CATHERINE’S VENGEANCE.
Meanwhile the conspirators, emboldened by the news of the edict of
Amboise, carried out their purpose exactly as the Queen-mother intended,
with perfect confidence and little concealment. Catherine’s object was
to draw them towards Amboise and there destroy them. Band after band, in
small detachments the better to avoid suspicion, rode up from Nantes
where they lay, to concentrate in force on the Loire and within Amboise
itself. When sufficiently strong they proposed to carry off the King and
Queen by a _coup-de-main_, make away with the Jesuitical Guises, banish
the Queen-mother to some distant fortress, and place Condé on the throne
as Regent.
They came through the plains of Touraine, halting beside solitary farms,
in the vineyards, under the willows and tufted underwood that border the
rivers, and through the dark forests that lie on the hills behind
Amboise. Band after band reached certain points, halted at the spots
indicated to them, and met other detachments with whom they were to act;
but not one of them was heard of more.
The walls of the castle of Amboise bristled with troops, and the open
country towards Loches was full of soldiers. Trusty guards stationed on
the double bridge across the Loire were instructed by the Duc de Guise,
who wielded absolute power and who had now gained minute knowledge of
the plot, to take all
[Illustration: COUÇY.]
suspected persons prisoners, or if needful, slay them as they stood.
Crowds of prisoners poured into Amboise, tied together and driven like
cattle to the shambles. Those who were known were reserved for a further
purpose, the rest--the herd--were either hanged or drowned. The Loire
was full of floating corpses.
Condé, wary with the wariness of his race, ventured not again to
Amboise. Coligni and his brother knew not how to oppose a power
exercised in the royal name, but Jean Barri de la Renaudie, the
ostensible leader of the conspiracy and a bold adventurer, alarmed at
the mysterious disappearance of party after party of his followers, set
out in rash haste towards Amboise. He too was watched for and expected
among the wooded hills of the forest of Château Renaud.
La Renaudie had encamped in the woods towards morning after advancing
under cover of the night from Niort. Suddenly his detachment was
approached by two or three horsemen, who, after reconnoitring for a few
moments, retreated. These were evidently the advance guard of the royal
forces. La Renaudie immediately broke up his camp and dashed on towards
Amboise, concealed by the overhanging trees on the banks of a stream
which flowed through a wild defile. In a hollow of the river, among beds
of stone and sand, he was fallen upon by a regiment of royal troops who
had tracked and finally caught him as in a trap. His own cousin
Pardilliac commanded the attack, he recognised him by the flag. A deadly
struggle ensued, in which both cousins fell. La Renaudie’s corpse,
carried in triumph to Amboise, was hung in chains over the bridge.
Then Condé, Coligni, and the other Calvinists came fully to understand
what the edict of conciliation really meant.
The Castle of Amboise during all this time had been strictly guarded;
every door was watched, every gallery was full of troops; the garden and
the walled plateau, within which stands the beautiful little votive
chapel erected by Anne of Brittany, was like a camp. Silence, suspicion,
and terror were on every face. Although the Queen-mother, with her
crafty smiles and unruffled brow, affected entire ignorance and exhorted
“la petite reinette,” as she called Mary, to hunt in the adjoining
forest, and to assemble the Court in the state rooms with the usual
banquets and festivities, Mary, pale and anxious, remained shut up with
Francis in her private apartments.
“My uncle,” said Francis to the Duc de Guise whom he met leaving the
Queen-mother’s retiring-room, “I must know what all these precautions
mean. Why are so many troops encamped about the castle, the guards
doubled, and the gates closed? Why do you avoid me and the Queen? Uncle,
I insist on knowing more.”
“It is nothing, Sire--nothing,” faltered the Duke, who, dissembler as he
was, could scarcely conceal the confusion the King’s questions caused
him. “A trifling conspiracy has been discovered, a few rebels have been
caught, your Majesty’s leniency has been abused by some false Huguenots.
