually died as the result of repeated inhalations of the poisoned perfume on the gloves never has been definitely proved. Certainly it would have been one way for Catherine to rid herself of one of the two remaining heads of the Huguenot cause. Time for Coligny later.
However, an autopsy showed that Jeanne had died of consumption. Coligny himself, coming to Catherine's defense, agreed this was true. But four hundred years later the stigma remains. Catherine de Medici's reputation for achieving any goal of her desire regardless of cost sheathes her name like a noxious cloud.
Paris was crowded with Huguenots who had come from all parts of France for the wedding which now must be postponed a month to allow for a suitable season of Court mourning. As the early summer days drew on and July heat settled over Paris the mood of the masses grew ugly. Catherine meanwhile faced a new problem. The Pope was refusing to give the dispensation necessary to make the Valois-Navarre marriage legal; and the Cardinal of Bourbon, the bridegroom's uncle who had been chosen to perform the ceremony, could not be persuaded to do it without the necessary dispensation. What to do?
The situation called for quick thinking and even quicker acting, for August 18 (1572) had been chosen as the wedding day and the first week in August was drawing to a close. The Cardinal was a placid, unsuspecting, unimaginative man, so when Catherine read him a letter purporting to
be from the French ambassador at Rome, he believed it and rejoiced. The letter stated that the dispensation had been granted and would be forwarded at once. Meanwhile the marriage ceremony could proceed.
To make doubly sure that no word from Rome should reach Paris before the wedding, Catherine ordered the governor of Lyon to see that no courier from Rome be permitted to pass until after the wedding, that all post stations along the route be watched for any couriers attempting to slip through, and that her order be kept secret under penalty of royal reprisal.
The ruse prevailed and on Monday, the 18th of August, on a high scaffold before the main portal of Notre Dame Cathedral the wedding over which such effort had been spent took place. Parisians impoverished by the long civil wars groaned at the sight of so much magnificence. The scaffold itself and the high wooden gallery leading to it from the episcopal palace were hung with cloth of gold. Along this gallery walked the wedding party: King Charles and his brothers, Anjou and Alengon, and the King of Navarre and his cousin, the young Prince of Conde, wearing as a sign of lasting friendship identical suits of yellow satin embroidered with pearls.
King Charles led his sister, the bride, followed by Catherine and little Claude, the Duchess of Lorraine, who for all her fragility looked happy and wholly contented in her own right. Marguerite, holding her beautiful head high under the weight of its heavy tiara of diamonds, pearls and rubies, was wearing a robe of violet velvet under a mantle of palest blue.
(How cleverly they combined exquisite color in that long-ago day!) It has been written that Catherine, watching Anjou's look of admiration as he watched his sister in her bridal finery, turned pale with jealous anger. Soon, soon, she comforted herself, Marguerite would be in Navarre! Then any admiration her favorite son might feel would be for her alone, his mother!
The marriage vows were exchanged and then, while Henry of Navarre and his suite retired, Marguerite entered the great Cathedral alone to hear Mass at the high altar. Surely this had all the earmarks of a mixed marriage successfully solemnized. It was followed by four days of such exotic revels, of balls and tourneys and masques, as Paris never before had seen.
As for the bride and groom? Marguerite, inconsistently delighting to romp and fraternize with any underlings who happened to please her, shrank from the lad with the broad Gascon drawl and the oafish manners. And Henry, self-conscious before the cool, self-contained princess who was hj. bride, found himself at a great disadvantage and longed to be back in his native mountain fastness. A wholesome love t| garlic, he thought bitterly, and a habit of scratching his bead when nervous, should not make a man distasteful to his bride. However, these two oddly assorted young people seemed to see in each other the basic faults and virtues that made them what they were and to accept them as inevitable, and so outwardly, for the time being at least, pardonable. Marguerite was Queen of Navarre. Her mother drew a deep breath of relief.
Through the centuries Catherine de Medici has been held by many historians guilty of the frightful carnage which followed closely on the heels of Marguerite's wedding festivities. So much, based on her own pronouncements, her own actions, pointed to her guilt. So much, on the other hand, never has been proved.
For years she had been wanting to rid herself and France of the Admiral, Coligny, He jeopardized, if, indeed, he had not already taken the place she held in the affections of her son, the King. This alone roused her to a fury. Again, he was succeeding quietly in negotiations with England which she had begun halfheartedly, then had abandoned when she found such negotiations irritated Philip of Spain whom she feared. And finally, he was still the great motivating spirit behind the Huguenots . . . the only strong leader they had.
It was an open secret at Court that Coligny's life was in daily jeopardy though Charles had sworn to protect him. But how protect when the most potent available weapons were often invisible? As one of Coligny's loyal retainers warned him, "Prithee, milord, parry the thrusts and bullets but watch, ah, watch the broth!"
