Old Court Life in France, vol. 1

“Peste! you know I do. He is as great a hero as Rinaldo in the Italian poet’s romance of Orlando. Somewhat sedate, perhaps, for me, but so handsome, spite of that scar. I even love that scar, Charlotte.”

“Does the Duke love you?” again asks Charlotte, with a trembling voice.

“Par exemple! do you think the man lives who would not return my love?” and the young Princess colours, and tosses the masses of waving brown curls back from her brow, staring at her companion in unfeigned astonishment.

“I was thinking,” continues Charlotte, avoiding her gaze, and speaking in a peculiar voice, “I was thinking of that poor La Molle, left alone in Paris. How jealous he was! You loved him well, madame, a week ago.”

“Bah! that is ancient history – we are at Chenonceau now. When I return to Paris it is possible I may console him. Poor La Molle! one cannot be always constant. Charlotte,” said the Princess, after a pause, looking inquisitively at her, “I believe you are in love with the Balafré yourself.”

Charlotte colours, and, not daring to trust her voice in reply, shakes her head and bends her eyes on the ground.

Marguerite, too much occupied with her own thoughts to take much heed of her friend’s emotion, pats her fondly on the cheek, and proceeds —

“You are dull, ma mie; amuse yourself like me, now with one, then with another. Be constant to none. Regard your own interest and inclination only. But leave Guise alone; he is my passion. His proud reserve pleases me. His stately devotion touches me. He is a king among men. I love to torment the hero of Jarnac and Moncontour. He is jealous, too – jealous of the very air I breathe; but in time, that may become wearisome. I never thought of that,” adds she, musing.

“Your highness will marry soon,” says Charlotte, rising and facing the Princess, “and then Guise must console himself – ”

“With you, par exemple, belle des belles? You need not blush so, Charlotte, I read your secret. But, ma mie, I mean to marry Henri de Guise myself, even if my mother and the King, my brother, refuse their consent. They may beat me – imprison me – or banish me; I will still marry Henri de Guise.”

“Her Majesty will never consent to this alliance, madame.”

“You are jealous, Charlotte, or you would not say so. Why should I not marry him, when my sister-in-law, the young Queen of Scots, is of the House of Lorraine?”

“Yes, madame, but the case is altogether different; she is a Queen-regnant. The house of Lorraine is already too powerful.”

“Ah!” exclaims the volatile Marguerite, starting up, “I love freedom; freedom in life, freedom in love. Charlotte, you say truly, I shall never be constant.”

“Then, alas, for your husband! He must love you, and you will break his heart.”

“Husband! I will have no husband but Henri de Guise. Guise or a convent. I should make an enchanting nun!” And she laughs a low merry laugh, springs to her feet, and turns a pirouette on the floor. “I think the dress would suit me. I would write Latin elegies on all my old lovers.”

“You will hear somewhat of that, madame, later from the Queen,” Charlotte replies, with a triumphant air. “A husband is chosen for you already.”

“Who? Who is he?”

“You will learn from her Majesty very shortly.”

“Charlotte, if you do not tell me this instant, I will never forgive you;” and Marguerite suddenly becomes grave and reseats herself. “Next time you want my help I won’t move a finger.”

“I dare not tell you, madame.”

“Then I will tell Guise to-night you are in love with him,” cries she, reddening with anger.

“Oh, Princess,” exclaims Charlotte, sinking at her feet, and seizing her hand; “you would not be so cruel!”

“But I will, unless you tell me.”

At this moment, when Marguerite was dragging her friend beside her on the sofa, determined to obtain an avowal from her almost by force, the low door opens, and Catherine stands before them.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A DUTIFUL DAUGHTER

THE two girls were startled and visibly trembled; but, recovering from their fright, rose and made their obeisance. For a moment Catherine gazed earnestly at them, as if divining the reason of their discomposure; then beckoning to the Princess, she led her daughter into her writing-room, where she seated herself beside a table covered with despatches and papers.

“My daughter,” said the Queen, contemplating Marguerite with satisfaction, as the Princess stood before her, her cheeks flushed by the fright that Catherine’s sudden entrance had occasioned. “I have commanded a masque to-night on the river, and a banquet in the water-gallery, to celebrate my return. You will attend me and be careful not to leave me, my child. Strangers have been seen among the woods. Did you not mark one as we approached riding near us?” And Catherine gave a searching glance at Marguerite. “I have given strict orders that all strangers (Huguenots, probably, with evil designs upon his Majesty) shall be arrested and imprisoned.”

