OMENS
The king, thenceforth almost free from the anxiety which had weighed
upon him, urged on most energetically the preparations for the
magnificent fêtes which he proposed to provide for his fair city of
Paris, on the occasion of the happy marriages of his daughter Élisabeth
with Philip II., and his sister Marguerite with the Duke of Savoy.
Very happy marriages, in sooth, and which surely deserved to be
celebrated with such rejoicing and splendor. The author of Don Carlos
has told us so well that we need not repeat it, what was the result of
the first. We shall see to what the preliminaries of the other led.
The contract of marriage between Philibert Emmanuel and Marguerite de
France was to be signed on the 28th of June.
Henri caused the announcement to be made that on that and the two
following days there would be lists open at the Tournelles for tilting
and other knightly sports.
And upon the pretext of paying a higher compliment to the bride and
groom, but really to gratify his own intense passion for sport of that
nature, the king declared that he would himself be among the
challengers.
But on the morning of the 28th the queen, Catherine de Médicis, who at
that time scarcely ever showed herself in public, sent an urgent request
to the king for an interview with him.
Henri, we need not say, acquiesced at once in his wife's desire.
Catherine thereupon entered his apartment in much emotion.
"Ah, dear Sire," she exclaimed as soon as she saw him, "in Jesus' name,
I implore you not to leave the Louvre until the end of this month of
June."
"Why so, Madame, pray?" asked Henri, amazed at this unexpected request.
"Sire, because you are threatened by great peril during these last few
days."
"Who has told you that?" demanded the king.
"Your star, Sire, which appeared last night in an observation made by
myself and my Italian astrologer, with most threatening indications of
danger,--of mortal danger!"
We must know that Catherine de Médicis about this time began to devote
herself to those magical and astrological practices which very rarely
deceived her in the whole course of her life, if we may trust the
memoirs of the time.
But Henri was a confirmed scoffer in this matter of reading the stars,
and he smilingly replied to the queen,--
"Well, Madame, if my star portends danger, it may come to me here as
well as elsewhere."
"No, Sire," Catherine replied; "it is beneath the vault of heaven and in
the open air that peril awaits you."
"Really!--a tempest perhaps?" said Henri.
"Sire, do not joke about such things!" retorted the queen. "The stars
are the written word of God."
"Well, then, we must agree," said Henri, "that the divine handwriting is
generally very obscure and confused."
"How so, Sire?"
"The erasures seem to me to make the text unintelligible, so that each
one may decipher it almost to suit himself. You have read, Madame, in
the celestial conjuring book, as you say, that my life is threatened if
I quit the Louvre?"
"Yes, Sire."
"Very well. Now, Forcatel only last month saw something very different
there. You think highly of Forcatel, Madame, I believe?"
"Yes," said the queen; "he is a learned man, who has already learned to
read in the book where we are just beginning to spell."
"Know, then, Madame," rejoined the king, "that Forcatel read for me in
these stars of yours this beautiful verse, which has no other fault
except that it is utterly unintelligible:--"
"'If this is not Mars, dread his image.'"
"In what does that prediction weaken the one I have told you of?" asked
Catherine.
"Just wait, Madame!" said Henri: "I have somewhere the nativity which
was cast for me last year. Do you remember what destiny it foretold for
me?"
"Very indistinctly, Sire."
"According to that horoscope, Madame, it is written in the stars that I
shall die in a duel! Surely, that would be a rare and novel experience
for a king. But a duel, in my humble opinion, is not the image of Mars,
but the god himself."
"What is your conclusion from that, Sire?"
"Why, this, Madame: that since all these prophecies are contradictory
and inconsistent, the surest way is to have no faith in any of them. The
deceitful things give one another the lie, you can see yourself."
"So your Majesty will persist in leaving the Louvre during the next few
days?"
"Under any other circumstances I should be most happy, Madame, to
gratify you by remaining with you; but I have promised and publicly
announced that I would be present at these festivities; so I must attend
them."
"At all events, Sire, you will not enter the lists, will you?"
