Madame Diane de Poitiers, Duchesse de Valentinois.
Mesdames d’Aumale and de Bouillon, her daughters.[4]
Need I name more? No, for my memory could not furnish them. There are so
many other ladies and maids that I beg them to excuse me if I pass them
by with my pen,--not that I do not greatly value and esteem them, but I
should dream over them and amuse myself too much. To make an end, I must
say that in all this company there was nothing to find fault with in
their day; beauty abounded, all majesty, all charm, all grace; happy was
he who could touch with love such ladies, and happy those who could that
love _escapar_. I swear to you that I have named only those ladies and
damoiselles who were beautiful, agreeable, very accomplished, and well
sufficient to set fire to the whole world. Indeed, in their best days
they burned up a good part of it, as much us gentlemen of the Court as
others who approached the flame; to some of whom they were gentle,
aimable, favourable, and courteous. I speak of none here, hoping to make
good tales about them in this book before I finish it, and of others
whose names are not comprised here; but the whole told so discreetly,
without scandal, that nothing will be known, for the curtain of silence
will cover their names; so that if by chance they should any of them
read tales of themselves they will not be annoyed. Besides, though the
pleasures of love cannot last forever, by reason of many inconveniences,
hindrances, and changes, the memories of the past are always
pleasing.
[Illustration: _Ball at the Court of Henry III_]
[This refers to “Les Dames Galantes,” and not to the present volume.]
Now, to thoroughly consider how fine a sight was this troupe of
beautiful ladies and damoiselles, creatures divine rather than human, we
must imagine the entries into Paris and other cities, the sacred and
superlative bridals of our kings of France, and their sisters, the
daughters of France; such as those of the dauphin, of King Charles, of
King Henri III., of the Queen of Spain, of Madame de Lorraine, of the
Queen of Navarre, not to speak of many other grand weddings of the
princes and princesses, like that of M. de Joyeuse, which would have
surpassed them all if the Queen of Navarre had been there. Also we must
picture to ourselves the interview at Bayonne, the arrival of the Poles,
and an infinite number of other and like magnificences, which I could
never finish naming, where I saw these ladies appear, each more
beautiful than the rest; some more finely appointed and better dressed
than others, because for such festivals, in addition to their great
means, the king and queen would give them splendid liveries.
In short, nothing was ever seen finer, more dazzling, dainty, superb;
the glory of Niquée never approached it [enchanted palace in “Amadis”].
All this shone in a ballroom of the Tuileries or the Louvre as the stars
of heaven in the azure sky. The queen-mother wished and commanded her
ladies always to appear in grand and superb apparel, though she herself
during her widowhood never clothed herself in worldly silks, unless they
were lugubrious, but always properly and so well-fitting that she looked
the queen above all else. It is true that on the days of the weddings of
her two sons Henri and Charles, she wore gowns of black velvet, wishing,
she said, to solemnize the event by so signal an act. While she was
married she always dressed very richly and superbly, and looked what
she was. And it was fine to see and admire her in the general
processions that were made, both in Paris and other cities, such as the
Fête Dieu, that of the Rameaux [Palm Sunday], bearing palms and branches
with such grace, and on Candlemas Day, when the torches were borne by
all the Court, the flames of which contended against their own
brilliancy. At these three processions, which are most solemn, we
certainly saw nothing but beauty, grace, a noble bearing, a fine gait
and splendid apparel, all of which delighted the spectators.
It was fine also to see the queen in her married life going through the
country in her litter, being pregnant, or afterwards on horseback
attended by forty or fifty ladies and damoiselles mounted on handsome
hackneys well caparisoned, and sitting their horses with such good grace
that the men could not do better, either in equestrian style or apparel;
their hats adorned with plumes which floated in the air as if demanding
either love or war. Virgil, who took upon himself to write of the
apparel of Queen Dido when she went to the chase, says nothing that
approaches the luxury of that of our queen with her ladies, may it not
displease her, as I think I have said elsewhere.