Again Catherine turned her piercing eyes upon Marguerite, who suddenly grew very pale.

“My daughter, you seem indisposed, the heat has overcome you – be seated.”

Marguerite sank into a chair near the door. She knew that her mother had recognised the Duke, and that it would be infinitely difficult to keep her appointment with him that evening. Neither mother nor daughter spoke for some moments. Catherine was studying the effect of her words on Marguerite, and Marguerite was endeavouring to master her agitation. When the Queen next addressed her, the Princess was still pale but perfectly composed.

“My daughter, you passed much of your time before you left the Louvre with the Comte la Molle. I know he is highly favoured by my son Anjou. Does his company amuse you?”

Marguerite’s cheeks became scarlet.

“Your Majesty has ever commanded me,” replied she in a firm voice, “to converse with those young nobles whom you and my brother the King have called to the Court.”

“True, my child, you have done so, I acknowledge freely, and, by such gracious bearing you have, doubtless, forwarded his Majesty’s interests.” There was again silence. “Our cousin, the young Duc Henri de Guise, is also much in your company,” Catherine said at length, speaking very slowly and turning her eyes full upon Marguerite who, for an instant, returned her gaze boldly. “I warn you, Marguerite, that neither the King my son, nor I, will tolerate more alliances with the ambitious House of Lorraine. They stand too near the throne already.”

Marguerite during this speech did not look up, not daring to meet the steadfast glance of the Queen.

“Surely,” said she, speaking low, “your Majesty has been prejudiced against the Duke by my brother Charles. His Majesty hates him. He is jealous of him.”

“My child, speak with more respect of his Majesty.”

“Madame, the King has threatened to beat me if I dared to love the Duc de Guise. But I am your Majesty’s own child,” and Marguerite turned towards Catherine caressingly. “I fear not threats.” Catherine smiled and curiously observed her. “But your Majesty surely forgets,” continued Marguerite, warmly, “that our cousin of Guise is the chief pillar of the throne, a hero who, at sixteen, vanquished Coligni at Poitiers; and that at Massignac and Jarnac, in company with my brother Anjou, he performed prodigies of valour.”

“My daughter, I forget nothing. You appear to have devoted much time to the study of the Duke – our cousin’s life. It is a brilliant page in our history. I have, however, other projects for you. You must support the throne by a royal marriage.”

“Oh, madame!” exclaimed Marguerite, heaving a deep sigh, and clasping her hands as she looked imploringly at her mother, who proceeded to address her as though unconscious of this appeal.

“Avoid Henri de Guise, Princess. I have already remonstrated with his father on his uninvited presence here, of which he professes entire ignorance – for he is here, and you know it, Marguerite” – and she shot an angry glance at the embarrassed Princess. “Avoid the Duke, I say, and let me see you attended less often by La Molle, or I must remove him from Court.”

“Madame!” cried Marguerite, turning white, and looking greatly alarmed, well knowing what this removal meant; “I will obey your commands. But whom, may I ask, do you propose for my husband? Unless I can choose a husband for myself” – and she hesitated, for the Queen bent her eyes sternly upon her and frowned – “I do not care to marry at all,” she added in a low voice.

“Possibly you may not, my daughter. But his Majesty and the council have decided otherwise. Your hand must ultimately seal a treaty important to the King your brother, in order to reconcile conflicting creeds and to conciliate a powerful party.”

All this time Marguerite had stood speechless before the Queen. At this last sentence, fatal to her hopes of marrying the Duc de Guise, the leader of the Catholic party, her lips parted as if to speak, but she restrained herself and was silent.

“The daughters of France,” said Catherine, lifting her eyes to the ceiling, “do not consider personal feelings in marriage, but the good of the kingdom. My child, you are to marry very shortly the King of Navarre. I propose journeying myself to the Castle of Nérac to conclude a treaty with my sister, Queen Jeanne, his mother. Henri de Béarn will demand your hand. He will be accepted when an alliance is concluded between the Queen of Navarre and myself.”

“But, my mother,” answered Marguerite, stepping forward in her excitement, “he is a heretic. I am very Catholic. Surely your Majesty will not force me – ”

“You will convert him,” replied Catherine.

“But, madame, the Prince is not to my taste. He is rough and unpolished. He is a mountaineer – a Béarnois.”

