The Italian Woman Part 26

As she lay in her bed, she was aware vaguely of the people about her; she was not sure where she was. At times she thought that she was in the Palace of Saint-Germain, and that in the room below, Henry, her husband, was making love to Diane. At others she thought she was riding in the forest near Fontainebleau or Amboise, and that, beside her, rode the King King Francis, her father-in-law and the ladies of his Pet.i.te Bande.

Then she would have moments of full consciousness. She would remember that her beloved son Henry was bravely fighting the Huguenot army, that King Charles was becoming more and more mad and must soon give place to his brother, who was growing more and more worthy of kings.h.i.+p. Then she would think that Margot must be married soon. The marriage with Sebastian had fallen through, as Philip of Spain now wanted him for one of his female relatives; but Margot should be married, for Margot was a wicked, wanton girl. She had taken another lover and scandalous stories were whispered about her; some said that she still had her eyes on Henry of Guise, and that only her stubborn pride prevented her from taking up her relations.h.i.+p with him where it had ceased on his marriage to Catherine of Cleves. They said that Margot took this new lover in order to flaunt him in the presence of young Henry of Guise, and that there was a smouldering pa.s.sion between these two which must blaze up sooner or later. Catherine's first duty was to find a husband for Margot and who was there but the boy to whom her father had pledged her when they were little more than babies? Henry of Navarre! It would mean summoning him to court. By all accounts, he was as profligate as Margot, so they would make a good pair. Let them marry and satisfy each other if satisfaction were possible to either of them.

Margot would be the Queen of Navarre. Well, that had been a good enough t.i.tle for the sister of Francis the First, and it should be good enough for the present Marguerite de Valois, for wicked little Margot. Catherine decided that if she ever got up from this sick-bed she would start negotiations immediately. Once she had the young Prince of Navarre at court it should not be difficult to change him into a Catholic, in spite of his mother's teaching. She was looking forward to another conflict with Madame Jeanne.

Now her thoughts had turned to another Henry, her beloved son, her 'All'. She knew that there was fighting round about Jarnac and that Coligny and Conde together stood in opposition to her darling. Two men Conde and her son were now in danger, and for both of these men she had felt tenderness. She had enjoyed those conversations with gallant Conde, the gay philanderer; she had cherished those moments when his kiss had lingered on her hand. But it was nonsense to think of such things. Who wanted love when there was power to be won?

She might have prayed for her son's victory, but she did not really believe in prayer. There was no G.o.d for her; there was only Catherine, the Queen Mother, the power behind the throne. There were no miracles except those performed by clever people like herself.

How hot it was in this room! Her sight seemed to be fading. There were shadowy figures about her bed. Ah, there was the King, her little mad Charles; and with him her daughter, wanton Margot, as yet unwed, yet more versed in the ways of love than many a matron of years' standing. There were others in the room, but she felt that they were too remote to be recognised.

What was happening at Jarnac? The dawn was breaking and the battle would soon begin. There was a cold sweat all over her, and she was afraid.

She wanted to call for Cosmo or Lorenzo Ruggieri. But she was no longer in the sick-room at Metz. She was somewhere out of doors, for she could feel the wind blowing on her face. Then suddenly she heard the voice of her son Henry; it was raised in prayer; then she heard him addressing his men, and she realised that she must be on the battlefield at Jarnac.

'Conde ... Conde ... Conde ...' She heard the name coming to her clearly over the cold air.

'Conde must be killed before nightfall ...'

Catherine's lips moved. Not Conde ... not the gallant little Prince. She did not want him for a lover, but he was so agreeable, so charming.

Now she heard Conde's voice. He too was talking to his men; she caught the note of fanaticism which she had noticed so many times in so many people. 'Louis de Bourbon goes to fight for Christ and his country.'

She must have said something aloud, for the sound of her voice had broken the spell and she was back in the sick-room.

'Mother,' said Charles. 'Mother, do you wish for a prelate?'

A prelate? So she was near death. Death! What was death? A beginning again ... a new fight for power in a fresh sphere?

