The Hostage Queen (18 page)

A sense of nervousness and unease was spreading. Beneath all the merriment there was a growing feeling of hostility, people choosing to move about in groups as if needing to feel safe, muttering quietly together. The kind of rumbling before a storm breaks.

Coligny escaped from the celebrations at the first opportunity and retired to his chamber to write to his beloved wife, promising he would leave within a day or two.
His time at home had been far too brief, particularly now that Jacqueline was expecting a child. He’d slept soundly, ate a frugal diet, savoured the daily prêches and the singing of psalms at a twice-weekly family service. Most of all he’d enjoyed supper each evening where family and servants gathered together to share the food and talk of their day. There would be his sons, his daughter Louise, newly married to Téligny, perhaps a minister, old comrade or humble soldier or two. He saw this meal as an act of fellowship, in remembrance of his Saviour, and many had followed his lead and taken up the custom.

Despite his weariness, he’d continued to hold council with church and military leaders each morning, working on plans to help the Prince of Orange chase the Spanish out of the Netherlands. Tragically, when the proposed invasion had taken place in July, the Huguenots had been decimated, with only a few hundred weary survivors returning home. It was a savage blow to his hopes.

Charles had been equally distraught that he was not, after all, to have his moment of glory, terrified that Spain might declare war upon France. The young king’s efforts to creep from under the shadow of his mother had proved to be a miserable failure.

Coligny had viewed that first expedition as merely the opening foray and still strived to convince the King that they must not give up but send more men, and greater armies. Sadly, Charles was no longer pliable and would not agree.

The Admiral had returned to court for the wedding at Catherine’s insistence, but there had been no warm welcome this time, not even any bad jokes. The King had been cool towards him, the Catholic nobles and the Queen Mother actively hostile, and he’d found only opposition to his grand plan to win the Netherlands for France.

The old Admiral was deeply disappointed, which was perhaps why he’d spoken so unwisely to the Queen Mother. ‘Madame, the King refuses to adventure the war. God grant that he be not overtaken by another from which he will have no power to retreat.’

Catherine had glared at him, seeing in this remark a deliberate threat. Perhaps he should have guarded his tongue, as Téligny was constantly urging him to do. The trouble was he still grieved for the loss of his Queen, missing her common sense and wise counsel.

His hopes for an early release from duty proved to be over-optimistic as the banquets, ballets and pageants continued with relentless magnificence throughout the week. Coligny had a strong suspicion that the King was avoiding him.

‘Mon père, I pray you grant me yet four or five days of pleasure, and after that I promise you, on the faith of a king, to give you and those of your religion content!’

Quite certain that he could win Charles round, the Admiral had already issued orders for troops to be quietly mustered, before even setting out for the capital. Now he waited impatiently for the celebrations to be over so that a day could finally be agreed for the next invasion.

When Catherine received a furious message from the Duke of Alva demanding to know why a huge force of Huguenots were gathering in Flanders, she took it at once to the King. She would have liked someone to relieve her of the burden of what to do about Coligny, but that was not to be. Charles was riddled with fears, deeply afraid that because of his tolerance for the Huguenots, and for allowing his sister to marry one, the Pope might excommunicate him, or the Guises turn on him. He’d sought the support of his old mentor as protection, which Coligny had gladly given.

Now when his mother informed him of Coligny’s secret plans, he fell into his customary panic. The prospect of war with Spain was terrifying, even to Charles. There was no hope of support from England, as Elizabeth had no desire to take on her powerful Catholic rival. Without question, war would be a calamity.

‘What is to be done?’

Catherine’s resentment had grown and soured with each passing day as she’d watched them together, the old man and the boy she had once so easily controlled. Now she would be the one to decide.

‘You can safely leave this matter in my hands.’

The plotters gathered: Guise, his mother Anne d’Este, widow of Francis of Guise and now the Duchess of Nemours, and her former brother-in-law the Duke of Aumale. The Cardinal of Lorraine remained in Rome, where he’d been since the banishment. Tavannes, Nevers, Retz and others of Catherine’s trusted circle were also present, and it was a matter of moments to draw up a plan to deal with Coligny.

The Duchess herself offered to do the deed, since she had the greatest grievance against him. The entire family remained eager for vengeance for the murder of her husband,
Le Balafré
. In the end, Maurevert was the chosen assassin, as he would be a more reliable shot. The candidate was called and informed that if he valued his safety, he would not refuse.

The Duchess suggested that the shot be fired from the ground-floor window of a house on Rue des Fossés, owned by her family, and conveniently located on the route Coligny would take on his way home.

Catherine was very much in favour of this plan, as suspicion would naturally fall upon the Guises and not on herself, or the King. And if the Huguenots rose against the Princes of Lorraine, she might well be rid of both troublesome factions.

At the usual council meeting the next morning, the duc d’Anjou presided in the absence of the King, who had risen late. On leaving the cabinet Coligny met Charles coming out of the chapel, having heard matins with the Queen Mother. The pair talked quite amicably together and the old Admiral accompanied His Majesty to the tennis court, where the King, the Duke of Guise, and Teligny were to play.

Coligny politely declined joining them in a game and continued on to his apartments at Rue de Béthisy, accompanied by his friends. They strolled through the Rue des Fossés, Saint-Germain, discussing the latest dispatches he’d received from the troops. Coligny was about to hand one over to his comrade when a shot rang out and his arm fell uselessly to his side.

