The Serpent and the Moon: Two Rivals for the Love of a Renaissance King (21 page)

2
. Meaning “worse than a wolf.”

3
. There was a rumor that François had met and flirted with Anne de Pisseleu some years earlier, when she had just turned fifteen.

4
. Françoise de Foix had affairs with Admiral Bonnivet and the Constable Charles de Bourbon.

5
. From the royal household accounts we know that some of the
Petite Bande
had other duties than entertaining the king and sharing his company. There is an entry from François to his treasurer: “We wish and order you to pay from our funds to Cécile de Viefville, lady of the
‘filles de joie’
following our Court, the sum of 45 livres for services during the month of May just passed.”

6
. A dreadful punishment as few survived the backbreaking pulling of the oars.

7
. Benvenuto Cellini claimed to have been the marksman.

8
. The equivalent of 4,500 ingots each weighing almost two pounds.

9
. Brantôme describes the shock experienced by the Constable of Castile, Louis de Praedt, when Henri replied to his apologies thus: “il luis fit une pétarde.”

10
. Williams,
Henri II
, pp. 61–62.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Young Knight

F
rançois I was a king the Parisians appreciated. They liked his style and felt his paternal concern for their welfare. There was an ugly incident in the capital on June 1, 1529 when a much-loved statue of the Virgin, which stood at the corner of the rue des Deux-Siciles, was mutilated by Protestants. Heresy was gaining ground, and people were alarmed. The king offered to pay for a replacement and to punish the guilty. Two years later, he himself made reparation in public. Bareheaded, he knelt before the bishop of Paris in front of the empty niche where the statue had been. Holding a lit candle, François received the new statue from the hands of the bishop and placed it in its niche. This was the kind of gesture that showed the people how sensitive their king was to their religious feelings and won François I the love of his subjects.

The growth of Protestantism—or heresy, as it was called—troubled François. To “The Most Christian King,” the Catholic religion was the basis of his “divine right to rule,” his political policy, and the country’s unity. To embrace another religion or to question Catholic teaching was akin to treason. On the other hand, François I was also
the “Renaissance king” of France, the patron of the Humanists. He had even gone so far as to invite Erasmus, the greatest of all Humanist scholars, to head the classical college he had founded in Paris. (Erasmus did not accept.) The king was torn between his admiration for the “new learning” and his duty to defend the orthodox teaching of the Catholic church. His beloved and scholarly older sister, Marguerite, had a strong evangelical faith and protected and welcomed Protestants in her tiny kingdom of Navarre. She wrote the
Heptaméron
, the best known and most popular of all the classic French tales, which, although modeled on the
Decameron
, is also full of religious references to the cause of the Reformers. Some French critics have doubted whether the
Heptaméron
was the queen’s own work. However, we have Brantôme’s word that his grandmother, Marguerite’s
dame d’honneur
, often took down the queen’s dictation of these tales as Marguerite traveled about in her litter.

Queen Eleonore was staunchly orthodox in religious matters, as was Diane de Poitiers, but the king’s mistress Anne de Pisseleu followed Marguerite de Navarre’s inclination toward the “New Religion.” The Protestant faction grew within the court, as discontent swelled against the established order in the outside world. Corruption in the Church had spread in many areas throughout the Middle Ages, and the Church in France was afflicted with problems very similar to those in the rest of Christendom. Decadence was rife among the religious leadership, prelates were openly living in luxury, the lower clergy were ignorant and impoverished. Drunken, violent, immoral friars and monks were a common sight. The dissatisfaction of people of all classes with their religious mentors led to the formidable spiritual and moral upheaval that would become the Reformation.

The teachings of the Reformation were spreading throughout Europe, and great scholars defected from the Church of Rome to join the Protestant cause. Copies of the reformers’ works, already translated into the French vernacular, were rolling off German and Dutch printing presses in great quantity. These were changing times; printing presses were springing up all over Europe, and ideas were able to travel faster than ever before. By 1530, the Catholic Church in France was well aware that its unity and authority was being dangerously threatened.

François I tried to distance himself from religious quarrels as much as possible, and not until he felt his own authority threatened did he eventually react. The king detached himself more and more from church issues, entrusting the persecution and repression of the “New Religion” to the
Parlement
, which was backed by staunch allies within the established circle of the Sorbonne. In that enclave of academics, it was genuinely believed that Humanist thought was responsible for heresy.

O
N March 5, 1531, Queen Eleonore was crowned at Saint-Denis, and later made her official entry into the city of Paris. Diane de Poitiers, just over thirty years old, was one of Eleonore’s three
dames d’honneur
officiating at the ceremony. As the queen rode into Paris, onlookers were dazzled. She wore a cloak of purple velvet lined with white satin and a tunic of ermine covered in precious stones; her long hair was entwined with ribbons, and her crown alone was said to be worth a fortune. Diane followed the queen’s litter mounted on a white mare, her saddle draped with cloth of gold. Diane’s train was held by two grooms in white satin who followed her on foot. Her son-in-law Claude d’Aumale walked alongside. Eleonore was the same age as Diane, but any other comparison was not to the queen’s advantage. The critical French judged their new queen as being plain and remarked on her long torso, short legs, and thick waist. Eleonore felt their rejection keenly. For the ceremony in Saint-Denis, she had arrived wearing a veil to hide her face, and the crowds surmised she must be old and wrinkled. But when they saw the size of the Brazilian diamonds
¹
adorning her veil, they cheered.