These troops assembled about the castle are your Majesty’s trusty guards
brought here to ensure the maintenance of the terms of the edict.”
“But, uncle, the Queen and I hear the clash of arms and firing on the
bridges as against an enemy. I cannot sleep, so great is the tumult.
What have I done that my people should mistrust me? Huguenots and
Catholics are alike my subjects. Are you sure, uncle, that it is not you
and my mother that they hate? I would that you would all go away for a
while and let me rule alone, then my people would know me.”
When all the Huguenot conspirators, about two thousand in number, were
either massacred or imprisoned, Catherine threw off the mask. She called
to her Francis and the young Queen. “My children,” said she, “a plot has
been discovered by which the Prince de Condé was to be made Regent. You
and the Queen were to be shut up for life, or murdered perhaps. Such as
remain unpunished of the enemies of the House of Valois are about to be
executed on the southern esplanade of the castle. You are too young to
be instructed in all these details, but, my son, when you signed that
edict, I told you I would afterwards explain it--now come and behold the
reason. Mary, my _reinette_, do not turn so pale, you will need to learn
to be both stern and brave to rule your rough subjects the Scotch.”
Catherine, erect and calm, led the way to the state apartments
overlooking on either side the garden, terrace, and river. Large
mullioned windows had by the command of Francis I. taken the place of
the narrow lights of the older fortress. He had changed the esplanade
and southern terraced front within the walls and the balconied windows
to the north overlooking the town, into that union of _manoir_ and
château which he first created.
The boy-King and Queen followed tremblingly the steps of their mother,
who strode on in front with triumphant alacrity. Without, on the
pleasant terrace bordered by walls now bristling with guns and alive
with guards and archers, on the pinnacles and fretted roof of the votive
chapel, which stands to the right in a tuft of trees inside a bastion,
the sun shone brightly, but the blue sky and the laughing face of nature
seemed but to mock the hideous spectacle in front. Close under the
windows of the central gallery, a scaffold was erected covered with
black, on which stood an executioner masked, clothed in a red robe. Long
lines of prisoners packed closely together, a dismal crowd, wan and
emaciated by imprisonment in the loathsome holes of the mediæval castle,
stood by hundreds ranged against the outer walls and those of the
chapel, guarded by archers and musketeers; as if such despairing
wretches, about to be butchered like cattle in the shambles, needed
guarding! The windows of the royal gallery were wide open, flags
streamed from the architraves, and a loggia, or covered balcony, had
been prepared, hung with crimson velvet, with seats for the royal
princes.
Within the gallery the whole Court stood ranged against the sculptured
walls. Catherine entered first. With an imperious gesture she signed to
Mary, who clung, white as death, to her husband, to take her place under
a royal canopy placed in the centre of the window. Francis she drew into
a chair beside herself, the Chancellor, the Duc de Guise, his brother
the Cardinal, and the Duc de Nemours seated themselves near. Their
appearance was the signal to begin the slaughter. Prisoner after
prisoner was dragged up beneath the loggia to the scaffold and hastily
despatched. Cries of agony were drowned
[Illustration: THE GARDENS OF THE TUILERIES, PARIS]
in the screeching of fifes and the loud braying of trumpets. The
mutilated bodies were flung on one side to be cast into the river, the
heads borne away to be placed upon the bridge. Blood ran in streams and
scented the fresh spring breezes. The executioner wearily rested from
his labour, and another masked figure, dressed like himself, in red from
head to foot, took his place.
Spellbound and speechless sat the young Queen. A look of horror was on
her face. She had clutched the hand of Francis as she sat down, and ere
a few minutes had passed, she had fainted.
Catherine, who, wholly unmoved, was contemplating the death of her
enemies the Huguenots, turned with a terrible frown towards her son,
handing him some strong essence with which to revive Mary. As her senses
returned, even the basilisk eyes of her dreaded mother-in-law could not
restrain her. One glance at the awful spectacle gave her courage; she
gave a wild scream, and rushing forward, flung herself passionately at
the feet of her uncle, Francis of Guise.