"There, again, my pledged word requires me, to my great regret, to
refuse you, Madame. But what possible danger can there be for me in
these sports? I am grateful to you from the bottom of my heart for your
solicitude; yet let me assure you that your fears are altogether
imaginary, and that to yield to them would be to imply a false belief
that danger could possibly attend this courtly, good-natured jousting,
which I by no means propose to have done away with on my account."
"Sire," rejoined Catherine, "I am accustomed to give way to your will,
and to-day again I resign myself, but with grief and alarm at my heart."
"You will come to the Tournelles, Madame, will you not?" said the king,
kissing Catherine's hand,--"were it for no other object than to applaud
my prowess with the lance and convince yourself of the absurdity of your
fears."
"I will obey you to the end," replied the queen, as she withdrew.
Along with all the court, except Diane de Castro, Catherine was present
at the first day's tilting, where throughout the day the king crossed
lances with all comers.
"Well, Madame, the stars seem to have been mistaken," he said jokingly
to the queen in the evening.
Catherine sadly shook her head.
"Alas!" said she, "the month of June is not yet at an end."
The second day, the 29th, likewise passed off equally uneventfully.
Henri did not leave the lists; and his good fortune was in proportion to
his daring.
"You see, Madame, that the stars proved deceptive as to this day also,"
he again observed to Catherine, when they returned to the Louvre.
"Ah, Sire, now I only dread the third day!" cried the queen.
The last day of the tournament, June 30, was Friday, and was intended to
be the most brilliant and splendid of the three, and to bring the
festivities to a fitting close.
The four challengers were--
The king, who wore a white and black favor,--the colors of Madame de
Poitiers;
The Duc de Guise, who wore white and pink;
Alphonse d'Este, Duc de Ferrare, who wore yellow and red; and
Jacques de Savoie, Duc de Nemours, whose colors were black and yellow.
Says Brantôme:--
"These four princes were the most skilful knights who could be found at
that time, not in France alone, but in all countries. Thus on that day
they performed prodigies of valor; and it was impossible to know to whom
the palm should be awarded, although the king was one of the best and
most expert horsemen in his realm."
Fortune seemed to divide her favors with impartial hand among these four
dexterous and renowned challengers; and as course succeeded course, and
the day drew to its close, it was hard to say to which of them the honor
of the tournament belonged.
Henri was throughout in an almost feverish state of excitement. He was
in his element in all such sports and passages-at-arms; and he was quite
as eager to be victorious on such occasions as on a real battle-field.
However, the evening came on apace, and the trumpets and clarions
sounded the signal for the last course.
It was Monsieur le Duc de Guise's turn to hold the lists, and he did it
in such knightly fashion as to win hearty applause from the ladies and
the assembled multitude.
Then the queen, who began to breathe freely once more, rose from her
seat.
It was the signal for departure.
"What! is everything over?" cried the excited and jealous king. "Wait,
Mesdames, wait a moment! Is it not my turn to run a course?"
Monsieur de Vieilleville reminded the king that he had opened the lists;
that the four challengers had all run the same number of courses: that
they had all met with equal success, to be sure, and no one could be
declared victor, but that the lists were closed and the day at an end.
"What!" retorted Henri, impatiently; "if the king is the first to enter
the lists, he should be the last to leave them. I do not choose that the
day should end in this way. See, there are still two unbroken lances."
"But there are no more assailants, Sire," replied Monsieur de
Vieilleville.
"I beg your pardon," said the king; "do you not see that man who has
kept his visor down all the time, and has not yet run? Who is it,
Vieilleville?"
"Sire, I don't know,--I had not noticed him."
"Monsieur," said Henri, approaching the unknown, "you will, if you
please, break this last lance with me."
The individual addressed did not reply for a moment, but at last in a
deep and solemn voice, which he struggled to control, he said,--
"I beg your Majesty to allow me to decline this honor."
The tone of his voice caused Henri, without knowing why, to feel a
strange uneasiness mingled with his feverish excitement.
"Allow you to decline! no, I cannot allow that, Monsieur," said he, with
a gesture of nervous anger.
Then the stranger silently raised his visor.
For the third time within a fortnight, the king saw the pale and
dejected countenance of Gabriel de Montgommery.