Nor was Catherine his only enemy. The young generation of Guise, led by Henry, son of the murdered Francis, Duke of Guise, sincerely believed Coligny had shot his father. Nothing to the contrary had been proved and young Henry of Guise once had remarked in the hearing of members of the Court that if left alone with the Admiral with his
Saint Bartholomew's Day ]31
sword unsheathed he would very quickly avenge his father's death. To the great embarrassment of both Guise and Co-ligny, King
Charles arranged an official reconciliation between them just a few days before Marguerite s wedding and stood by, beaming, as they grimly, unwillingly, shook hands.
On Friday morning, August 22, Coligny watched a tennis match for a time on the courts of the Louvre. Charles, he noted absently, was playing an unusually fine game; the young Duke of Guise fumbled frequently and dropped the ball. The Admiral collected a sheaf of papers he had been reading, and with a small group of his followers, started for his house in the Rue des Poulies. The morning was oppressively hot and still; pigeons cooed and strutted about in what shade they could find high under the eaves; the air was aquiver with the electric tension preceding a storm.
Then two shots rang out as the Admiral stooped to adjust his shoe buckle. The gesture saved his life as one bullet severed the index finger of his left hand and the other was imbedded in his right upper arm. Retaining his presence of mind, he pointed to the shuttered window of a house nearby from which smoke was still curling, and shook his head, smiling ruefully.
"A touching reminder of our renewed friendship, Guise's and mine," he said before slumping into the arms of his companions. The house from which the shots had been fired belonged to a former tutor of Henry of Guise.
The King and the Queen Mother were notified and came promptly, bringing with them the Duke of Anjou and the King s physician, Ambrose Pare* There was talk of moving
J32 Dark Eminence
Coligny to the Louvre for safety, but this was deemed unwise in his weakened state following the amputation of the stump of the mangled finger and the probing for and removal of the large copper bullet in his arm. Instead, Henry of Navarre dispatched a group of his Swiss Guards to watch beside the wounded man around the clock, and the King, his face drawn, his eyes stricken and wild, could only weep loudly like a small boy, swearing by his crown to track down the guilty ones and administer such punishment as France never should forget.
Catherine and Anjou exchanged glances. Charles more and more was taking on the looks and manner of a madman. And here lay danger, Catherine reminded herself, for the deranged mind retains much that is lost to the rational thinker. Charles, determined to find the culprits, would stop at nothing. On the rack Guise's old tutor could be made to talk . . . In sheer panic Catherine refused to think further.
The attempt on Coligny's life and the massacre that followed it within twenty-four hours have been favorite subjects for writers of French history for centuries. Little can be proved beyond a doubt; much can be assumed, all facets considered in the light of sixteenth-century morals. Probably, since Catherine, Henry of Guise, and his mother, like Catherine an Italian, all hated Coligny, it is not beyond the bounds of reason to believe they plotted his death among them. With the Guises it doubtless was even considered a deed of honor; with Catherine a deed of expediency to save the throne for her sons. It is possible, too, that she felt the time had come to make a definite move for the Catholic
cause, to do away with all Huguenot chiefs. Surely that should prove to Philip of Spain and to the Pope himself that she was being true to her faith. However, that is all supposititious.
One fact may have escaped the notice of everyone in Paris as Friday the 22nd of August and Saturday the 23d passed in a shimmer of breathless heat: the mob of Paris like a thick alloy in a pot over flame began to show around its edges the first small eruptions of power ... a shot here, a savage knife thrust there, nothing more for the moment. Catholics, still seething over the presence of Navarre, the bridegroom, recalled to one another the wanton destruction of their shrines and sacred vessels by Huguenots on the march. Protestants told and retold tales they had heard of the Inquisition. Hate was in every man's heart; the powder was ready for the match.
In the first false dawn of Sunday, Saint Bartholomew's Day, lights could be seen moving about in the Louvre and the adjoining Tuilleries. Then shortly after three o'clock the great bell of Saint-Germain d'Auxerrois near the Louvre began to toll—a terrifying sound booming over the sleeping city. Who gave the orders for what followed? Guise with a group of courtiers broke down the door of Coligny's house, annihilated his faithful servants with their swords and hurried on to the bedroom.
Brave men die bravely. Still too weak to stand, the Admiral had asked to be helped into his robe and then to be lowered to his knees beside his bed. And there they found him. He made no outcry, but lowered his head as they fell upon him. Mutilated beyond recognition, his body was thrown from the
window to the court below where it is said Guise touched it with his foot and smiled.
An inexplicable thing happened at that moment. A rider came clattering up, shouting, "By order of Her Majesty the Queen, spare Coligny!" What had happened? Had Charles become violent? Had Anjou weakened in one of his unpredictable outbursts of conscience? There is no known answer. But it was too late.
