Madame Serpent (26 page)

Anne’s lips were tight. ‘I beg of you not to speak of it,’ she said.

‘And I beg of you, my darlings, not to be distressed,’ he said lightly.

‘Catherine, you are safe now, my child. You have a son and a daughter. Get you more of them. I will speak to Henry of you, sweet Anne. He is a good and

honest fellow. He will see no harm comes to you.’

Anne’s lips twisted wryly.
Ah,
thought Catherine,
it is not Henry she fears.

This is ironic justice. For long she has guided the King’s hand to the disgrace of
many; now she herself must be disgraced because there will be a new woman to
guide a new King’s hand. And that new King is my husband. Anne’s years of
plenty would be paid for. And one day, so should Diane’s.

A shadow had fallen over the merry-making because the King of England

was dead.

‘I remember him well,’ mused Francis. ‘At Guisnes and Ardres. Big and red and blustering― a fine figure of a man― a handsomer it would have been hard to find, if you liked the type. I threw him in a wrestling match; and never seen such anger. We were like the bull and the panther. One morning I went to him before breakfast and I had him at my mercy. I called him “My prisoner” and I gave him his shirt with my own hands. You should have seen his face, my

darlings. When my dear boy Charles mounted the Emperor’s horse to tease him, the expression on the Imperial countenance took me back in years, and I

remembered the King of England.’

‘You should not be sorry at this man’s death, Francis,’ said Anne. ‘He was no friend to you.’

‘It is a strange feeling. Our lives seemed intwined. And he is dead. The same disease took him as will take me, was much we had in common. Each in his

country the supreme ruler. Each with his love of women. Though I fancy I am more lenient to the women I love than he ever was. He took them to church and took them to bed, and from bed to block. I dispensed with church and block.’

‘He was a monster,’ said Anne. ‘Let us waste no sorrow on him. His poor

wife is rejoicing, I’ll warrant. She still carries her head on her shoulders, thanks to the timely death of her lord husband.’

‘They say,’ put in Catherine quietly, ‘that she was happy to be a nurse to him. They say it was safer in England to be the King’s nurse than the King’s wife.’

‘Yet she― good nurse though she was, poor lady― has, I understand, been

hard put to it to keep her head upon her shoulders,’ Anne smiled at the King.

‘Come, Sire, away with your grief. Let us do the play we did last week. How it made you laugh! I warrant I can freshen it up a bit and give you one or two surprises.’

‘Yes, do it, my darling. And let Catherine help you.’

So they did the play, and the King laughed merrily; but it was noticed that he retired to his apartments earlier than was his wont. And when he was there, his prayers were longer than usual; and it seemed that the death of the King of England had cast a prophetic gloom over his mind.

———————

Catherine was planning her dress for the fancy dress masque.

‘Let us be masked,’ she had begged Anne. ‘It is so much more amusing.

You dance with― you know not whom.’

Anne had agreed. She let Catherine make arrangements now. Poor Anne!

She was growing more and more sick at heart; the King was visibly weaker.

It was his suggestion that there should be a masque. ‘A carnival!’ he had cried. ‘The gayest we have ever had!’

Thus he thought to snap his fingers at death.

Planning her costume, Catherine thought of him, thought of what his passing would mean to her. Queen of France― in name. The real queen would be Diane.

She could continue to hope. There was hope in every stitch she put into her costume.― gay and bold. She would discover what Henry’s costume would be.

There were plenty of spies to bring that news to her. She would go to him, not as Catherine, but as Circe, and she would try to make him desire her. She laughed at herself. As if that were possible! But why not? Once, a little Piedmontese had made him love her. A love potion in his wine? Oh, she had lost her faith in love potions. But as she stitched and thought of the masked ball that would take place when they reached Saint-Germain, she continued to hope.

She was feverishly impatient for Saint-Germain. They had travelled through Chevreuse and Lirnours to Rochefort. How restless was the King in his

determination to throw off pursuing death.

He talked continually of death, if not to Anne, to Catherine.