This queen (made by the act of the great King François), who introduced
this beautiful pageantry, never forgot or let slip anything of the kind
she had once learned, but always wanted to imitate or surpass it; I have
heard her speak three or four times in my life on this subject. Those
who have seen things as I did still feel their souls enchanted like
mine, for what I say is true; I know it having seen it.
So there is the Court of our queen. Unhappy was the day when she died! I
have heard tell that our present king [Henri IV.], some eighteen months
after he saw himself more in hope and prospect of becoming King of
France, began one day to discourse with the late M. le Maréchal de
Biron, on the plans and projects he would undertake to make his Court
prosperous and fine and in all things like that of our said queen, for
at that time it was in its greatest lustre and splendour. M. le Maréchal
answered: “It is not in your power, nor in that of any king who will
ever reign, unless you can manage with God that he shall resuscitate the
queen-mother, and bring her round to you.” But that was not what the
king wanted, for when she died there was no one whom he hated so much,
but without grounds, as I could see, and as he should have known better
than I.
How luckless was the day on which such a queen died, at the very point
when we had such great necessity for her, and still have!
She died at Blois of sadness caused by the massacre which there took
place, and the melancholy tragedy there played, seeing that, without
reflection, she had brought the princes to Blois thinking to do well;
whereas it was true, as M. le Cardinal de Bourbon said to her: “Alas!
madame, you have led us all to butchery without intending it.” That so
touched her heart, and also the death of those poor men, that she took
to her bed, having previously felt ill, and never rose again.
They say that when the king announced to her the murder of M. de Guise,
saying that he was now absolutely king, without equal, or master, she
asked him if he had put the affairs of his kingdom in order before
striking the blow. To which he answered yes. “God grant it, my son,” she
said. Very prudent that she was, she foresaw plainly what would happen
to him, and to all the kingdom.[5]
Persons have spoken diversely as to her death, and even as to poison.
Possibly it was so, possibly not; but she was held to have died of
desperation, and she had reason to do so.
She was placed on her state-bed, as one of her ladies told me, neither
more nor less like Queen Anne of whom I have already spoken, clothed in
the same royal garments that the said Queen Anne wore, they not having
served since her death for any others; and thus she was borne to the
church of the castle, with the same pomp and solemnity as Queen Anne,
where she lies and rests still. The king wished to take her to Chartres
and thence to Saint-Denis, to put her with the king, her husband, in the
same tomb which she had caused to be made, built, and constructed, so
noble and superb, but the war which came on prevented it.
This is what I can say at this time of this great queen, who has given
assuredly such noble grounds to speak worthily of her that this short
discourse is not enough for her praise. I know that well; also that the
quality of my speech does not suffice, for better speakers than I would
be insufficient. At any rate, such as my discourse is, I lay it, in all
humility and devotion, at her feet; also I would avoid too great
prolixity, for which indeed I feel myself too capable; but I hope I
shall not separate from her much, although in my discourses I shall be
silent, and only speak of what her noble and incomparable virtues
command me, giving me ample matter so to do, I having seen all that I
have written of her; and as for what had happened before my time, I
heard it from persons most illustrious; and thus I shall do in all my
books.
This queen, who was of many kings the mother,
Of queens also, belonging here to France,
Died when we had most need of her support;
For none but she could give us true assistance.