“Uncle, dear uncle, stay this fearful massacre. Speak to the Queen, or I
shall die. Oh! why was I brought here to behold such a sight?”
“My niece,” answered the Duke solemnly, raising her from the ground, and
tenderly kissing her on the cheek, “have courage; these are but a few
pestilent heretics who would have dethroned you and your husband, the
King, and set up a false religion. By their destruction we are doing
good service to God and to the blessed Virgin. Such vermin deserve no
pity. You ought to rejoice in their destruction.”
“Alas! my mother,” said Francis, also rising, “I too am overcome at this
horrible sight, I also would crave your highness’s permission to retire;
the blood of my subjects, even of my enemies, is horrible to see. Let us
go!”
“My son, I command you to stay!” broke in Catherine, furious with
passion, and imperiously raising her hand to stay him. “Duc de Guise,
support your niece, the Queen of France. Teach her the duty of a
sovereign.”
Again Francis, intimidated by his mother’s violence, reseated himself
along with the unhappy Mary, motionless beside him. Again the steel of
the axe flashed in the sunshine, and horrible contortions writhed the
bodies of the slain. It was too much. Mary, young, tender,
compassionate--afraid to plead for mercy as though committing a crime,
again fainted, and was again recovered. The Queen-mother, to whom the
savage scene was a spectacle of rapture, again commanded her to be
reseated; but Francis, now fully aroused by the sufferings of his wife,
interposed.
“My mother, I can no longer permit your Majesty to force the Queen to be
present. You are perilling her health. Govern my kingdom and slay my
subjects, but let me judge what is seemly for my wife.”
So, bearing her in his arms, with the assistance of her ladies, Francis
withdrew.
When the butchery was over, and the headless bodies were floating in the
river or strung up on the branches of the trees or piled in heaps about
the castle, Catherine retired. She commanded that the remains of the
chief conspirators should be hung in chains from the iron balustrades of
the stone balcony which protects the windows of the royal gallery and
which still remains intact, on the north front of the castle, towards
the river. The remainder were to be thrown into the Loire. This stone
balcony borders now, as then, the whole length of the state apartments
towards the river. A fall of some hundred feet down a sheer mass of grey
rock on which the castle stands makes the head dizzy. Over this
precipice the headless bodies dangled, swaying to and fro in the March
wind, a hideous and revolting sight. No one could pass through any of
the apartments of the castle without beholding it. But despised humanity
in the shape of the murdered Huguenots asserted its claim on the
attention of the Court, and the stench of these bodies hung to the
balcony, and of those strung up on the trees, and the rotting corpses
that dammed up the river, soon became so overwhelming, that even
Catherine herself was forced to retreat, and accompany her son and the
young Queen to Chenonceau. The shock and excitement were, however, too
much for the sickly Francis. Rapidly he pined and died; no physician was
found who could cure a nameless malady.
Mary Stuart, a widow at eighteen, passionate and romantic, clung fondly
to that “pleasant land” where she had spent such happy days with the
gracious Francis. She had been created Duchesse de Touraine at her
marriage, and craved earnestly to be allowed to enjoy that apanage
rather than be banished to reign in a barren land, which she dreaded
like a living tomb. But her ambitious uncles, the Duc de Guise and the
Cardinal de Lorraine, who were to her as parents, obstinately insisted
on her departure for Scotland. So she sailed from Calais; and, from the
deck of the ship that bore her across the seas, as the shores of
France--which she was never more to see--gradually faded from her view,
she sang to her lute that plaintive song, so identified with her
memory:--
“Adieu, oh plaisant pays!
Adieu! oh ma patrie,
La plus chérie, qui a nourri
Ma Belle enfance,--Adieu!”