V. THE COURT
The hope of gaining the crown was not the result of a premeditated plan in the minds of the restless Guises. Nothing warranted such a hope or such a plan. Circumstances alone inspired their audacity. The two cardinals and the two Balafres were four ambitious minds, superior in talents to all the other politicians who surrounded them. This family was never really brought low except by Henri IV.; a factionist himself, trained in the great school of which Catherine and the Guises were masters,—by whose lessons he had profited but too well.
At this moment the two brothers, the duke and cardinal, were the arbiters of the greatest revolution attempted in Europe since that of Henry VIII. in England, which was the direct consequence of the invention of printing. Adversaries to the Reformation, they meant to stifle it, power being in their hands. But their opponent, Calvin, though less famous than Luther, was far the stronger of the two. Calvin saw government where Luther saw dogma only. While the stout beer-drinker and amorous German fought with the devil and flung an inkbottle at his head, the man from Picardy, a sickly celibate, made plans of campaign, directed battles, armed princes, and roused whole peoples by sowing republican doctrines in the hearts of the burghers—recouping his continual defeats in the field by fresh progress in the mind of the nations.
The Cardinal de Lorraine and the Duc de Guise, like Philip the Second and the Duke of Alba, knew where and when the monarchy was threatened, and how close the alliance ought to be between Catholicism and Royalty. Charles the Fifth, drunk with the wine of Charlemagne’s cup, believing too blindly in the strength of his monarchy, and confident of sharing the world with Suleiman, did not at first feel the blow at his head; but no sooner had Cardinal Granvelle made him aware of the extent of the wound than he abdicated. The Guises had but one scheme,—that of annihilating heresy at a single blow. This blow they were now to attempt, for the first time, to strike at Amboise; failing there they tried it again, twelve years later, at the Saint-Bartholomew,—on the latter occasion in conjunction with Catherine de’ Medici, enlightened by that time by the flames of a twelve years’ war, enlightened above all by the significant word “republic,” uttered later and printed by the writers of the Reformation, but already foreseen (as we have said before) by Lecamus, that type of the Parisian bourgeoisie.
The two Guises, now on the point of striking a murderous blow at the heart of the French nobility, in order to separate it once for all from a religious party whose triumph would be its ruin, still stood together on the terrace, concerting as to the best means of revealing their coup-d’Etat to the king, while Catherine was talking with her counsellors.
“Jeanne d’Albret knew what she was about when she declared herself protectress of the Huguenots! She has a battering-ram in the Reformation, and she knows how to use it,” said the duke, who fathomed the deep designs of the Queen of Navarre, one of the great minds of the century.
“Theodore de Beze is now at Nerac,” remarked the cardinal, “after first going to Geneva to take Calvin’s orders.”
“What men these burghers know how to find!” exclaimed the duke.
“Ah! we have none on our side of the quality of La Renaudie!” cried the cardinal. “He is a true Catiline.”
“Such men always act for their own interests,” replied the duke. “Didn’t I fathom La Renaudie? I loaded him with favors; I helped him to escape when he was condemned by the parliament of Bourgogne; I brought him back from exile by obtaining a revision of his sentence; I intended to do far more for him; and all the while he was plotting a diabolical conspiracy against us! That rascal has united the Protestants of Germany with the heretics of France by reconciling the differences that grew up between the dogmas of Luther and those of Calvin. He has brought the discontented great seigneurs into the party of the Reformation without obliging them to abjure Catholicism openly. For the last year he has had thirty captains under him! He is everywhere at once,—at Lyon, in Languedoc, at Nantes! It was he who drew up those minutes of a consultation which were hawked about all Germany, in which the theologians declared that force might be resorted to in order to withdraw the king from our rule and tutelage; the paper is now being circulated from town to town. Wherever we look for him we never find him! And yet I have never done him anything but good! It comes to this, that we must now either thrash him like a dog, or try to throw him a golden bridge by which he will cross into our camp.”
“Bretagne, Languedoc, in fact the whole kingdom is in league to deal us a mortal blow,” said the cardinal. “After the fete was over yesterday I spent the rest of the night in reading the reports sent me by the monks; in which I found that the only persons who have compromised themselves are poor gentlemen, artisans, as to whom it doesn’t signify whether you hang them or let them live. The Colignys and Condes do not show their hand as yet, though they hold the threads of the whole conspiracy.”
“Yes,” replied the duke, “and, therefore, as soon as that lawyer Avenelles sold the secret of the plot, I told Braguelonne to let the conspirators carry it out. They have no suspicion that we know it; they are so sure of surprising us that the leaders may possibly show themselves then. My advice is to allow ourselves to be beaten for forty-eight hours.”
“Half an hour would be too much,” cried the cardinal, alarmed.
“So this is your courage, is it?” retorted the Balafre.
The cardinal, quite unmoved, replied: “Whether the Prince de Conde is compromised or not, if we are certain that he is the leader, we should strike him down at once and secure tranquillity. We need judges rather than soldiers for this business—and judges are never lacking. Victory is always more certain in the parliament than on the field, and it costs less.”
“I consent, willingly,” said the duke; “but do you think the Prince de Conde is powerful enough to inspire, himself alone, the audacity of those who are making this first attack upon us? Isn’t there, behind him—”
“The king of Navarre,” said the cardinal.
“Pooh! a fool who speaks to me cap in hand!” replied the duke. “The coquetries of that Florentine woman seem to blind your eyes—”
“Oh! as for that,” exclaimed the priest, “if I do play the gallant with her it is only that I may read to the bottom of her heart.”
“She has no heart,” said the duke, sharply; “she is even more ambitious than you and I.”
