The figure of Catherine de Medici is remarkable in history as being
the pivotal point for more controversy than has ever centred about
any other Queen of France. Of Italian descent, she became the wife
of one French monarch, the mother of three others, and the dominant
force behind that glittering Court which Brantôme eulogises. Both
of her daughters likewise ascended thrones,--Elisabeth, became
the wife of Philip II. of Spain; while Marguerite (whose memoirs
are found elsewhere in this volume) wedded Henry of Navarre, the
life-long rival of the ambitious Queen Mother, who was destined
to become Henry IV., displacing her tottering dynasty.
Brantôme's tribute to this famous Queen will be read with great
interest, but it is unnecessary to caution the reader to accept
it _cum grana salis_, for Brantôme's likes and dislikes are at
all times apt to run away with his historical judgment. Says
Louis Moland in an introduction to the French edition of the
Abbé's works: "The admiration which he professes for these grand
princesses whom he has the honour of depicting so influences him
that, despite his notorious credulity on this point, he shows
them all, or nearly all, as perfectly virtuous." Nevertheless,
his portraits, though coloured with the most favourable tints,
are of great value as portraits from life. "I saw it," "I was
there," are his favourite expressions in narrating an incident.
The study of Catherine is a typical example of his work. He had
lived at her Court and received many favours at her hands. He now
sets himself the task of answering her calumniators and paying
a tribute to her memory. This spirit of chivalry is certainly
admirable, albeit the results may show as more partisan than
accurate. It is interesting to compare this with Honoré de Balzac's
more extended work, "Sur Catherine de Medicis," which is designated
as a romance but is actually a careful historical portrait of
the Queen.
Catherine's whole life may be said to have combined romance with
history. She was the daughter of Lorenzo de Medici, that famous
ruler of Florence for whom Machiavelli wrote his "Prince." Having
been left an orphan at an early age, she was sent to a convent to
be educated, but left there at fourteen to become the wife of the
Dauphin, afterwards Henry II. of France. Her royal father-in-law
was the celebrated Francis I., the life-long rival of Henry VIII.
of England, on the one hand, and the Emperor Charles V., on the
other. During his reign Catherine remained in obscurity, and
was even threatened with divorce, as for ten years she remained
childless. On hearing that Francis was considering this decree for
state reasons, she planned her first bold stroke. With Italian
finesse she made her way to the King at a favourable moment, threw
herself at his feet, and expressed her willingness to submit to
the royal will. "Do with me as you choose, sire," she said; "let
me remain the dutiful wife of your son; or if it may please you to
choose another, let me serve as one of her humblest attendants."
Her speech won the heart of Francis, she was reinstated in favour,
and finally had the happiness of bringing him grandchildren ere
he died. This was one reason for the great veneration in which
Catherine always held his memory, and to which Brantôme alludes.
Indeed, the dominant trait with her throughout her long life was
loyalty to her family and their interests,--a loyalty fine in the
abstract, but which was to lead her along many doubtful and devious
ways. It caused her to match prince against prince, party against
party, religion against religion, until the culminating horror
of St. Bartholomew's Massacre was reached,--chargeable directly
to her, despite the strenuous denials of Brantôme. Henry IV.,
the royal son-in-law who suffered so much at her hands, was
broad-minded enough to palliate her offences on the ground of
this family loyalty. Claude Grouard quotes him as saying to a
Florentine ambassador in regard to Catherine: "I ask you what
a poor woman could do, left by the death of her husband, with
five little children on her arms, and two families in France
who were thinking to grasp the crown,--ours and the Guiges. Was
she not compelled to play strange parts to deceive first one and
then the other, in order to guard, as she has done, her sons
who have successively reigned through the wise conduct of that
shrewd woman? I am only surprised that she never did worse.