Then the room faded and she was back on the field of battle. She saw Conde clearly in the light of morning, his handsome head thrown back, a smile on his lips; and then suddenly he was down; she saw him lying on the ground, the blood at his lips, the death rattle in his throat.

'Look!' cried Catherine. 'See how they flee! Conde is dead. He lies in the hedge there. He can never recover. His wound is too deep. Conde ... ah, Conde ... he is no more. But Henry ... my darling ... Henry is victorious once more. The battle is yours. Conde is dead. Coligny has fled. All honour to you, my love, my darling.'

The King turned to Margot and said: 'She dreams of the battle. She has thought of nothing else since she knew my brother was to fight to-day.'

Margot watched her mother without pity, without love. There was no pity nor love in Margot; there was only perpetual bitterness, a poignant memory, and a deep longing for the man she had vowed to hate.

'Is the end near?' asked the King.

None was sure, but all looked grave.

The end of Catherine de' Medici, the end of the Italian woman! What changes would that bring to France?

But in the morning Catherine was better; and when, a few days later, news of the Battle of Jarnac was brought to Metz, it was thought that to hear of her son's victory would cheer her and help her through her convalescence.

She was sleeping lightly and Charles, with Margot and others, stood at her bedside.

'Mother,' said Charles gently, 'the battle is won. This is another victory for Henry. Conde is dead.'

She smiled serenely; she was her old self now, rapidly recovering from her fever.

'And why should you be so tedious as to awaken me and tell me that?' she demanded. 'Did I not know? Did I not tell you ... as it was happening?'

Those in the room with Charles and Margot exchanged glances. Margot paled; Charles trembled. This woman, their mother, was no ordinary woman, no ordinary Queen; she had strange powers not given to others.

It was small wonder that she could terrify them as no one else on Earth had power to do.

After the great news of the victory of Jarnac, a strange gloom fell on the court. The King, more jealous of his brother than of any living person, was thrown into melancholy. 'Now,' he told his little Marie, 'my mother will glorify him more than ever. She longs to see him on the throne. Oh, Marie, I am frightened, because she is no ordinary woman, and what she desires comes to pa.s.s. She wishes me dead, and it is said that when my mother wishes a person dead, then he is as good as dead.'

But Marie took the King into her arms and a.s.sured him that this was not so. He must be calm and brave and not think of death. He must remember he was the King.

Charles tried; but he hated his brother. He refused to let him have the cannon he asked for, which was foolish and could only lead to trouble; and he knew that if he made trouble like that, matters would be brought to a head and that vague danger which haunted him all the time would come nearer to him.

Margot was anxious. Henry of Guise was fighting with the Catholic army, and she dreaded that what had happened to Conde might happen to Henry of Guise. When he was not at court, it was safe to admit to herself that her pa.s.sion for him was as strong as ever. If Henry died, she would not wish to live. She prayed hourly that he might come safely home, if only to his wife.

Catherine had her difficulties. She was quite well now, but she was being tormented by Alava, the Spanish envoy; he reproached her bitterly. She had not followed up her advantages; she had been too lenient towards the Huguenots. His Most Catholic Majesty was not pleased with the Queen Mother.

'My lord,' said Catherine, in mock despair, 'what could I do? I no longer have the power that I had. My sons are becoming men, and I am just a weak woman.'

'Madame, you rule your sons, and it is you who have given Coligny the leisure to get an army together.'

'But, my lord, what can I do? I am as good a Catholic as you ... as your master ... but what can I do?'

'Have you forgotten, Madame, the conversation you had with the Duke of Alva at Bayonne?'

'Not a word of that, I beg of you. Such a plan would be useless if bruited abroad.'

'It must be carried out, and it must be soon. Kill the leaders ... every one. Coligny must die. The Queen of Navarre must die. They cannot be allowed to live. Madame, I hear you have means at your disposal. You have a known reputation in this art of removal. And yet the most dangerous man and woman in your kingdom the most dangerous to yourself and your throne are allowed to live and to build up an army to fight against you.'