“You are a brave soldier,” said the cardinal; “but, believe me, I distance you in this matter. I have had Catherine watched by Mary Stuart long before you even suspected her. She has no more religion than my shoe; if she is not the soul of this plot it is not for want of will. But we shall now be able to test her on the scene itself, and find out then how she stands by us. Up to this time, however, I am certain she has held no communication whatever with the heretics.”
“Well, it is time now to reveal the whole plot to the king, and to the queen-mother, who, you say, knows nothing of it,—that is the sole proof of her innocence; perhaps the conspirators have waited till the last moment, expecting to dazzle her with the probabilities of success. La Renaudie must soon discover by my arrangements that we are warned. Last night Nemours was to follow detachments of the Reformers who are pouring in along the cross-roads, and the conspirators will be forced to attack us at Amboise, which place I intend to let them enter. Here,” added the duke, pointing to three sides of the rock on which the chateau de Blois is built; “we should have an assault without any result; the Huguenots could come and go at will. Blois is an open hall with four entrances; whereas Amboise is a sack with a single mouth.”
“I shall not leave Catherine’s side,” said the cardinal.
“We have made a blunder,” remarked the duke, who was playing with his dagger, tossing it into the air and catching it by the hilt. “We ought to have treated her as we did the Reformers,—given her complete freedom of action and caught her in the act.”
The cardinal looked at his brother for an instant and shook his head.
“What does Pardaillan want?” said the duke, observing the approach of the young nobleman who was later to become celebrated by his encounter with La Renaudie, in which they both lost their lives.
“Monseigneur, a man sent by the queen’s furrier is at the gate, and says he has an ermine suit to convey to her. Am I to let him enter?”
“Ah! yes,—the ermine coat she spoke of yesterday,” returned the cardinal; “let the shop-fellow pass; she will want the garment for the voyage down the Loire.”
“How did he get here without being stopped until he reached the gate?” asked the duke.
“I do not know,” replied Pardaillan.
“I’ll ask to see him when he is with the queen,” thought the Balafre. “Let him wait in the salle des gardes,” he said aloud. “Is he young, Pardaillan?”
“Yes, monseigneur; he says he is a son of Lecamus the furrier.”
“Lecamus is a good Catholic,” remarked the cardinal, who, like his brother the duke, was endowed with Caesar’s memory. “The rector of Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs relies upon him; he is the provost of that quarter.”
“Nevertheless,” said the duke, “make the son talk with the captain of the Scotch guard,” laying an emphasis on the verb which was readily understood. “Ambroise is in the chateau; he can tell us whether the fellow is really the son of Lecamus, for the old man did him good service in times past. Send for Ambroise Pare.”
It was at this moment that Queen Catherine went, unattended, toward the two brothers, who hastened to meet her with their accustomed show of respect, in which the Italian princess detected constant irony.
“Messieurs,” she said, “will you deign to inform me of what is about to take place? Is the widow of your former master of less importance in your esteem than the Sieurs Vieilleville, Birago, and Chiverni?”
“Madame,” replied the cardinal, in a tone of gallantry, “our duty as men, taking precedence of that of statecraft, forbids us to alarm the fair sex by false reports. But this morning there is indeed good reason to confer with you on the affairs of the country. You must excuse my brother for having already given orders to the gentlemen you mention,—orders which were purely military, and therefore did not concern you; the matters of real importance are still to be decided. If you are willing, we will now go the lever of the king and queen; it is nearly time.”
“But what is all this, Monsieur le duc?” cried Catherine, pretending alarm. “Is anything the matter?”
“The Reformation, madame, is no longer a mere heresy; it is a party, which has taken arms and is coming here to snatch the king away from you.”
Catherine, the cardinal, the duke, and the three gentlemen made their way to the staircase through the gallery, which was crowded with courtiers who, being off duty, no longer had the right of entrance to the royal apartments, and stood in two hedges on either side. Gondi, who watched them while the queen-mother talked with the Lorraine princes, whispered in her ear, in good Tuscan, two words which afterwards became proverbs,—words which are the keynote to one aspect of her regal character: “Odiate e aspettate”—“Hate and wait.”
Pardaillan, who had gone to order the officer of the guard at the gate of the chateau to let the clerk of the queen’s furrier enter, found Christophe open-mouthed before the portal, staring at the facade built by the good king Louis XII., on which there was at that time a much greater number of grotesque carvings than we see there to-day,—grotesque, that is to say, if we may judge by those that remain to us. For instance, persons curious in such matters may remark the figurine of a woman carved on the capital of one of the portal columns, with her robe caught up to show to a stout monk crouching in the capital of the corresponding column “that which Brunelle showed to Marphise”; while above this portal stood, at the time of which we write, the statue of Louis XII. Several of the window-casings of this facade, carved in the same style, and now, unfortunately, destroyed, amused, or seemed to amuse Christophe, on whom the arquebusiers of the guard were raining jests.
“He would like to live there,” said the sub-corporal, playing with the cartridges of his weapon, which were prepared for use in the shape of little sugar-loaves, and slung to the baldricks of the men.
“Hey, Parisian!” said another; “you never saw the like of that, did you?”
“He recognizes the good King Louis XII.,” said a third.
Christophe pretended not to hear, and tried to exaggerate his amazement, the result being that his silly attitude and his behavior before the guard proved an excellent passport to the eyes of Pardaillan.
“The queen has not yet risen,” said the young captain; “come and wait for her in the salle des gardes.”
Christophe followed Pardaillan rather slowly. On the way he stopped to admire the pretty gallery in the form of an arcade, where the courtiers of Louis XII. awaited the reception-hour when it rained, and where, at the present moment, were several seigneurs attached to the Guises; for the staircase (so well preserved to the present day) which led to their apartments is at the end of this gallery in a tower, the architecture of which commends itself to the admiration of intelligent beholders.