Sainte-Beuve in his "Causeries du Lundi" gives us additional
glimpses of this Queen, basing his views upon those of Mézeray,
author of the older "History of France": Mézeray, who never thinks
of the dramatic, nevertheless makes known to us at the start his
principal personages; he shows them more especially in action,
without detaching them too much from the general sentiment and
interests of which they are the leaders and representatives,
while, at the same time, he leaves to each his individual
physiognomy.... Catherine de Medici is painted there in all her
dissimulation and her network of artifices, in which she herself
was often caught; ambitious of sovereign power without possessing
either the force or the genius for it; striving to obtain it by
craft, and using for this purpose a continual system of what
we should call today 'see-sawing'--'rousing and elevating for a
time one faction, putting to sleep or lowering another; uniting
herself sometimes with the feeblest side out of caution, lest
the stronger should crush her; sometimes with the stronger from
necessity; at times standing neutral when she felt herself strong
enough to command both sides, but without intention to extinguish
either.' Far from being always too Catholic, there are moments when
she seems to lean to the Reformed religion and to wish to grant
too much to that party; and this with more sincerity, perhaps,
than belonged to her naturally. The Catherine de Medici, such
as she presents herself and is developed in plain truth on the
pages of Mézeray is well calculated to tempt a modern writer."
It is precisely to this temptation that Balzac has yielded, in
his book already mentioned. His summing-up of her character is
as follows: "Catherine de Medici has suffered more from popular
error than almost any other woman... and yet she saved the throne
of France, she maintained the royal authority under circumstances
to which more than one great prince would have succumbed. Face to
face with such leaders of the factions, and ambitions of the houses
of Guise and of Bourbon as the Cardinals de Lorraine and the two
'Balafrés,' the two Princes de Condé, Henry IV., Montmorency, the
Colignys, she was forced to put forth the rarest fine qualities,
the most essential gifts of statesmanship, under the fire of the
Calvinist press. These, at any rate, are indisputable facts. And
to the student who digs deep into the history of the sixteenth
century in France, the figure of Catherine de Medici stands out
as that of a great king...
"Hemmed in between a race of princes who proclaimed themselves
the heirs of Charlemagne, and a factious younger branch that was
eager to bury the Constable de Bourbon's treason under the throne;
obliged too, to fight down a heresy on the verge of devouring the
monarchy, without friends, and aware of treachery in the chiefs
of the Catholic party and of republicanism in the Calvinists,
Catherine used the most dangerous but the surest of political
weapons--Craft. She determined to deceive by turns the party
that was anxious to secure the downfall of the house of Valois,
the Bourbons who aimed at the Crown, and the Reformers.... Indeed,
so long as she lived, the Valois sat on the throne. The great
M. de Thou understood the worth of this woman when he exclaimed
on hearing of her death: 'It is not a woman, it is Royalty that
dies in her'!"
On the contrary, if one will follow the genial Dumas through
the pages of his Valois Romances, he will find a French writer
who, while loyal to the kingly line, does not hesitate to paint
this woman in unlovely colors. She is here the low intriguer who
does not stop at assassination to gain her ends. On only one
point, indeed, do historians and romancers seem to agree: she
is always interesting--never commonplace. She fills a definite
niche in an important period, and her personal reputation must
be handled as a thing apart.
This portrait of her by Brantôme is one of a series of papers
comprising his "Lives of Illustrious Ladies,"--or as he preferred
to call it, "Book of the Ladies." Brantôme himself lived an
adventurous life. Born in Perigord in 1537, he was only eighteen
years younger than the queen he here discusses. His family, the
de Bourdeilles, was one of the oldest and most respected in that
province. "Not to boast of myself," he says, "I can assert that
none of my race has ever been home-keeping; they have spent as
much time in travels and wars as any, no matter who they be,
in France." The young Pierre had his first experience in Court
life, at the Court of Marguerite, sister of Francis I., to whom
his mother was lady-in-waiting. As he was the youngest of the
family, he was destined for the priesthood--which he always regarded
from the militant, rather than the spiritual side--and when only
sixteen King Henry II. bestowed upon him the Abbey of Brantôme.
The record of his life thereafter is one of travel and adventure
in many lands. It is the period of the Renaissance, when wars and
conquests, intrigues and romances, poetry and song flourish,--in
all of which our Abbé is equally at home! He goes with the Duc
de Guise to escort the young widowed Queen, Mary, back to her
Scottish throne. He visits Marguerite de Valois in her retirement
and is so smitten by her beauty that he dedicates all his books to
her. And during his busy, adventurous life he finds time to set
down many things which he sees and hears. Some of these stories
smack of the scandalous, but all undoubtedly reflect the spirit
and manners of the time.
After a long life, Brantôme passed away in 1614, and although a
clause in his will expressly related to the publication of his
works they were left in MS. form, in his castle of Richemont,
for half a century. They were finally published in Leyden, in
1665, and have been frequently reprinted since.