* * * * *
Mézeray [in his “History of France”], 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. The old Connétable de Montmorency, the Guises,
Admiral de Coligny, the Chancellor de l’Hôpital define themselves on his
pages by their conduct and proceedings even more than by the judgment he
awards them. Catherine de’ Medici is painted there in all her
dissimulation and her network of artifices, in which she was often
caught herself; ambitious of sovereign power without possessing either
the force or the genius of it; striving to obtain it by craft, and using
for this purpose a continual system of what we should call to-day
_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. As there is nothing new but
that which is old, for often discoveries are nothing more than that
which was once known and is forgotten, the day when a modern historian
shall take up the Catherine de’ Medici of Mézeray and give her some of
the rather forced features which are to the taste of the present day,
there will come a great cry of astonishment and admiration, and the
critics will register a new discovery.[6]
M. Niel, librarian to the ministry of the Interior, an enlightened
amateur of the arts and of history, has been engaged since 1848 in
publishing a series of Portraits or “Crayons” of the celebrated
personages of the sixteenth century, kings, queens, mistresses of kings,
etc., the whole forming already a folio volume. M. Niel has applied
himself in this collection to reproduce none but authentic portraits and
solely from the original, and he has confined himself to a single form
of portraiture, that which was drawn in crayons of divers colours by
artists of the sixteenth century. “They designated in those days by the
name of ‘crayons,’” he observes, “certain portraits executed on paper in
red chalk, in black lead, and in white chalk, shaded and touched in a
way to present the effect of painting.” These designs, faithfully
reproduced, in which the red tone predominates, are for the most part
originally due to unknown artists, who seem to have belonged to the true
French lineage of art. They resemble the humble companions and followers
of our chroniclers who simply sought in their rapid sketches to catch
physiognomies, such as they saw them, with truth and candour; the
likeness alone concerned them.
François I. leads the procession with his obscure wives, and one, at
least, of his obscure mistresses, the Comtesse de Châteaubriant. Henri
II. succeeds him, giving one hand to Catherine de’ Medici, the other to
Diane de Poitiers. We are shown a Marie Stuart, young, before and after
her widowhood. In general, the men gain most from this rapid
reproduction of feature; whereas with the women it needs an effort of
the imagination to catch their delicacy and the flower of their beauty.
Charles IX. at twelve years of age, and again at eighteen and twenty, is
there to the life and caught from nature. Henri IV. is shown to us
younger and fresher than as we are wont to see him,--a Henri de Navarre
quite novel and before his beard grizzled. His first wife, Marguerite de
Valois, is portrayed at her most beauteous age, but so masked by her
costume and cramped in her ruff that we need to be aware of her charm to
be certain that the doll-like figure had any. Gabrielle d’Estrées, who
stands aloof, stiffly imprisoned in her gorgeous clothes, also needs
explanation and reflection before she appears what she really was. The
testimony of “Notices” aids these portraits; for M. Niel accompanies his
personages with remarks made with erudition and an inquiring mind.
One of the brief writings of that period which make known clearly the
person and nature of Henri IV. is the Memoir of the first president of
Normandy, Claude Groulard, at all times faithful to the king, who has
left us a naïve account of his frequent journeys to that prince and the
sojourns he made with him. Among many remarks which Groulard has
collected from the lips of Henri IV. there is one that paints the king
well in his sound good sense, his freedom from rancour, and his
knowledge--always practical, never ideal--of human beings. Groulard is
relating the approaching marriage of the king with a princess of
Florence. When Henri IV. announced it to him the worthy president
replied by an erudite comparison with the lance of Achilles, saying that
the Florentine house would thus repair the wounds it had given to France
in the person of Catherine de’ Medici. “But I ask you,” said Henri IV.,
speaking thereupon of Catherine and excusing her, “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 Guises. 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 surprised that she never did
worse.”
SAINTE-BEUVE, _Causeries du Lundi_ (1855).
DISCOURSE III.
MARIE STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTLAND, FORMERLY QUEEN OF OUR FRANCE.
Those who wish to write of this illustrious Queen of Scotland have two
very ample subjects: one her life, the other her death; both very ill
accompanied by good fortune, as I shall show at certain points in this
short Discourse in form of epitome, and not a long history, which I
leave to be written by persons more learned and better given to writing
than I.