“Well, well! did you come here to study the carving of images?” cried Pardaillan, as Christophe stopped before the charming sculptures of the balustrade which unites, or, if you prefer it, separates the columns of each arcade.
Christophe followed the young officer to the grand staircase, not without a glance of ecstasy at the semi-Moorish tower. The weather was fine, and the court was crowded with staff-officers and seigneurs, talking together in little groups,—their dazzling uniforms and court-dresses brightening a spot which the marvels of architecture, then fresh and new, had already made so brilliant.
“Come in here,” said Pardaillan, making Lecamus a sign to follow him through a carved wooden door leading to the second floor, which the door-keeper opened on recognizing the young officer.
It is easy to imagine Christophe’s amazement as he entered the great salle des gardes, then so vast that military necessity has since divided it by a partition into two chambers. It occupied on the second floor (that of the king), as did the corresponding hall on the first floor (that of the queen-mother), one third of the whole front of the chateau facing the courtyard; and it was lighted by two windows to right and two to left of the tower in which the famous staircase winds up. The young captain went to the door of the royal chamber, which opened upon this vast hall, and told one of the two pages on duty to inform Madame Dayelles, the queen’s bedchamber woman, that the furrier was in the hall with her surcoat.
On a sign from Pardaillan Christophe placed himself near an officer, who was seated on a stool at the corner of a fireplace as large as his father’s whole shop, which was at the end of the great hall, opposite to a precisely similar fireplace at the other end. While talking to this officer, a lieutenant, he contrived to interest him with an account of the stagnation of trade. Christophe seemed so thoroughly a shopkeeper that the officer imparted that conviction to the captain of the Scotch guard, who came in from the courtyard to question Lecamus, all the while watching him covertly and narrowly.
However much Christophe Lecamus had been warned, it was impossible for him to really apprehend the cold ferocity of the interests between which Chaudieu had slipped him. To an observer of this scene, who had known the secrets of it as the historian understands it in the light of to-day, there was indeed cause to tremble for this young man,—the hope of two families,—thrust between those powerful and pitiless machines, Catherine and the Guises. But do courageous beings, as a rule, measure the full extent of their dangers? By the way in which the port of Blois, the chateau, and the town were guarded, Christophe was prepared to find spies and traps everywhere; and he therefore resolved to conceal the importance of his mission and the tension of his mind under the empty-headed and shopkeeping appearance with which he presented himself to the eyes of young Pardaillan, the officer of the guard, and the Scottish captain.
The agitation which, in a royal castle, always attends the hour of the king’s rising, was beginning to show itself. The great lords, whose horses, pages, or grooms remained in the outer courtyard,—for no one, except the king and the queens, had the right to enter the inner courtyard on horseback,—were mounting by groups the magnificent staircase, and filling by degrees the vast hall, the beams of which are now stripped of the decorations that then adorned them. Miserable little red tiles have replaced the ingenious mosaics of the floors; and the thick walls, then draped with the crown tapestries and glowing with all the arts of that unique period of the splendors of humanity, are now denuded and whitewashed! Reformers and Catholics were pressing in to hear the news and to watch faces, quite as much as to pay their duty to the king. Francois II.‘s excessive love for Mary Stuart, to which neither the queen-mother nor the Guises made any opposition, and the politic compliance of Mary Stuart herself, deprived the king of all regal power. At seventeen years of age he knew nothing of royalty but its pleasures, or of marriage beyond the indulgence of first passion. As a matter of fact, all present paid their court to Queen Mary and to her uncles, the Cardinal de Lorraine and the Duc de Guise, rather than to the king.
This stir took place before Christophe, who watched the arrival of each new personage with natural eagerness. A magnificent portiere, on either side of which stood two pages and two soldiers of the Scotch guard, then on duty, showed him the entrance to the royal chamber,—the chamber so fatal to the son of the present Duc de Guise, the second Balafre, who fell at the foot of the bed now occupied by Mary Stuart and Francois II. The queen’s maids of honor surrounded the fireplace opposite to that where Christophe was being “talked with” by the captain of the guard. This second fireplace was considered the chimney of honor. It was built in the thick wall of the Salle de Conseil, between the door of the royal chamber and that of the council-hall, so that the maids of honor and the lords in waiting who had the right to be there were on the direct passage of the king and queen. The courtiers were certain on this occasion of seeing Catherine, for her maids of honor, dressed like the rest of the court ladies, in black, came up the staircase from the queen-mother’s apartment, and took their places, marshalled by the Comtesse de Fiesque, on the side toward the council-hall and opposite to the maids of honor of the young queen, led by the Duchesse de Guise, who occupied the other side of the fireplace on the side of the royal bedroom. The courtiers left an open space between the ranks of these young ladies (who all belonged to the first families of the kingdom), which none but the greatest lords had the right to enter. The Comtesse de Fiesque and the Duchesse de Guise were, in virtue of their office, seated in the midst of these noble maids, who were all standing.
The first gentleman who approached the dangerous ranks was the Duc d’Orleans, the king’s brother, who had come down from his apartment on the third floor, accompanied by Monsieur de Cypierre, his governor. This young prince, destined before the end of the year to reign under the title of Charles IX., was only ten years old and extremely timid. The Duc d’Anjou and the Duc d’Alencon, his younger brothers, also the Princesse Marguerite, afterwards the wife of Henri IV. (la Reine Margot), were too young to come to court, and were therefore kept by their mother in her own apartments. The Duc d’Orleans, richly dressed after the fashion of the times, in silken trunk-hose, a close-fitting jacket of cloth of gold embroidered with black flowers, and a little mantle of embroidered velvet, all black, for he still wore mourning for his father, bowed to the two ladies of honor and took his place beside his mother’s maids. Already full of antipathy for the adherents of the house of Guise, he replied coldly to the remarks of the duchess and leaned his arm on the back of the chair of the Comtesse de Fiesque. His governor, Monsieur de Cypierre, one of the noblest characters of that day, stood beside him like a shield. Amyot (afterwards Bishop of Auxerre and translator of Plutarch), in the simple soutane of an abbe, also accompanied the young prince, being his tutor, as he was of the two other princes, whose affection became so profitable to him.