'But, my lord, Coligny is not here. He is in camp. The Queen of Navarre would not come if I asked her. I have despatched Coligny's two brothers Odet and Andelot the latter in England. Was not that subtle? He dies suddenly, in that austere land. Of what very few know. I had my friends in his suite.'

'That was well done. But what use destroying the minnows when the salmon flourishes?'

'We shall get our salmon, my friend, but in good time.'

'His Most Catholic Majesty would ask, Madame, when is good time? When your kingdom has been wrested from you?'

She put her head close to that of the Spaniard. 'My son Henry is on his way to me. I will give him something ... something which I know how to prepare myself. He shall have his spies in the Admiral's camp, and before long, my lord, you will have heard the last of Monsieur de Coligny.'

'I trust so, Madame.'

After that conversation and another with her son Henry, Catherine waited to hear news of the Admiral's death. She had given her son a subtle poison which would produce death a few days after it was administered. Her son's Captain of the Guard had been brought into the plot, for he was on good terms with Coligny's valet. A satisfactory bribe and the deed would be done.

She waited now for one of her visions. She wished to see Coligny's death as she had seen that of Conde. But she waited in vain.

Later she heard that the plot had been discovered.

Coligny was a man of wide popularity, adored by too many; it was not easy to remove such a man.

Catherine began to grow terrified of Coligny. She did not understand him. He fought with such earnestness; he drew men to him. He had some quality which was quite outside Catherine's understanding; and for that reason she wished to have peace with him. And so she arranged for the Peace of Saint-Germain, in which, so that she might be at peace with this man whose righteousness was so alien to her, she gave way to many of his demands. She had to grant liberty of wors.h.i.+p in all towns that were already Protestant; Protestants were to be admitted to office with Catholics, and on equal terms; four towns were to be handed over to Coligny as security for Catholic good faith Montaban and Cognac as a bastion in the south, La Charite in the centre, and La Roch.e.l.le to guard the sea.

The Huguenots rejoiced at all they had won, and Catherine felt at peace temporarily, so that she might turn her mind to domestic matters.

Negotiations for the marriage of Charles were now in progress. That farcical attempt to make a marriage between Elizabeth of England and Charles was at an end, but Catherine did not abandon altogether the idea of a union with England. She would subst.i.tute another of her sons as suitor to the Virgin Queen in Charles's place, and as no satisfactory arrangement had been made for Charles with Elizabeth of England, he should have Elisabeth of Austria.

Charles studied the pictures of his bride-to-be, liking the pale beauty, the meekness of expression.

'I doubt that such a one will give me much cause for anxiety,' he said.

The marriage gave Catherine little cause for anxiety also. It seemed very clear now that Charles would never produce healthy children; nor would marriage and its attendant excitements tend to lengthen the life of such a hysterical and unbalanced creature as this son; and so, on a misty November day in the year 1570, Charles the Ninth of France was married to Elisabeth of Austria.

In the town of La Roch.e.l.le another but very romantic wedding was taking place. Jeanne of Navarre, preparing herself for the ceremony, thought with friendly envy of her dear friend Gaspard de Coligny, and prayed that he might acquire that rich happiness which he deserved. And he would, she was sure. He was made for such happiness. His first marriage had been ideal. His wife had wors.h.i.+pped him; and Coligny had been one of those husbands of whom women like Jeanne dreamed.

He had suffered bitterly on the death of his wife, but his life was so full and busy, and there was, Jeanne knew, one thing in it which must always come before wife and family, before the consideration of his personal happiness; and that was honour, the long and weary fight for the cause which he believed, with Jeanne, was the only true religion for the French.

It was a simple wedding, after the Huguenot fas.h.i.+on. And how n.o.ble was the bridegroom in the dignity of his years and that stern handsomeness that could only accompany a righteous and an honourable nature! Jeanne's eyes filled with tears, as she compared this bridegroom with another more handsome perhaps in a worldly way, in his gorgeous apparel, the fas.h.i.+onable court gentleman Antoine! It was so long ago, but it would never be forgotten by her.