This queen had a father, King James, of worth and valour, and a very
good Frenchman; in which he was right. After he was widowed of Madame
Magdelaine, daughter of France, he asked King François for some
honourable and virtuous princess of his kingdom with whom to re-marry,
desiring nothing so much as to continue his alliance with France.
King François, not knowing whom to choose better to content the good
prince, gave him the daughter of M. de Guise, Claude de Lorraine, then
the widow of M. de Longueville, wise, virtuous, and honourable, of which
King James was very glad and esteemed himself fortunate to take her; and
after he had taken and espoused her he found himself the same; the
kingdom of Scotland also, which she governed very wisely after she was
widowed; which event happened in a few years after her marriage, but not
before she had produced a fine issue, namely this most beautiful
princess in the world, our queen, of whom I now speak, she being, as
one might say, scarcely born and still at the breast, when the English
invaded Scotland. Her mother was then forced to hide her from place to
place in Scotland from fear of that fury; and, without the good succour
King Henri sent her she would scarce have been saved; and even so they
had to put her on vessels and expose her to the waves, the storms and
winds of the sea and convey her to France for greater security; where
certainly ill fortune, not being able to cross the seas with her or not
daring to attack her in France, left her so alone that good fortune took
her by the hand. And, as her youth grew on, we saw her great beauty and
her great virtues grow likewise; so that, coming to her fifteenth year,
her beauty shone like the light at mid-day, effacing the sun when it
shines the brightest, so beauteous was her body. As for her soul, that
was equal; she had made herself learned in Latin, so that, being between
thirteen and fourteen years of age, she declaimed before King Henri, the
queen, and all the Court, publicly in the hall of the Louvre, an
harangue in Latin, which she had made herself, maintaining and
defending, against common opinion, that it was well becoming to women to
know letters and the liberal arts. Think what a rare thing and admirable
it was, to see this wise and beautiful young queen thus orate in Latin,
which she knew and understood right well, for I was there and saw her.
Also she made Antoine Fochain, of Chauny in Vermandois, prepare for her
a rhetoric in French, which still exists, that she might the better
understand it, and make herself as eloquent in French as she had been in
Latin, and better than if she had been born in France. It was good to
see her speak to every one, whether to great or small.
[Illustration: _Marie Stuart_]
As long as she lived in France she always reserved two hours daily to
study and read; so that there was no human knowledge she could not
talk upon. Above all, she loved poesy and poets, but especially M. de
Ronsard, M. du Bellay, and M. de Maison-Fleur[7], who all made beautiful
poems and elegies upon her, and also upon her departure from France,
which I have often seen her reading to herself, in France and in
Scotland, with tears in her eyes and sighs from her heart.
She was a poet herself and composed verses, of which I have seen some
that were fine and well done and in no wise resembling those they have
laid to her account on her love for the Earl of Bothwell, which are too
coarse and too ill-polished to have come from her beautiful making. M.
de Ronsard was of my opinion as to this one day when we were reading and
discussing them. Those she composed were far more beautiful and dainty,
and quickly done, for I have often seen her retire to her cabinet and
soon return to show them to such of us good folk as were there present.
Moreover she wrote well in prose, especially letters, of which I have
seen many that were very fine and eloquent and lofty. At all times when
she talked with others she used a most gentle, dainty, and agreeable
style of speech, with kindly majesty, mingled, however, with discreet
and modest reserve, and above all with beautiful grace; so that even her
native tongue, which in itself is very rustic, barbarous, ill-sounding,
and uncouth, she spoke so gracefully, toning it in such a way, that she
made it seem beautiful and agreeable in her, though never so in others.
See what virtue there was in such beauty and grace that they could turn
coarse barbarism into sweet civility and social grace. We must not be
surprised therefore that being dressed (as I have seen her) in the
barbarous costume of the uncivilized people of her country, she
appeared, in mortal body and coarse ungainly clothing a true goddess.