Between the “chimney of honor” and the other chimney at the end of the hall, around which were grouped the guards, their captain, a few courtiers, and Christophe carrying his box of furs, the Chancellor Olivier, protector and predecessor of l’Hopital, in the robes which the chancellors of France have always worn, was walking up and down with the Cardinal de Tournon, who had recently returned from Rome. The pair were exchanging a few whispered sentences in the midst of great attention from the lords of the court, massed against the wall which separated the salle des gardes from the royal bedroom, like a living tapestry backed by the rich tapestry of art crowded by a thousand personages. In spite of the present grave events, the court presented the appearance of all courts in all lands, at all epochs, and in the midst of the greatest dangers. The courtiers talked of trivial matters, thinking of serious ones; they jested as they studied faces, and apparently concerned themselves about love and the marriage of rich heiresses amid the bloodiest catastrophes.
“What did you think of yesterday’s fete?” asked Bourdeilles, seigneur of Brantome, approaching Mademoiselle de Piennes, one of the queen-mother’s maids of honor.
“Messieurs du Baif et du Bellay were inspired with delightful ideas,” she replied, indicating the organizers of the fete, who were standing near. “I thought it all in the worst taste,” she added in a low voice.
“You had no part to play in it, I think?” remarked Mademoiselle de Lewiston from the opposite ranks of Queen Mary’s maids.
“What are you reading there, madame?” asked Amyot of the Comtesse de Fiesque.
“‘Amadis de Gaule,’ by the Seigneur des Essarts, commissary in ordinary to the king’s artillery,” she replied.
“A charming work,” remarked the beautiful girl who was afterwards so celebrated under the name of Fosseuse when she was lady of honor to Queen Marguerite of Navarre.
“The style is a novelty in form,” said Amyot. “Do you accept such barbarisms?” he added, addressing Brantome.
“They please the ladies, you know,” said Brantome, crossing over to the Duchesse de Guise, who held the “Decamerone” in her hand. “Some of the women of your house must appear in the book, madame,” he said. “It is a pity that the Sieur Boccaccio did not live in our day; he would have known plenty of ladies to swell his volume—”
“How shrewd that Monsieur de Brantome is,” said the beautiful Mademoiselle de Limueil to the Comtesse de Fiesque; “he came to us first, but he means to remain in the Guise quarters.”
“Hush!” said Madame de Fiesque glancing at the beautiful Limueil. “Attend to what concerns yourself.”
The young girl turned her eyes to the door. She was expecting Sardini, a noble Italian, with whom the queen-mother, her relative, married her after an “accident” which happened in the dressing-room of Catherine de’ Medici herself; but which the young lady won the honor of having a queen as midwife.
“By the holy Alipantin! Mademoiselle Davila seems to me prettier and prettier every morning,” said Monsieur de Robertet, secretary of State, bowing to the ladies of the queen-mother.
The arrival of the secretary of State made no commotion whatever, though his office was precisely what that of a minister is in these days.
“If you really think so, monsieur,” said the beauty, “lend me the squib which was written against the Messieurs de Guise; I know it was lent to you.”
“It is no longer in my possession,” replied the secretary, turning round to bow to the Duchesse de Guise.
“I have it,” said the Comte de Grammont to Mademoiselle Davila, “but I will give it you on one condition only.”
“Condition! fie!” exclaimed Madame de Fiesque.
“You don’t know what it is,” replied Grammont.
“Oh! it is easy to guess,” remarked la Limueil.
The Italian custom of calling ladies, as peasants call their wives, “la Such-a-one” was then the fashion at the court of France.
“You are mistaken,” said the count, hastily, “the matter is simply to give a letter from my cousin de Jarnac to one of the maids on the other side, Mademoiselle de Matha.”
“You must not compromise my young ladies,” said the Comtesse de Fiesque. “I will deliver the letter myself.—Do you know what is happening in Flanders?” she continued, turning to the Cardinal de Tournon. “It seems that Monsieur d’Egmont is given to surprises.”
“He and the Prince of Orange,” remarked Cypierre, with a significant shrug of his shoulders.
“The Duke of Alba and Cardinal Granvelle are going there, are they not, monsieur?” said Amyot to the Cardinal de Tournon, who remained standing, gloomy and anxious between the opposing groups after his conversation with the chancellor.
“Happily we are at peace; we need only conquer heresy on the stage,” remarked the young Duc d’Orleans, alluding to a part he had played the night before,—that of a knight subduing a hydra which bore upon its foreheads the word “Reformation.”
Catherine de’ Medici, agreeing in this with her daughter-in-law, had allowed a theatre to be made of the great hall (afterwards arranged for the Parliament of Blois), which, as we have already said, connected the chateau of Francois I. with that of Louis XII.
The cardinal made no answer to Amyot’s question, but resumed his walk through the centre of the hall, talking in low tones with Monsieur de Robertet and the chancellor. Many persons are ignorant of the difficulties which secretaries of State (subsequently called ministers) met with at the first establishment of their office, and how much trouble the kings of France had in creating it. At this epoch a secretary of State like Robertet was purely and simply a writer; he counted for almost nothing among the princes and grandees who decided the affairs of State. His functions were little more than those of the superintendent of finances, the chancellor, and the keeper of the seals. The kings granted seats at the council by letters-patent to those of their subjects whose advice seemed to them useful in the management of public affairs. Entrance to the council was given in this way to a president of the Chamber of Parliament, to a bishop, or to an untitled favorite. Once admitted to the council, the subject strengthened his position there by obtaining various crown offices on which devolved such prerogatives as the sword of a Constable, the government of provinces, the grand-mastership of artillery, the baton of a marshal, a leading rank in the army, or the admiralty, or a captaincy of the galleys, often some office at court, like that of grand-master of the household, now held, as we have already said, by the Duc de Guise.