Paris, one of the world's most gracious, most beautiful cities, has through all time been a city all too susceptible to mob rule. Whoever fomented the mob terror of Saint Bartholomew's Day had organized it well Catholics were to be distinguished from Huguenots by white crosses worn on hats or caps. Now as Guise and his followers pounded through the streets shouting, ''Kill! Kill! Kill all Huguenots by the Kings command!" all Paris was suddenly abloom with white crosses. Huguenots, old and young, the sick and aged, and newborn babies were mercilessly slaughtered by any and every means available, hacked to pieces, stripped and thrown into the Seine, outraged in every conceivable way. Parents saw their little children brutally tortured by laughing, shouting ruffians; children screamed vainly for help from parents themselves begging for mercy. And because a mob is senseless, blind and deaf to reason, old scores were settled between rivals who had no religious differences whatever.
For three days and nights the nightmare held, the air filled with the shrieks of the mortally wounded and the sickening reek of human blood. The palace of the Louvre itself was strewn with the bodies of prominent Huguenots who.
Lad gone there thinking mistakenly to find sanctuary with royal friends. Henry of Navarre talked himself out of danger while Charles stormed and raved at him and the Prince of Conde. He would, he told them, allow their retinues to pay the price for their heresy. In speechless horror the two men watched while their combined staffs of gentlemen were killed hy hired mercenaries before their eyes.
Charles's mad seizures waxed and waned through the days. His young wife, the Austrian Elizabeth, pregnant and near her time, managed to quiet him though he continued to sob that he alone was to blame for the massacre. Again she was helpless and listened, incredulous, while he ordered the death of some of his closest friends who were Huguenots, among them La Rochefoucauld who had come to Paris for Marguerite's wedding, bringing his new bride. Both were killed.
There the horrible Saturnalia rests and as long as time shall be, no one can know of a certainty who was responsible. Did Catherine and Anjou prod and lash Charles, taunting him for giving his affection and trust to the great Coligny, until in a lunatic outburst he did actually order the killing of the hero he worshiped? Did he, driven to it by his mother, send out the Guises to inflame the brutish passions of the Paris mob? How much of all that happened was coincidence? No one will ever know. But the name of Catherine de Medici remains an integral part of it. There is no doubt that she spent much of the rest of her life trying to convince the Catholic world that she and she alone had seen it through as a divinely inspired expulsion of sin, and the Protestant world
that it was all a deeply regretted accident. Somehow she never quite succeeded in doing either. A damaging letter remains, written to Philip of Spain on the 28th of August*
My son, I have no douht that you will share with us our joy at God's goodness in giving my son the King the means to rid himself of subjects rebellious equally to God and to himself, and that it pleased Him to preserve us all from the cruelty of their hands, for which we feel assured you will praise God with us, both for our sakes and for the good which will result to all Christendom and
the honor and glory of God . . . and I rejoice still more that this occasion will confirm and augment the friendship between you and the King your brother, which is the thing in this world I most desire. . . . I send my greetings to my grandchildren the Infantas. . . .
Paris, this 28th day of August, 1572
Your good mother and sister Caterine
* Milton Waldman, Biography of a "Family (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1936), 137.
Chapter 10 HENRY III
THE dynastic stature of her children continued to he Catherine's major interest. That they warred so among themselves was a nettle in her side. Charles, the King, definitely tubercular and mentally unsound, hated hoth his brothers, Anjou and Alenjon, and held Marguerite in contempt, calling her "that woman*" Anjou, knowing Charles was insanely jealous of him as a successful campaigner in the wars, did nothing to lessen the tension between them. Young Alengon loathed them both.
For years Catherine had been moving heaven and earth to obtain for her favorite son the election to the throne of Poland. She knew the aged Sigismond Augustus, Poland's great humanist and theologian king, was failing; meanwhile she would pawn the crown jewels, build a fleet, engage some of the shrewdest fiction writers of the day to explain away
Saint Bartholomew's. Sigismond Augustus died. Henry, Duke of Anjou, was elected.
He was not at all pleased; to leave France now was the very last thing he wanted. Alengon, nineteen, seemed to have won over Marguerite for some of his harebrained political intrigues against Henry who must now turn his Lack on them, giving them free rein. Furthermore, Anjou was deeply in love—for the only time in his life—and to go to far-off Poland leaving Marie de Cleves behind was sheer torment. But Catherine as usual had her way. Tears, though she cried seldom, were always her trump card, so now she wept a little, saying, "I love your honor and grandeur more than my own pleasure for I am not one of those mothers who love their children selfishly; I love you that you may be first in splendor and esteem before men. . . ." And, weeping, perhaps she really did not suspect how selfish she was.
Dark Eminence Catherine De Medici And Her Children Page 9