“My daughter, he will be your husband. Now, Marguerite, listen to me. This marriage is indispensable for reasons of state. The King, your brother, and I myself like the King of Navarre as little as you do. That little kingdom in the valleys of the Pyrenees is a thorn in our side which we must pluck out. Those pestilent and accursed heretics must be destroyed. We call them to our Court; we lodge them in the Louvre – not for love, Marguerite – not for love. Have patience, my daughter. I cannot unfold to you the secrets of the council; but it is possible that Henry of Navarre may not live long. Life is in the hands of God, – and of the King.” She added in a lower voice. “Console yourself. A day is coming that will purge France of Huguenots; and if Henry do not accept the mass – ”

“Madame,” said Marguerite, archly (who had eagerly followed her mother’s words), “I trust that the service of his Majesty will not require me to convert the King of Navarre?”

“No, Princess,” said Catherine, with a sinister smile. “My daughter,” continued she, “your dutiful obedience pleases me. The King may, in the event of your marriage, create new posts of honour about the King of Navarre while he lives. Monsieur la Molle, a most accomplished gentleman, shall be remembered. Au revoir, Princess. Send Charlotte de Presney to me. Go to your apartments, and prepare for the masque on the river I have commanded to-night in honour of our arrival.”

So Marguerite, full of thought, curtseying low before her mother, kissed her hand, and retired to her apartments.

As the sun sets and the twilight deepens, torch after torch lights up the river and the adjacent woods. Every window in the château is illuminated, and the great beacon-fires flash out from the turrets. The sound of a lute, the refrain of a song, a snatch from a hunting-chorus, are borne upon the breeze, as, one by one, painted barges shoot out from under the arches of the bridge along the current.

As night advances the forest on both sides of the river is all ablaze. On the southern bank, where the parterre is divided from the woods by marble balustrades, statues, and hedges of clipped yew, festoons of coloured lamps hang from tree to tree, and fade away into sylvan bowers deep among the tangled coppice. The fountains, cunningly lit from below, flash up in streams of liquid fire. Each tiny streamlet that crosses the mossy lawns is a thread of gold. Tents of satin and velvet, fringed with gold, border broad alleys and marble terraces of dazzling whiteness. The river, bright as at midday with the light of thousands of torches, is covered with gondolas and fantastic barques. Some are shaped like birds – swans, parrots, and peacocks; others resemble shells, and butterflies whose expanded wings of glittering stuff form the sails. All are filled with maskers habited in every device of quaint disguisement. Not a face or form is to be recognised. See how rapidly the fairy fleet cleaves the water, now dashing into deep shadows, now lingering in the torchlight that glances on the rich silks and grotesque features of the maskers. Yonder a whole boat’s crew is entangled among the water lilies that thickly fringe the banks under the over-arching willows. Some disembark among the fountains, or mount the broad marble steps leading to the arcades; some descend to saunter far away into the illuminated woods. Others, tired of the woods, are re-embarking on the river. In the centre of the stream is a barge with a raised platform covered with velvet embroidered in gold, on which are placed the Queen’s musicians, who wake the far-off echoes with joyous symphonies. Beyond, in the woods, are maskers who dance under silken hangings spread among the overhanging branches of giant oaks, or recline upon cushions piled upon rich carpets beside tables covered with choice wines, fruit, and confectionery. The merry laughter of these revellers mixes with strains of voluptuous music from flutes and flageolets, played by concealed musicians placed in pavilion orchestras hidden among the underwood, tempting onwards those who desire to wander into the dark and lonely recesses of the forest.

Among the crowd which thickly gathers on the parterre, a tall man of imposing figure, habited in a Venetian dress of yellow satin and wrapped in a cloak of the same colour, paces up and down. He is alone and impatient. He wears a red mask; conspicuous on his right shoulder is a knot of blue and silver ribbons. As each boat approaches to discharge its gay freight upon the bank he eagerly advances and mixes with the company. Then, as though disappointed, he returns into the shadow thrown by the portico of a shell grotto. Wearied with waiting, he seats himself upon the turf. “She will not come!” he says, and then sinks back against a tree and covers his face with his hands. The fountains throw up columns of fiery spray; the soft music sighs in the distance; crowds of fluttering maskers pace up and down the plots of smooth grass or linger on the terrace – still he sits and waits.

A soft hand touches him, and a sweet voice whispers, “Eternal love!” It is the Princess, who, disguised in a black domino procured by Charlotte de Presney, has escaped from the Queen-mother and stands before him.

For an instant she unmasks and turns her lustrous eyes upon him.