“Do you think that the Duc de Nemours will marry Francoise?” said Madame de Guise to the tutor of the Duc d’Orleans.
“Ah, madame,” he replied, “I know nothing but Latin.”
This answer made all who were within hearing of it smile. The seduction of Francoise de Rohan by the Duc de Nemours was the topic of all conversations; but, as the duke was cousin to Francois II., and doubly allied to the house of Valois through his mother, the Guises regarded him more as the seduced than the seducer. Nevertheless, the power of the house of Rohan was such that the Duc de Nemours was obliged, after the death of Francois II., to leave France on consequence of suits brought against him by the Rohans; which suits the Guises settled. The duke’s marriage with the Duchesse de Guise after Poltrot’s assassination of her husband in 1563, may explain the question which she put to Amyot, by revealing the rivalry which must have existed between Mademoiselle de Rohan and the duchess.
“Do see that group of the discontented over there?” said the Comte de Grammont, motioning toward the Messieurs de Coligny, the Cardinal de Chatillon, Danville, Thore, Moret, and several other seigneurs suspected of tampering with the Reformation, who were standing between two windows on the other side of the fireplace.
“The Huguenots are bestirring themselves,” said Cypierre. “We know that Theodore de Beze has gone to Nerac to induce the Queen of Navarre to declare for the Reformers—by abjuring publicly,” he added, looking at the bailli of Orleans, who held the office of chancellor to the Queen of Navarre, and was watching the court attentively.
“She will do it!” said the bailli, dryly.
This personage, the Orleans Jacques Coeur, one of the richest burghers of the day, was named Groslot, and had charge of Jeanne d’Albret’s business with the court of France.
“Do you really think so?” said the chancellor of France, appreciating the full importance of Groslot’s declaration.
“Are you not aware,” said the burgher, “that the Queen of Navarre has nothing of the woman in her except sex? She is wholly for things virile; her powerful mind turns to the great affairs of State; her heart is invincible under adversity.”
“Monsieur le cardinal,” whispered the Chancellor Olivier to Monsieur de Tournon, who had overheard Groslot, “what do you think of that audacity?”
“The Queen of Navarre did well in choosing for her chancellor a man from whom the house of Lorraine borrows money, and who offers his house to the king, if his Majesty visits Orleans,” replied the cardinal.
The chancellor and the cardinal looked at each other, without venturing to further communicate their thoughts; but Robertet expressed them, for he thought it necessary to show more devotion to the Guises than these great personages, inasmuch as he was smaller than they.
“It is a great misfortune that the house of Navarre, instead of abjuring the religion of its fathers, does not abjure the spirit of vengeance and rebellion which the Connetable de Bourbon breathed into it,” he said aloud. “We shall see the quarrels of the Armagnacs and the Bourguignons revive in our day.”
“No,” said Groslot, “there’s another Louis XI. in the Cardinal de Lorraine.”
“And also in Queen Catherine,” replied Robertet.
At this moment Madame Dayelle, the favorite bedchamber woman of Queen Mary Stuart, crossed the hall, and went toward the royal chamber. Her passage caused a general commotion.
“We shall soon enter,” said Madame de Fisque.
“I don’t think so,” replied the Duchesse de Guise. “Their Majesties will come out; a grand council is to be held.”
VI. THE LITTLE LEVER OF FRANCOIS II.
Madame Dayelle glided into the royal chamber after scratching on the door,—a respectful custom, invented by Catherine de’ Medici and adopted by the court of France.
“How is the weather, my dear Dayelle?” said Queen Mary, showing her fresh young face out of the bed, and shaking the curtains.
“Ah! madame—”
“What’s the matter, my Dayelle? You look as if the archers of the guard were after you.”
“Oh! madame, is the king still asleep?”
“Yes.”
“We are to leave the chateau; Monsieur le cardinal requests me to tell you so, and to ask you to make the king agree to it.
“Do you know why, my good Dayelle?”
“The Reformers want to seize you and carry you off.”
“Ah! that new religion does not leave me a minute’s peace! I dreamed last night that I was in prison,—I, who will some day unite the crowns of the three noblest kingdoms in the world!”
“Therefore it could only be a dream, madame.”
“Carry me off! well, ‘twould be rather pleasant; but on account of religion, and by heretics—oh, that would be horrid.”
The queen sprang from the bed and placed herself in a large arm-chair of red velvet before the fireplace, after Dayelle had given her a dressing-gown of black velvet, which she fastened loosely round her waist by a silken cord. Dayelle lit the fire, for the mornings are cool on the banks of the Loire in the month of May.
“My uncles must have received some news during the night?” said the queen, inquiringly to Dayelle, whom she treated with great familiarity.
“Messieurs de Guise have been walking together from early morning on the terrace, so as not to be overheard by any one; and there they received messengers, who came in hot haste from all the different points of the kingdom where the Reformers are stirring. Madame la reine mere was there too, with her Italians, hoping she would be consulted; but no, she was not admitted to the council.”
“She must have been furious.”
“All the more because she was so angry yesterday,” replied Dayelle. “They say that when she saw your Majesty appear in that beautiful dress of woven gold, with the charming veil of tan-colored crape, she was none too pleased—”
“Leave us, my good Dayelle, the king is waking up. Let no one, even those who have the little entrees, disturb us; an affair of State is in hand, and my uncles will not disturb us.”