Beside her stood her son, handsome with his dark hair and lively black eyes which were fixed on one of the women there in the church; his thoughts were not those which should come to a young man at such a time. The full, sensuous lips were curved into a smile. She tried not to think of him as the young philanderer, the lazy sensualist, but as a man of battle, the son who had sworn to serve the Huguenot cause as his mother and the great Gaspard de Coligny had taught him to do.

The bride was young and beautiful, a widow, earnest and devout, laying such devotion at Coligny's feet as he had received from his first wife; that devotion which, so effortlessly, he seemed to inspire in so many.

She had come from Savoy, this Jacqueline d'Entremont; a widow of great property, for years she had been an ardent admirer of Coligny's. He was a hero to her as he was to so many Huguenot ladies; she had told Jeanne that she had followed his adventures with enthusiasm, and each day her longing to serve him had increased. When she had heard of his wife's death she had determined to comfort him, and against the wishes of her family and the Duke of Savoy, she had travelled to La Roch.e.l.le. Here she met Coligny himself and, so great was her love that he had after a little while found that he could not be indifferent to it, and later that he returned it.

'May the Lord bless them both,' prayed Jeanne.

As for herself, she was growing old; she was now just past forty. She should not be so foolish as to feel envious of her friend's happiness.

And how pleasant it was, in the weeks that followed, to see the happiness of these two and to have some share in it. Friends.h.i.+p between Jeanne and Jacqueline grew as once it had grown between Jeanne and her sister-in-law, the Princess Eleonore of Conde.

Then came the letters from court.

These were letters from the woman who represented herself as a poor mother, anxious for the welfare of her country. Now that there was peace in this tortured land, she needed such a great man as Coligny to help her and her son to govern. Coligny must come with all speed to Blois, for she was most eager to consolidate this uneasy peace. The Queen Mother had succeeded in having the Spanish envoy, Alava, recalled to Spain, so there would be no awkward meeting of the Huguenot leader with the emissary of Philip of Spain. Would Coligny not come and help a poor weak woman? Would he not give that advice which was so sorely needed and might result in years of peace for his country?

Coligny read the letters and was excited by them. An invitation to court from which for ten years he had been more or less an exile! What could he not do if he had the ear of the King and Queen Mother? He began to dream of war against Philip of Spain, of an extended French Empire.

When he told Jeanne and Jacqueline what the letters contained, they were horrified. Jeanne was reminded of another occasion, when her Antoine had been called to court.

'It is a trap!' she cried. 'Can you not recognise the insincerity of the Queen Mother?'

'My dearest husband, I beg of you, take care,' cried Jacqueline. 'Do not walk into this trap. They mean to kill you. Remember the plot which was foiled only just in time ... the plot to poison you while you were in camp.'

'My beloved wife, my dear good friend and sovereign, this is a chance which should not be missed.'

'A chance for your enemies to kill you?' demanded Jeanne.

'A chance to put the case for the Huguenots before the rulers of this land. A chance to bring about the Reformation in France. This is a call from Heaven. I must go to court.'

At length they knew it was useless to try to dissuade him, and the happiness of the bride was clouded with great misgiving. The Queen of Navarre felt resigned; no one, it seemed, understood the deadly quality of the Queen Mother as she did. Catherine was surely behind that plot to poison Coligny in camp. What fresh mischief was being planned in that tortuous mind concerning him?

They would see; meanwhile Jeanne increased her prayers for the Admiral's safety.

With two hundred and fifty men, Coligny rode up the hill towards the Castle of Blois. He was conscious of the tension among his followers. They, like his wife and Jeanne and the people of La Roch.e.l.le, thought it folly to ride straight into the trap his enemies had probably prepared for him. He was anxious to calm their fears. There was no good purpose, he said, in looking for evil; when it was found, let them try to stamp it out, but until it was manifested, let there be trust.

There was none to greet the party when they arrived at the castle, and this was ominous. Coligny called to a man who appeared in the courtyard, and asked that he might be conducted at once to the Queen Mother.