Henri de Guise (for it is he) leaps to his feet. He kneels before her and kisses her hands. “Oh! my Princess, what condescension!” he murmurs, in a low voice. “I trembled lest I had been too bold. I feared that my letter had not reached you.”

A gay laugh answers his broken sentences.

“My cousin, will you promise to take on your soul all the lies I have told my mother in order to meet you?”

“I will absolve you, madame.”

“Ah, my cousin, I have ill news! My mother and the King are determined to marry me to the King of Navarre.”

“Impossible!” exclaims the Duke; “it would be sacrilege!”

“Oh, Henry!” replies the Princess, in a pleading voice, and laying her hand upon his arm, “my cousin, bravest among the brave, swear by your own sword that you will save me from this detestable heretic!”

The Duke did not answer, but gently drew her near the entrance of the grotto. It was now late, and the lights within had grown dim. “Marguerite,” he says, in a voice trembling with passion, “come where I may adore you as my living goddess – come where I may conjure you to give me a right to defend you. Say but one word, and to-morrow I will ask your hand in marriage; the King dare not refuse me.”

“Alas! my cousin, my mother’s will is absolute.”

“It is a vile conspiracy!” cries the Duke, in great agitation. “The House of Lorraine, my Princess, save but for the Crown, is as great as your own. My uncle, the Cardinal, shall appeal to the Holy See. Marguerite, do but love me, and I will never leave you! Marguerite, hear me!” He seizes her hands – he presses her in his arms, drawing her each moment deeper into the recesses of the grotto. As they disappear, a voice is heard without, calling softly —

“Madame! Madame Marguerite! for the love of heaven, come, come!”

In an instant the spell is broken. Marguerite extricates herself from the arms of the Duke and rushes forward.

It is Charlotte de Presney, disguised like herself in a black domino. “Not a moment is to be lost,” she says, hurriedly. “Her Majesty has three times asked for your highness. She supposes I am in the château seeking you.” Charlotte’s voice is unsteady. She wore her mask to conceal her face, for it was bathed in tears.

In an instant she and the Princess, followed by the Duke, cross the terrace to where a boat is moored under the shade of some willows, and are lost in the crowd.

The Duke dashes into the darkest recesses of the forest, and is seen no more.

CHAPTER XIX.

BEFORE THE STORM

HENRY, King of Navarre, accompanied by the Prince de Condé and his wife, and attended by eight hundred Huguenot gentlemen dressed in black (for his mother, Queen Jeanne, had died suddenly at Paris, while he was on the road), has just arrived at the Louvre to claim the hand of the Princess Marguerite. The two Princes and the Princesse de Condé are received with royal honours and much effusion of compliments by King Charles and Catherine; they are lodged in the Palace of the Louvre. Whatever Marguerite’s feelings are, she carefully conceals them. Insinuating, adroit, clever, gifted with a facile pen and a flattering tongue, she is too ambitious to resist, too volatile to be constant. She lives in a world of intrigue, as she tells us in her memoirs, and piquing herself on being “so Catholic, so devoted to the ‘sacred faith of her fathers,’ ” and she pendulates between Henri de Guise and La Molle, amid a thousand other flirtations. She lives in a family divided against itself. Sometimes she takes part with the Duc d’Anjou and watches the Queen-mother in his interests, in order to report every word she says to him; or she quarrels with D’Anjou and swears eternal friendship with her youngest brother, D’Alençon – all his life the puppet of endless political conspiracies; or she abuses the King (Charles) because he listens to her enemy, De Gaust, and tells her that she shall never marry the Duc de Guise, because she would reveal all the secrets of state to him, and make the House of Lorraine more dangerous than it is already. This greatest princess of Europe, young and beautiful, a “noble mind in a lovely person,” as Brantôme says of her, is agitated, unhappy, and lonely. “Let it never be said,” writes she, “that marriages are made in heaven; God is not so unjust. All yesterday my room echoed with talk of weddings. How can I purge it?”