“Why! my dear Mary, already out of bed? Is it daylight?” said the young king, waking up.
“My dear darling, while we were asleep the wicked waked, and now they are forcing us to leave this delightful place.”
“What makes you think of wicked people, my treasure? I am sure we enjoyed the prettiest fete in the world last night—if it were not for the Latin words those gentlemen will put into our French.”
“Ah!” said Mary, “your language is really in very good taste, and Rabelais exhibits it finely.”
“You are such a learned woman! I am so vexed that I can’t sing your praises in verse. If I were not the king, I would take my brother’s tutor, Amyot, and let him make me as accomplished as Charles.”
“You need not envy your brother, who writes verses and shows them to me, asking for mine in return. You are the best of the four, and will make as good a king as you are the dearest of lovers. Perhaps that is why your mother does not like you! But never mind! I, dear heart, will love you for all the world.”
“I have no great merit in loving such a perfect queen,” said the little king. “I don’t know what prevented me from kissing you before the whole court when you danced the branle with the torches last night! I saw plainly that all the other women were mere servants compared to you, my beautiful Mary.”
“It may be only prose you speak, but it is ravishing speech, dear darling, for it is love that says those words. And you—you know well, my beloved, that were you only a poor little page, I should love you as much as I do now. And yet, there is nothing so sweet as to whisper to one’s self: ‘My lover is king!’”
“Oh! the pretty arm! Why must we dress ourselves? I love to pass my fingers through your silky hair and tangle its blond curls. Ah ca! sweet one, don’t let your women kiss that pretty throat and those white shoulders any more; don’t allow it, I say. It is too much that the fogs of Scotland ever touched them!”
“Won’t you come with me to see my dear country? The Scotch love you; there are no rebellions there!”
“Who rebels in this our kingdom?” said Francois, crossing his dressing-gown and taking Mary Stuart on his knee.
“Oh! ‘tis all very charming, I know that,” she said, withdrawing her cheek from the king; “but it is your business to reign, if you please, my sweet sire.”
“Why talk of reigning? This morning I wish—”
“Why say wish when you have only to will all? That’s not the speech of a king, nor that of a lover.—But no more of love just now; let us drop it! We have business more important to speak of.”
“Oh!” cried the king, “it is long since we have had any business. Is it amusing?”
“No,” said Mary, “not at all; we are to move from Blois.”
“I’ll wager, darling, you have seen your uncles, who manage so well that I, at seventeen years of age, am no better than a roi faineant. In fact, I don’t know why I have attended any of the councils since the first. They could manage matters just as well by putting the crown in my chair; I see only through their eyes, and am forced to consent to things blindly.”
“Oh! monsieur,” said the queen, rising from the king’s knee with a little air of indignation, “you said you would never worry me again on this subject, and that my uncles used the royal power only for the good of your people. Your people!—they are so nice! They would gobble you up like a strawberry if you tried to rule them yourself. You want a warrior, a rough master with mailed hands; whereas you—you are a darling whom I love as you are; whom I should never love otherwise,—do you hear me, monsieur?” she added, kissing the forehead of the lad, who seemed inclined to rebel at her speech, but softened at her kisses.
“Oh! how I wish they were not your uncles!” cried Francois II. “I particularly dislike the cardinal; and when he puts on his wheedling air and his submissive manner and says to me, bowing: ‘Sire, the honor of the crown and the faith of your fathers forbid your Majesty to—this and that,’ I am sure he is working only for his cursed house of Lorraine.”
“Oh, how well you mimicked him!” cried the queen. “But why don’t you make the Guises inform you of what is going on, so that when you attain your grand majority you may know how to reign yourself? I am your wife, and your honor is mine. Trust me! we will reign together, my darling; but it won’t be a bed of roses for us until the day comes when we have our own wills. There is nothing so difficult for a king as to reign. Am I a queen, for example? Don’t you know that your mother returns me evil for all the good my uncles do to raise the splendor of your throne? Hey! what difference between them! My uncles are great princes, nephews of Charlemagne, filled with ardor and ready to die for you; whereas this daughter of a doctor or a shopkeeper, queen of France by accident, scolds like a burgher-woman who can’t manage her own household. She is discontented because she can’t set every one by the ears; and then she looks at me with a sour, pale face, and says from her pinched lips: ‘My daughter, you are a queen; I am only the second woman in the kingdom’ (she is really furious, you know, my darling), ‘but if I were in your place I should not wear crimson velvet while all the court is in mourning; neither should I appear in public with my own hair and no jewels, because what is not becoming in a simple lady is still less becoming in a queen. Also I should not dance myself, I should content myself with seeing others dance.’—that is what she says to me—”
“Heavens!” cried the king, “I think I hear her coming. If she were to know—”
“Oh, how you tremble before her. She worries you. Only say so, and we will send her away. Faith, she’s Florentine and we can’t help her tricking you, but when it comes to worrying—”
“For Heaven’s sake, Mary, hold your tongue!” said Francois, frightened and also pleased; “I don’t want you to lose her good-will.”
“Don’t be afraid that she will ever break with me, who will some day wear the three noblest crowns in the world, my dearest little king,” cried Mary Stuart. “Though she hates me for a thousand reasons she is always caressing me in the hope of turning me against my uncles.”
“Hates you!”
“Yes, my angel; and if I had not proofs of that feeling such as women only understand, for they alone know its malignity, I would forgive her perpetual opposition to our dear love, my darling. Is it my fault that your father could not endure Mademoiselle Medici or that his son loves me? The truth is, she hates me so much that if you had not put yourself into a rage, we should each have had our separate chamber at Saint-Germain, and also here. She pretended it was the custom of the kings and queens of France. Custom, indeed! it was your father’s custom, and that is easily understood. As for your grandfather, Francois, the good man set up the custom for the convenience of his loves. Therefore, I say, take care. And if we have to leave this place, be sure that we are not separated.”