He sank to his knees in agony as pandemonium broke out, his friends instantly distraught that their beloved leader had been shot.

‘Tell the King,’ Coligny implored. ‘But take care not to alarm him.’

Some forced the door and rushed into the house to seek the perpetrator, but the assassin had made his escape by the cloister of the Church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois and they found only a smoking arquebus. Others ran to the stables behind the house, which they realized belonged to the Guises. Téligny called a doctor, and had his father-in-law carried inside so that he could be properly attended to.

Charles was still playing tennis when news of the attack reached him. He threw down his racquet in a fit of temper and let out a string of oaths. ‘Shall I never have a moment’s peace?’ he cried, then ran in terror to his apartments and locked himself in, fearing he might be next.

Anjou too trembled at the prospect of the Huguenot chieftains deciding to retaliate. Catherine received the news with her usual equable calm, just as she was about to sit down to dinner. She regally ordered that the Royal Surgeon, Ambroise Paré, be called. Fortunately, as a Huguenot himself, he was above suspicion so far as the Admiral was concerned.

At first it seemed as if Coligny might lose the entire arm, as fears were expressed that the bullet could have been poisoned. But thanks to the surgeon’s skill, and the old man’s courage and tenacity to withstand the amputation of a wounded finger, and much painful probing to extract the bullet which had then lodged in the arm, the limb was saved. Those about him showed less patience, striding about and furiously speculating on the identity of his assailant.

‘I have no enemy but the Guises,’ Coligny calmly insisted, and when his friends angrily cried for blood, he forbade them to retaliate. ‘But I do not assert that it was they who struck the blow.’

Old soldier that he was, he seemed unperturbed by the attack and received several callers during the course of the morning, Navarre and young Condé among them. Following this visit the cousins went straight to the King, threatening to leave Paris forthwith unless immediate guarantees were given for the safety of their men. They also demanded that the Princes of Lorraine be banished from the city.

Charles flew into a frenzy of distress, crying out that it was himself who was most wounded by this attack on mon père.

‘It is the whole of France. They will soon come and attack the King in his own bed,’ Catherine cried, which did little to reassure her son, serving only to exacerbate his anxieties still further.

The streets became thronged with noisy crowds, the people suspicious that something serious had occurred, exactly as they’d feared. They filled every avenue and, at around eleven o’clock, an hour or so after the shot had been fired, the King gave orders for the Catholics living by the Rue de Béthisy to be moved out, and Huguenots be allowed to replace them. This went some way towards calming nerves but groups of Protestants could still be found huddled together whispering at every corner, and the sense of dread grew hourly.

Coligny asked to see the King. ‘For I have certain things to tell him which concern his person and the State.’

Charles came with all speed, although not alone. Catherine had no intention of allowing him such freedom. She brought with her Anjou and Alençon, and the Admiral’s most bitter enemies: Tavannes, Montpensier, Retz and Nevers.

Crowded into every room of Coligny’s house gathered the Huguenots and, as she walked through to his bedchamber, Catherine could feel their sullen silence, their simmering rage.

Charles, clearly moved by the plight of his beloved mentor, began to weep. ‘Mon père, you have the wound but I have the pain.’ As always the smell and sight of blood had a disturbing effect upon him. ‘Is that then the blood of the famous Admiral?’ he sobbed. Head nodding and twitching on his crooked neck, he began to get excited and started to rant about vengeance and salvation.

Catherine judiciously stepped forward to place a calming hand on her son’s arm. ‘We all bleed for you,’ she told Coligny, her smile cold.

The Admiral spoke of his long fidelity to the crown and of his ambitions for the Low Countries. ‘I implore you, with all the urgency I have, not to lose the present opportunity from which France may reap great advantage.’ He was becoming more agitated, determined to have his say. ‘My only regret is that my wound should deprive me of the happiness of working for Your Majesty.’

‘I will avenge this outrage in so signal a manner that the memory of the penalty shall be eternal,’ cried the King.

‘Your Majesty need not seek far for the culprit. Let Monsieur de Guise be questioned, Sire. He will confess through whose benevolence I lie here. I rely on your justice to avenge this crime.’

‘Par le mort Dieu! I promise that I will do you justice.’

‘Is it not a disgrace that your desire for peace has been violated in this way?’ he told Charles. ‘All because fifty thousand crowns was offered to any man who brings my head.’

Téligny put up a hand, as if in an attempt to halt this alarming tirade against their Sovereign. ‘Father, I beg you, have a care for your health.’

Catherine added her own warning. ‘Pay heed to your son-in-law’s wise counsel, Monsieur, else we might start asking questions concerning certain matters regarding the assembly of troops.’

In the ensuing silence, perhaps out of morbid curiosity, or oblivious to the tension growing around him, Charles asked if he might examine the bullet that had wounded him.

Catherine snatched it from his hand. ‘I am very glad,’ she dryly remarked, ‘that the bullet was not left inside you, for I remember that when Francis of Guise was murdered near Orléans, the doctors told me that if the bullet had been got out of him, even though it was poisoned, there would have been no danger of his death.’

Meeting the old man’s shrewd gaze, Catherine realized she may well have condemned herself out of her own mouth. She glanced anxiously at her son but he was too absorbed with the blood stains on the sheets, and hadn’t heard her. She quickly rose, urging him to make his farewells and leave the patient to rest. Charles obediently complied, and they were almost at the door when Coligny called out and he hurried back alone to the bed.