When he was eventually taken to her, King Charles was with her. Coligny knelt at the King's feet, but Charles begged him not to kneel. He embraced the Admiral with great friendliness, and lifted his eyes to the stern, handsome face.

'I am glad to see you here, my father,' he said, using that form of address which he himself had given Coligny during that earlier friends.h.i.+p of theirs. 'We shall not let you go now we have got you.'

There was no mistaking the honest intentions of the young King; he had always been fond of the Admiral.

Catherine watched the pair closely. She greeted the Admiral with a warmth which completely disguised her hatred. Her smile seemed as frank as her son's; and Coligny accepted the smile at its face value.

They took Coligny to the apartments of the King's brother Henry, Duke of Anjou.

Henry was in bed; he was, so Catherine had explained to Coligny, slightly indisposed, and for this reason had been unable to greet the Admiral with the ceremony due to him. Henry was clad in a garment of crimson silk, and there was a necklace of precious stones about his neck, which stones matched those in his ears. The room was like a woman's room; an odour of musk hung about it. Seated close to the bed were two of Henry's favourites, very beautiful young men, their garments fantastically exaggerated and almost feminine, their faces painted, their hair curled. They bowed to the King and the Queen Mother, but the glances they gave to Coligny were insolent.

Henry, languidly and with no attempt at sincerity, said that it delighted him to see the Admiral at court. He would be forgiven, he knew, for not leaving his bed. He was most indisposed.

Coligny's hopes were high.

But that evening as he walked from his apartments to the banqueting hall, in a dimly lighted corridor he came face to face with the Duke of Montpensier. Coligny knew Montpensier for a firm Catholic and a man of honour. Montpensier made no secret of his hatred for the Huguenot cause, but his hatred of treachery was equally intense.

'Monsieur,' whispered Montpensier, 'are you mad? To have come here in this manner is folly! Have you no idea of the sort of people with whom we have to deal? You are rash indeed to walk dark corridors such as this one alone.'

Coligny said: 'I am under the King's roof. I have the King's pledge for my safety.'

Montpensier put his mouth close to Coligny's ear.

'Do you not know, man, that the King is not master in his own house? Take care.'

Coligny thought, as he went down to the banqueting hall, that there might be much in what Montpensier said; but he felt that he had received a call from on high; and the Huguenot cause was dearer to him than his own life.

The King was delighted to have Coligny at court.

'Such a man as this,' he told Marie, 'I would fain be. He knows no fear. He does not care if a.s.sa.s.sins lie in wait for him. He would meet his death willingly, eagerly ... if he thought it was G.o.d's Will. Would that I were like Coligny!'

'I love you as you are, my dearest Sire.'

He laughed, and caressed her.

'The Huguenots cannot be wicked,' he said. 'Coligny is one, and he is the n.o.blest man I know. Ambroise Pare is the greatest surgeon in France, and he is one. I said to him, "Do you cure Catholics as well as Huguenots, Monsieur Pare? Or when you wield the knife, do you sometimes let it slip ... when your patient is a Catholic?" And he said to me, "Sire, when I wield the knife, I do not remember whether my patient is a Catholic or a Huguenot. I do not think of faith at such a time. I think only of my skill." And that is true, Marie. There is something fine about such men. I would I were like them. Must I spend my whole life longing to be like others? I should like to write verses as Ronsard does, to be a great leader as is my dear friend Coligny, to be handsome and brave and have many women loving me, like Henry of Guise; and I should like to have won great battles and be my mother's favourite, as is my brother Henry.'

His brow darkened at the thought of his brother. He hated Henry as he hated no other, for he knew that Henry hated him; he was wondering if a plot was being prepared by Henry and his mother, a plot to take the crown from him and place it on Henry's head.

Henry hated Coligny as much as Charles loved the man. Catherine had prevailed on Henry to receive Coligny, but Henry had sulked and pretended to be ill. Henry was obviously dangerous dangerous to the King and to Coligny.

Charles's friends.h.i.+p with Coligny grew. He would not let the Admiral out of his sight if he could help it. Coligny talked to the King of his plans for a united France, in which he wished to include the Netherlands.