He talked of his achievements. He told his daughter-in-law how he had

changed the face of France. He spoke of the palaces he had created and those he had altered. He had, he reminded Catherine, brought a new and intellectual life to his country.

‘Catherine,’ he said pathetically, ‘I have done much that was wrong, but a few things that were good. It was I who aroused new interest in learning― an interest, my darling, which was stifled to death in the years before me. I am the father of the new life. I fertilized the seed; I cherished the young child. Will the world remember that when I am gone? Catherine, what do you think: will they forget Pavia, my mad pranks, all that France lost; will they forget the mirrored baths of which they love to whisper, the black satin sheets that made such a delightful background for the whitest limbs in France? Oh, little daughter, shall I be remembered as the man who loved learning or lechery?’

Catherine wept with him; she thought of him in all his magnificence when

she had first seen him, but even then he was an ageing man. Poor, sad King! But old kings must go to make way for new ones; and as she knelt and let her tears fall on to his hands she was thinking of Henry in a costume as yet unknown to her, his eyes burning through his mask sudden passionate love for Circe.

But as the cavalcade travelled on, with one of those sudden fits of

restlessness, the King decided that before going to Saint-Germain for the carnival, he wished to turn aside and stay for awhile at the castle of Rambouillet.

He would have a few days’ hunting there with his
Petite Bande
; and after that they would continue to Saint-Germain for the gayest carnival the court had ever known.

There were more days to dream, thought Catherine. She did not greatly care.

She guessed that Circe could never take the lover from Diane; but while they dallied at Rambouillet she believed this might come about.

Anne protested the delay. ‘Francis, there is more comfort at Saint-Germain.

Rambouillet is so rough. Little more than one of your hunting seats.’

‘Comfort?’ he had cried; for it was one of those days when he felt a little better. ‘It is not comfort I want. It is the hunt.’

But as they neared Rambouillet the King’s weariness was great indeed and it was necessary to carry him to his bed. Once there, he relapsed into melancholy.

Would he ever leave Rambouillet, he asked himself.

As he lay in his bed, he was frantic suddenly. He must be surrounded by his friends, the brightest and merriest in the court. Let Anne come to his bedside; let the Cardinal of Lorraine be there; all the young people, his son Henry and Catherine, the de Guises, Saint-Pol, Saint-André. Let the musicians come and play.

He felt happier when they were there. He had turned his bedroom into a

music-room.

But he was soon weary. He whispered to Anne: ‘I would my sister

Marguerite would come to me. I do not see enough of my sweet sister.’

Anne’s voice was harsh with tears. ‘The Queen of Navarre herself is

confined to a sick bed.’

‘Then tell her not that I asked for her, or she would leave it to come to me.

Beloved sister, my darling Marguerite, it is to be expected that when I am laid low, so should you also be. The saints preserve you, dear sister.’

‘Dearest,’ said Anne, ‘allow me to dismiss these people that you may try to sleep.’

He smiled and nodded.

In the morning he felt better. He was ready for the hunt, he declared.

Anne begged him not to go. Catherine joined her entreaties, as did other

members of the
Petite Bande
. But he would not listen. He smiled jauntily at the bright and beautiful faces of his band; he caressed one and joked with another.

He must hunt today. He could not explain. He felt that Death was waiting for him behind the door, behind the hangings. Death had caught the English King; it should not catch Francis― yet.

His will was strong. Sickly pale, his eyes glazed, he kept his seat in the saddle. He commanded Anne to ride beside him, Catherine to keep close. The huntsman’s horn and the baying of hounds, he said, were the sweetest music in his ears. Catherine guessed that as he rode he felt himself to be not the aged man, but the young Francis.

The
Petite Bande
closed round him. They were afraid. Death was the swiftest hunter in the forest of Rambouillet that March afternoon, and each lovely woman, watching her leader, knew that this was the last ride of Francis’s
Petite Bande
.