“Leave Blois! Mary, what do you mean? I don’t wish to leave this beautiful chateau, where we can see the Loire and the country all round us, with a town at our feet and all these pretty gardens. If I go away it will be to Italy with you, to see St. Peter’s, and Raffaelle’s pictures.”
“And the orange-trees? Oh! my darling king, if you knew the longing your Mary has to ramble among the orange-groves in fruit and flower!”
“Let us go, then!” cried the king.
“Go!” exclaimed the grand-master as he entered the room. “Yes, sire, you must leave Blois. Pardon my boldness in entering your chamber; but circumstances are stronger than etiquette, and I come to entreat you to hold a council.”
Finding themselves thus surprised, Mary and Francois hastily separated, and on their faces was the same expression of offended royal majesty.
“You are too much of a grand-master, Monsieur de Guise,” said the king, though controlling his anger.
“The devil take lovers,” murmured the cardinal in Catherine’s ear.
“My son,” said the queen-mother, appearing behind the cardinal; “it is a matter concerning your safety and that of your kingdom.”
“Heresy wakes while you have slept, sire,” said the cardinal.
“Withdraw into the hall,” cried the little king, “and then we will hold a council.”
“Madame,” said the grand-master to the young queen; “the son of your furrier has brought some furs, which was just in time for the journey, for it is probable we shall sail down the Loire. But,” he added, turning to the queen-mother, “he also wishes to speak to you, madame. While the king dresses, you and Madame la reine had better see and dismiss him, so that we may not be delayed and harassed by this trifle.”
“Certainly,” said Catherine, thinking to herself, “If he expects to get rid of me by any such trick he little knows me.”
The cardinal and the duke withdrew, leaving the two queens and the king alone together. As they crossed the salle des gardes to enter the council-chamber, the grand-master told the usher to bring the queen’s furrier to him. When Christophe saw the usher approaching from the farther end of the great hall, he took him, on account of his uniform, for some great personage, and his heart sank within him. But that sensation, natural as it was at the approach of the critical moment, grew terrible when the usher, whose movement had attracted the eyes of all that brilliant assembly upon Christophe, his homely face and his bundles, said to him:—
“Messeigneurs the Cardinal de Lorraine and the Grand-master wish to speak to you in the council chamber.”
“Can I have been betrayed?” thought the helpless ambassador of the Reformers.
Christophe followed the usher with lowered eyes, which he did not raise till he stood in the great council-chamber, the size of which is almost equal to that of the salle des gardes. The two Lorrain princes were there alone, standing before the magnificent fireplace, which backs against that in the salle des gardes around which the ladies of the two queens were grouped.
“You have come from Paris; which route did you take?” said the cardinal.
“I came by water, monseigneur,” replied the reformer.
“How did you enter Blois?” asked the grand-master.
“By the docks, monseigneur.”
“Did no one question you?” exclaimed the duke, who was watching the young man closely.
“No, monseigneur. To the first soldier who looked as if he meant to stop me I said I came on duty to the two queens, to whom my father was furrier.”
“What is happening in Paris?” asked the cardinal.
“They are still looking for the murderer of the President Minard.”
“Are you not the son of my surgeon’s greatest friend?” said the Duc de Guise, misled by the candor of Christophe’s expression after his first alarm had passed away.
“Yes, monseigneur.”
The Grand-master turned aside, abruptly raised the portiere which concealed the double door of the council-chamber, and showed his face to the whole assembly, among whom he was searching for the king’s surgeon. Ambroise Pare, standing in a corner, caught a glance which the duke cast upon him, and immediately advanced. Ambroise, who at this time was inclined to the reformed religion, eventually adopted it; but the friendship of the Guises and that of the kings of France guaranteed him against the evils which overtook his co-religionists. The duke, who considered himself under obligations for life to Ambroise Pare, had lately caused him to be appointed chief-surgeon to the king.
“What is it, monseigneur?” said Ambroise. “Is the king ill? I think it likely.”
“Likely? Why?”
“The queen is too pretty,” replied the surgeon.
“Ah!” exclaimed the duke in astonishment. “However, that is not the matter now,” he added after a pause. “Ambroise, I want you to see a friend of yours.” So saying he drew him to the door of the council-room, and showed him Christophe.
“Ha! true, monseigneur,” cried the surgeon, extending his hand to the young furrier. “How is your father, my lad?”
“Very well, Maitre Ambroise,” replied Christophe.
“What are you doing at court?” asked the surgeon. “It is not your business to carry parcels; your father intends you for the law. Do you want the protection of these two great princes to make you a solicitor?”
“Indeed I do!” said Christophe; “but I am here only in the interests of my father; and if you could intercede for us, please do so,” he added in a piteous tone; “and ask the Grand Master for an order to pay certain sums that are due to my father, for he is at his wit’s end just now for money.”
The cardinal and the duke glanced at each other and seemed satisfied.
“Now leave us,” said the duke to the surgeon, making him a sign. “And you my friend,” turning to Christophe; “do your errand quickly and return to Paris. My secretary will give you a pass, for it is not safe, mordieu, to be travelling on the high-roads!”
Neither of the brothers formed the slightest suspicion of the grave importance of Christophe’s errand, convinced, as they now were, that he was really the son of the good Catholic Lecamus, the court furrier, sent to collect payment for their wares.
“Take him close to the door of the queen’s chamber; she will probably ask for him soon,” said the cardinal to the surgeon, motioning to Christophe.
While the son of the furrier was undergoing this brief examination in the council-chamber, the king, leaving the queen in company with her mother-in-law, had passed into his dressing-room, which was entered through another small room next to the chamber.