Those who have seen her thus dressed will admit this truth; and those
who did not see her can look at her portrait, in which she is thus
attired. I have heard the queen-mother, and the king too, say that she
looked more beautiful, more agreeable, more desirable in that picture
than in any of the others. But how else could she look, whether in her
beautiful rich jewels, in French or Spanish style, or wearing her
Italian caps, or in her mourning garments?--which latter made her most
beautiful to see, for the whiteness of her face contended with the
whiteness of her veil as to which should carry the day; but the texture
of her veil lost it; the snow of her pure face dimmed the other, so that
when she appeared at Court in her mourning the following song was made
upon her:--
“L’on voit, sous blanc atour
En grand deuil et tristesse,
Se pourmener mainct tour
De beauté la déese,
Tenant le trait en main
De son fils inhumain;
“Et Amour, sans fronteau,
Voletter autour d’elle,
Desguisant son bandeau
En un funebre voile,
Où sont ces mots ecrits:
_Mourir ou être pris_.”[8]
That is how this princess appeared under all fashions of clothes,
whether barbarous, worldly, or austere. She had also one other
perfection with which to charm the world,--a voice most sweet and
excellent; for she sang well, attuning her voice to the lute, which she
touched very prettily with that white hand and those beautiful fingers,
perfectly made, yielding in nothing to those of Aurora. What more
remains to tell of her beauty?--if not this saying about her: that the
sun of her Scotland was very unlike her, for on certain days of the year
it shines but five hours, while she shone ever, so that her clear rays
illumined her land and her people, who of all others needed light, being
far estranged from the sun of heaven. Ah! kingdom of Scotland, I think
your days are shorter now than they ever were, and your nights the
longer, since you have lost the princess who illumined you! But you have
been ungrateful; you never recognized your duty of fidelity, as you
should have done; which I shall speak of presently.
This lady and princess pleased France so much that King Henri was urged
to give her in alliance to the dauphin, his beloved son, who, for his
part, was madly in love with her. The marriage was therefore solemnly
celebrated in the great church and the palace of Paris; where we saw
this queen appear more beauteous than a goddess from the skies, whether
in the morning, going to her espousals in noble majesty, or leading,
after dinner, at the ball, or advancing in the evening with modest steps
to offer and perform her vows to Hymen; so that the voice of all as one
man resounded and proclaimed throughout the Court and the great city
that happy a hundredfold was he, the prince, thus joined to such a
princess; and even if Scotland were a thing of price its queen
out-valued it; for had she neither crown nor sceptre, her person and her
glorious beauty were worth a kingdom; therefore, being a queen, she
brought to France and to her husband a double fortune.
This was what the world went saying of her; and for this reason she was
called queen-dauphine and her husband the king-dauphin, they living
together in great love and pleasant concord.
Next, King Henri dying, they came to be King and Queen of France, the
king and queen of two great kingdoms, happy, and most happy in
themselves, had death not seized the king and left her widowed in the
sweet April of her finest youth, having enjoyed together of love and
pleasure and felicity but four short years,--a felicity indeed of short
duration, which evil fortune might well have spared; but no, malignant
as she is, she wished to miserably treat this princess, who made a song
herself upon her sorrows in this wise:--
En mon triste et doux chant,
D’un ton fort lamentable,
Je jette un deuil tranchant,
De perte incomparable,
Et en soupirs cuisans,
Passe mes meilleurs ans.
Fut-il un tel malheur
De dure destinée,
N’y si triste douleur
De dame fortunée,
Qui mon cœur et mon œil
Vois en bierre et cercueil,
Qui en mon doux printemps
Et fleur de ma jeunesse
Toutes les peines sens
D’une extresme tristesse,
Et en rien n’ay plaisir
Qu’en regret et desir?
Ce qui m’estoit plaisant
Ores m’est peine dure;
Le jour le plus luisant
M’est nuit noire et obscure.
Et n’est rien si exquis
Qui de moy soit requis.