The Duc de Guise no longer whispers in her ear “Eternal love.” The great Balafré, stern in resolve, firm in affection, is disgusted at her légèreté. He has ceased even to be jealous. His mind is now occupied by those religious intrigues which he developed later as leader of the Holy Catholic League. Guise dislikes and distrusts the Valois race. He especially abhors their unholy coquetting with heretics in the matter of Marguerite’s approaching marriage. He has now adopted the motto of the House of Lorraine, “Death to the Valois! Guise upon the throne!” Moreover, he looks with favour on a widow – the Princesse de Porcian, whom he marries soon after. Guise only remains at Court to fulfil the vow of vengeance he has sworn against Coligni for his suspected connivance in the murder of his illustrious father, Francis of Guise, of which accusation Coligni could never clear himself.11 The great Admiral is now at Court. He is loaded with favours. Charles IX. has requested his constant attendance at the council to arrange the details of a war with Spain. He has also made him a present of a thousand francs. The friends of Coligni warn him to beware. His comrade and friend Montmorenci refuses to leave Chantilly. The Admiral, more honest than astute, is completely duped. It is whispered among the Catholics that revenge is at hand, and that the Protestant princes and Coligni are shortly coming to their death. It is said also that the marriage liveries of the Princess will be “crimson,” and that “more blood than wine will flow at the marriage feast.”

And the Queen? Serene and gracious, she moves with her accustomed majesty among these conflicting parties. She neither sees, nor hears, nor knows aught that shall disarrange her projects. Silent, inscrutable, her hands hold the threads of life. Within her brain is determined the issue of events. Her son Charles is a puppet in her hands. This once frank, witty, brave, artistic youth, who formerly loved verses and literature, – when not a roaring Nimrod among the royal forests, – is morose, cruel, and suspicious; convinced that the whole world is playing him false, all perjured but his mother. She has told him, and she has darkly hinted in the council, that events are approaching a crisis. She has secured the present support of the young Duc de Guise and the powerful House of Lorraine, ever foremost when Catholic interests are at stake. She can now sit down calmly and marshal each act in the coming drama, as a general can marshal those regiments which are to form his battle-front. Fifteen hundred Protestants were slaughtered at Amboise alone, but there are thousands upon thousands remaining, and she has promised Philip II., her awful son-in-law, and his minister, the Duke of Alva, that she will cut off the head of heresy within the realm of France. She has tried both parties, intrigued with both – with Coligni and the Condés, with Guise and the Cardinal de Lorraine – and she finds that at present orthodoxy answers her purpose best.

Besides, there is personal hatred, fear, and offence towards the Huguenots. Did not Coligni dare to criticise her government at the Council of Amboise? Did not Condé (that cautious Bourbon) escape her? The King of Navarre, too, her future son-in-law, is he to be lured to Court and married to the fascinating Marguerite for nothing? Has not Ruggiero shown her that his life crossed the life of her sons? Does she not hate him? Is he not adored by the people, who, grown cold towards the House of Valois, extol his vigour, courage, and ability? Yes, he shall marry. Then he shall die along with all rebels, heretics, and traitors! A general massacre of the Huguenots throughout France can alone satisfy her longings and secure Charles on the throne.

Thus came to be planned that most tremendous crime, fixed for the festival of St. Bartholomew, ostensibly for the triumph of the Catholic Church, but in reality to compass the death of the Queen’s political enemies – Navarre, Condé, and Coligni – and to crush the freedom of thought and opinion brought in by liberty of conscience and a purer faith.

This was the Court to which Henry of Navarre came, to be lodged under the roof of the Louvre, and to marry the Princess Marguerite!

The marriage took place on the 18th of August, 1572, at Notre-Dame.12 The outspoken Charles had said that, in giving his sister Margot to the King of Navarre, he gave her to all the Huguenots in his kingdom. The Princess tells us she wore a royal crown and a state mantle of blue velvet, wrought with gold embroidery, four yards long. It was held up by three princesses; and she further wore a corset, forming the body of her dress, covered with brilliants, and the crown jewels. The streets through which she passed were dressed with scaffoldings, lined with cloth of gold, to accommodate the spectators, all the way from the Archbishop’s palace to Notre-Dame.

A few nights after, Admiral Coligni was shot at, with an arquebuse, by a man standing at a barred window in the street of the Fossés Saint-Germain, as he returned from playing a game of rackets with the King, at the Louvre, to his lodgings at the Hôtel de Saint-Pierre, in the Rue Béthisy. He was walking along slowly, reading a paper; the finger of his right hand was broken, and he was otherwise grievously wounded. The assassin, Maurévert, was a fellow known to be in the pay of Henri, Duc de Guise. The house from which the shot was fired belonged to the Duke’s tutor. The King of Navarre and Condé were overcome at the news. Charles IX., along with the Queen-mother, visited the Admiral next day, and stayed an hour with him. Before leaving, Charles folded him in his arms and wept. “You, my father,” he said, “have the wound, but I suffer the pain. By the light of God, I will so avenge this act that it shall be a warning as long as the world lasts.”