Francis was delirious that night. He talked continually and it was as though ghosts from the past stood around his bead. Louise of Savoy, his adoring

mother; Marguerite of his beloved sister; his meek Queens, Claude and

Eleonore; the mistresses he had loved best― Frances of Chateaubriand and

Anne
d’Etampes
; his sons, Francis and Charles. He felt the walls of a prison in Madrid enclose him; he knew again the glory of victory, the humiliation of defeat.

He regained consciousness, and with a wry smile spoke of the scandals of

his reign.

‘A scandalous life I have led, my friends. I will make amends by dying a

good death.’

Prayers were said at his bedside, and he listened eagerly to them.

‘I must see my son,’ he said. ‘Bring the Dauphin to me.’

Henry came and awkwardly approached the death-bed of the father whose

love he had longed to inspire, and, only succeeding in winning his dislike, had disliked him in return.

He knelt by his father’s bed and Francis smiled, all differences forgotten now.

‘My boy― my only son― my dearest Henry.’

Henry sought for the right words and could not find them. But there were

tears in his eyes and they spoke more eloquently than any words. Francis was anxious. What advice should he offer his son? He prayed that he would not make the mistakes his father had made.

‘Henry, children should imitate the virtues, not the vices of their parents,’ he said.

‘Yes, my father.’

‘The French, my son are the best people in the world, and you ought to treat them with consideration and gentleness, for when their sovereign is in need they refuse him nothing. I recommend you therefore to relieve them as far as you can of burdensome taxation―’

The sweat was running down the King’s cheeks. The room seemed hazy to

him. His son’s face grew dim. He thought of the dangers which would beset this young man. He saw those two factions which could split the country in two; the religious controversy that now, he realized, was but a young sprig in his reign, would grow to a mighty tree whose fruit was bloodshed and misery.

‘Holy Mother, protect my boy!’ he prayed incoherently. ‘Holy Mother, let

those about him advise him for his good and that of France.’

He saw Diane― guiding his son. He remembered afresh that game of

snowballing which had begun so innocently and had ended in heartbreak. It was symbolic. These women’s quarrels had amused him. Madame Diane against

Madame Anne. But what would grow out of them? Horror and bloodshed. His

beloved friend, the young Count d’Enghien, had been crushed to death in the first skirmishes of civil war which would rend his country. The chest was but a symbol. He saw that now. Why had he not seen it before?

‘Henry― oh my son― why have we come together now that is too late?

Henry, beware― beware of those about you. There are some―’

Henry must put his ear close to his father’s mouth if he would catch his

words.

‘Beware― of the Guises. Ambitious― they will snatch the crown. The

house of Guise― is the enemy of the house of Valois. Henry― closer. Do not be ruled by women as I have been. Learn from the faults of your father. Oh, Henry, my boy, keep the ministers I have about me. Good― honest men. Do not bring back Montmorency. He will strip you and your children of their doublets and our people of their shirts. Henry, deal kindly with Anne. Remember she is a woman. Always― be considerate― to women, but be not ruled by them as was

your foolish father―’

The King’s eyes were glazed, and now it was impossible to hear what he

said.

‘Father,’ said Henry, bending close, ‘give me your blessing.’

The King had only time to embrace his son before he left Rambouillet and

France forever.

———————

At Béarn, the King’s sister, lying in her sick-bed, was overwhelmed with

foreboding. Her brother in danger, needing her and she not with him! She left her bed and prepared to make the journey to Rambouillet. She was ready to set out when news was brought to her.

Sorrowing, reproaching herself for not being with him, she fell into

melancholy. Her life was ended, for he had been her life. She would retire to a convent; in piety only could she find relief from her grief. She was done with life. The King, her beloved, was dead; therefore was she dead also.

Anne, in her own apartments, waited for Diane’s revenge. It could only be a matter of days now. Diane would not long delay.

Henry, saddened by the death, yet felt relieved. Never more would he

stammer in that presence. Already attitudes had changed towards him. They knelt and swore allegiance; they sought to gratify every wish before he knew he had it.

Diane, serene outwardly, was inwardly aware of a deep pleasure. At last her kingdom had come. She was no more the Dauphin’s mistress; she was the first lady in the land.