The new queen of France was determined to make an impressive entrance into her capital, and shine she did, covered in diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and rubies, and crowned with a circlet of rare feathers, all from Portugal’s colony of Brazil. The Parisians loved the spectacle. People filled the streets, and those with balconies draped them in tapestries, leaned over, and scattered flower petals onto the procession passing below. At her moment of triumph, the queen looked up and saw her husband the king at a window, gazing down boldly and without shame, his arm around Anne de Pisseleu. This scene did not go unnoticed. Even the English ambassador was sufficiently scandalized to describe it to Henry VIII
²
—who had not yet shocked the world by divorcing Catherine of Aragon. Poor Eleonore had to continue throughout the day and the banquet in the evening, smiling despite her breaking heart.

To celebrate the Treaty of Cambrai, the king’s wedding, the
queen’s coronation, and the return of the princes, Paris was
en fete
for one whole week. The festivities included masques, parades, and, of course, the traditional tournament in which the bold and the brave competed for honors. On the final day, the joust was dedicated to “Beauty”—officially that of the queen, but it was more likely that Anne de Pisseleu would be chosen as the most beautiful lady of the day by the votes of the onlookers. As always, the cobbles had been lifted from the wide, straight rue de Saint-Antoine next to the palace of Les Tournelles, and sand was pressed down to cushion the charges of the horses. The ladies sat in all their finery in a grandstand that had been erected in front of the houses.

It was to be the princes’ first tournament, and they each wore a splendid new armor chased with their gold
fleur-de-lys
. Both were expert horsemen and entered the arena superbly mounted, surrounded by their pages carrying their standards. According to the traditions of chivalry, each contestant riding in single combat could choose a lady from the audience for whose honor he would fight. He would ask to wear her color or favor, dedicate his success to his lady, and be her knight for the day.

Since returning to court, the princes had been enveloped by its ladies, all vying to make them feel loved. The boys had inherited their father’s magnificent physique; Henri looked more like a fifteen-year-old youth than a boy of twelve. During his incarceration in Spain, he had become romantically obsessed with the Spanish story of Amadis de Gaula which extolled the glory and chivalry of medieval times. It was a tale of courtly love, ostentatious beauty, and energetic outdoor activities: hunting to hounds, fencing, jousting. The court already called Henri “
Le Beau Ténébreux
” (the nickname of his hero Amadis) for his prowess at riding, jousting, and all sports, and Brantôme asserted that he was the finest runner and long jumper of all the young knights at court. Once he was freed, the young prince spent as much time as possible outdoors, but no one could say that they had seen Henri d’Orléans laugh.

T
HE story of Amadis was very similar to Henri’s own plight. The two elder sons of Périon, king of Wales, Galaor and Amadis,
are abandoned and exiled to a strange country. Enslaved by a magician, they triumph over the many trials he imposes on them. Amadis, a precocious youth, seems three years older and stronger than his twelve years. He falls in love with Oriane, daughter of the king of Britain, and turns to the fairy, Urgande, to help him win his Lady. Urgande, gentle and reassuring as a mother, hands him an enchanted spear with which he is victorious in battle. Calling upon her magic powers, Urgande grants the lovers eternal youth. During those long, lonely years, the young prince yearned for a Lady to whom he could offer his protection and dedicate his heart, just as his hero Amadis had pledged himself to his “Lady,” Oriane. These popular novels were written by a minor Spanish nobleman, Gracia de Rodriguez de Montalvo, as if for children, with many episodes of the saga appearing over the next fifteen years. The majority of the literature of the time concerned love, marriage, or adultery.

Henri’s first tournament gave him the chance to play the role of his hero, Amadis. He watched as his brother, naturally courteous and diplomatic, stopped his horse in front of his father’s new queen, Eleonore, and lowered his lance before her so that she could tie her colors—her scarf—to the tip. The dauphin raised the lance and the scarf slid down, as it should, to his arm, where it remained as his Lady’s token. It was assumed by all in attendance that Henri d’Orléans would halt in front of Anne de Pisseleu, his father’s acknowledged
maîtresse en tître
. Seated in the stands, however, was the lady who fitted the young prince’s image of the perfect heroine: a magnificent huntress, the most beautiful, tender lady of his lonely dreams in prison. Diane, comtesse de Brézé, Grande Sénéchale of Normandy, sat according to her rank, her white translucent skin flattered by a light green dress
³
and holding a fan made of pheasant feathers. As always, her golden-red hair was dressed “
à l’escoffion
”—coiled in a snood of silk mesh dotted with pearls and precious stones, the edging band made of fur or jewel-encrusted silk. According to Brantôme, it was Diane de Poitiers and not Anne de Pisseleu who was really considered by the court to be “
la belle parmi les belles
”—“the beauty among the beauties.”

To the surprise and amusement of the onlookers—and not least of Diane—the younger prince halted his charger opposite the Grande Sénéchale. In a high thin voice, he offered to dedicate himself to her honor and protection if she would allow him to wear her colors of green and white. It was a charming gesture from a boy of twelve to a beautiful, grand lady of thirty. Diane took it as a sign of the boy’s gratitude for her concern and comforting before and after his imprisonment, and it touched her. Her heart went out to this boy who had dared to be the champion of a lady old enough to be his mother. Diane asked the king if he would permit Henri d’Orléans to be her young knight, her
chevalier servant
, and he happily agreed. Naturally, the princes won the day—it seems likely that this had been prearranged.