Standing in the wide recess of an immense window, Catherine looked at the gardens, her mind a prey to painful thoughts. She saw that in all probability one of the greatest captains of the age would be foisted that very day into the place and power of her son, the king of France, under the formidable title of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. Before this peril she stood alone, without power of action, without defence. She might have been likened to a phantom, as she stood there in her mourning garments (which she had not quitted since the death of Henri II.) so motionless was her pallid face in the grasp of her bitter reflections. Her black eyes floated in that species of indecision for which great statesmen are so often blamed, though it comes from the vast extent of the glance with which they embrace all difficulties,—setting one against the other, and adding up, as it were, all chances before deciding on a course. Her ears rang, her blood tingled, and yet she stood there calm and dignified, all the while measuring in her soul the depths of the political abyss which lay before her, like the natural depths which rolled away at her feet. This day was the second of those terrible days (that of the arrest of the Vidame of Chartres being the first) which she was destined to meet in so great numbers throughout her regal life; it also witnessed her last blunder in the school of power. Though the sceptre seemed escaping from her hands, she wished to seize it; and she did seize it by a flash of that power of will which was never relaxed by either the disdain of her father-in-law, Francois I., and his court,—where, in spite of her rank of dauphiness, she had been of no account,—or the constant repulses of her husband, Henri II., and the terrible opposition of her rival, Diane de Poitiers. A man would never have fathomed this thwarted queen; but the fair-haired Mary—so subtle, so clever, so girlish, and already so well-trained—examined her out of the corners of her eyes as she hummed an Italian air and assumed a careless countenance. Without being able to guess the storms of repressed ambition which sent the dew of a cold sweat to the forehead of the Florentine, the pretty Scotch girl, with her wilful, piquant face, knew very well that the advancement of her uncle the Duc de Guise to the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom was filling the queen-mother with inward rage. Nothing amused her more than to watch her mother-in-law, in whom she saw only an intriguing woman of low birth, always ready to avenge herself. The face of the one was grave and gloomy, and somewhat terrible, by reason of the livid tones which transform the skin of Italian women to yellow ivory by daylight, though it recovers its dazzling brilliancy under candlelight; the face of the other was fair and fresh and gay. At sixteen, Mary Stuart’s skin had that exquisite blond whiteness which made her beauty so celebrated. Her fresh and piquant face, with its pure lines, shone with the roguish mischief of childhood, expressed in the regular eyebrows, the vivacious eyes, and the archness of the pretty mouth. Already she displayed those feline graces which nothing, not even captivity nor the sight of her dreadful scaffold, could lessen. The two queens—one at the dawn, the other in the midsummer of life—presented at this moment the utmost contrast. Catherine was an imposing queen, an impenetrable widow, without other passion than that of power. Mary was a light-hearted, careless bride, making playthings of her triple crowns. One foreboded great evils,—foreseeing the assassination of the Guises as the only means of suppressing enemies who were resolved to rise above the Throne and the Parliament; foreseeing also the bloodshed of a long and bitter struggle; while the other little anticipated her own judicial murder. A sudden and strange reflection calmed the mind of the Italian.
“That sorceress and Ruggiero both declare this reign is coming to an end; my difficulties will not last long,” she thought.
And so, strangely enough, an occult science forgotten in our day—that of astrology—supported Catherine at this moment, as it did, in fact, throughout her life; for, as she witnessed the minute fulfilment of the prophecies of those who practised the art, her belief in it steadily increased.
“You are very gloomy, madame,” said Mary Stuart, taking from the hands of her waiting-woman, Dayelle, a little cap and placing the point of it on the parting of her hair, while two wings of rich lace surrounded the tufts of blond curls which clustered on her temples.
The pencil of many painters have so frequently represented this head-dress that it is thought to have belonged exclusively to Mary Queen of Scots; whereas it was really invented by Catherine de’ Medici, when she put on mourning for Henri II. But she never knew how to wear it with the grace of her daughter-in-law, to whom it was becoming. This annoyance was not the least among the many which the queen-mother cherished against the young queen.
“Is the queen reproving me?” said Catherine, turning to Mary.
“I owe you all respect, and should not dare to do so,” said the Scottish queen, maliciously, glancing at Dayelle.
Placed between the rival queens, the favorite waiting-woman stood rigid as an andiron; a smile of comprehension might have cost her her life.
“Can I be as gay as you, after losing the late king, and now beholding my son’s kingdom about to burst into flames?”
“Public affairs do not concern women,” said Mary Stuart. “Besides, my uncles are there.”
These words were, under the circumstances, like so many poisoned arrows.
“Let us look at our furs, madame,” replied the Italian, sarcastically; “that will employ us on our legitimate female affairs while your uncles decide those of the kingdom.”
“Oh! but we will go the Council, madame; we shall be more useful than you think.”
“We!” said Catherine, with an air of astonishment. “But I do not understand Latin, myself.”
“You think me very learned,” cried Mary Stuart, laughing, “but I assure you, madame, I study only to reach the level of the Medici, and learn how to cure the wounds of the kingdom.”
Catherine was silenced by this sharp thrust, which referred to the origin of the Medici, who were descended, some said, from a doctor of medicine, others from a rich druggist. She made no direct answer. Dayelle colored as her mistress looked at her, asking for the applause that even queens demand from their inferiors if there are no other spectators.
“Your charming speeches, madame, will unfortunately cure the wounds of neither Church nor State,” said Catherine at last, with her calm and cold dignity. “The science of my fathers in that direction gave them thrones; whereas if you continue to trifle in the midst of danger you are liable to lose yours.”
It was at this moment that Ambroise Pare, the chief surgeon, scratched softly on the door, and Madame Dayelle, opening it, admitted Christophe.