Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny
CATHERINE DE’ MEDICI
By Honore de Balzac
Translated by Katherine Prescott Wormeley
DEDICATION
To Monsieur le Marquis de Pastoret, Member of the Academie des
Beaux-Arts.
When we think of the enormous number of volumes that have been
published on the question as to where Hannibal crossed the Alps,
without our being able to decide to-day whether it was (according
to Whittaker and Rivaz) by Lyon, Geneva, the Great Saint-Bernard,
and the valley of Aosta; or (according to Letronne, Follard,
Saint-Simon and Fortia d’Urbano) by the Isere, Grenoble,
Saint-Bonnet, Monte Genevra, Fenestrella, and the Susa passage;
or (according to Larauza) by the Mont Cenis and the Susa; or
(according to Strabo, Polybius and Lucanus) by the Rhone, Vienne,
Yenne, and the Dent du Chat; or (according to some intelligent
minds) by Genoa, La Bochetta, and La Scrivia,--an opinion which I
share and which Napoleon adopted,--not to speak of the verjuice
with which the Alpine rocks have been bespattered by other learned
men,--is it surprising, Monsieur le marquis, to see modern history
so bemuddled that many important points are still obscure, and the
most odious calumnies still rest on names that ought to be
respected?
And let me remark, in passing, that Hannibal’s crossing has been
made almost problematical by these very elucidations. For
instance, Pere Menestrier thinks that the Scoras mentioned by
Polybius is the Saona; Letronne, Larauza and Schweighauser think
it is the Isere; Cochard, a learned Lyonnais, calls it the Drome,
and for all who have eyes to see there are between Scoras and
Scrivia great geographical and linguistical resemblances,--to say
nothing of the probability, amounting almost to certainty, that
the Carthaginian fleet was moored in the Gulf of Spezzia or the
roadstead of Genoa. I could understand these patient researches if
there were any doubt as to the battle of Canna; but inasmuch as
the results of that great battle are known, why blacken paper with
all these suppositions (which are, as it were, the arabesques of
hypothesis) while the history most important to the present day,
that of the Reformation, is full of such obscurities that we are
ignorant of the real name of the man who navigated a vessel by
steam to Barcelona at the period when Luther and Calvin were
inaugurating the insurrection of thought.[*]
You and I hold, I think, the same opinion, after having made, each
in his own way, close researches as to the grand and splendid
figure of Catherine de’ Medici. Consequently, I have thought that
my historical studies upon that queen might properly be dedicated
to an author who has written so much on the history of the
Reformation; while at the same time I offer to the character and
fidelity of a monarchical writer a public homage which may,
perhaps, be valuable on account of its rarity.
[*] The name of the man who tried this experiment at Barcelona
should be given as Salomon de Caux, not Caus. That great man
has always been unfortunate; even after his death his name is
mangled. Salomon, whose portrait taken at the age of forty-six
was discovered by the author of the “Comedy of Human Life” at
Heidelberg, was born at Caux in Normandy. He was the author of
a book entitled “The Causes of Moving Forces,” in which he
gave the theory of the expansion and condensation of steam.
He died in 1635.
CATHERINE DE’ MEDICI
INTRODUCTION
There is a general cry of paradox when scholars, struck by some
historical error, attempt to correct it; but, for whoever studies modern
history to its depths, it is plain that historians are privileged liars,
who lend their pen to popular beliefs precisely as the newspapers of the
day, or most of them, express the opinions of their readers.
Historical independence has shown itself much less among lay writers
than among those of the Church. It is from the Benedictines, one of the
glories of France, that the purest light has come to us in the matter
of history,--so long, of course, as the interests of the order were not
involved. About the middle of the eighteenth century great and learned
controversialists, struck by the necessity of correcting popular errors
endorsed by historians, made and published to the world very remarkable
works. Thus Monsieur de Launoy, nicknamed the “Expeller of Saints,” made
cruel war upon the saints surreptitiously smuggled into the Church. Thus
the emulators of the Benedictines, the members (too little recognized)
of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, began on many
obscure historical points a series of monographs, which are admirable
for patience, erudition, and logical consistency. Thus Voltaire, for a
mistaken purpose and with ill-judged passion, frequently cast the
light of his mind on historical prejudices. Diderot undertook in this
direction a book (much too long) on the era of imperial Rome. If it had
not been for the French Revolution, _criticism_ applied to history might
then have prepared the elements of a good and true history of France,
the proofs for which had long been gathered by the Benedictines. Louis
XVI., a just mind, himself translated the English work in which Walpole
endeavored to explain Richard III.,--a work much talked of in the last
century.
Why do personages so celebrated as kings and queens, so important as the
generals of armies, become objects of horror or derision? Half the world
hesitates between the famous song on Marlborough and the history of
England, and it also hesitates between history and popular tradition as
to Charles IX. At all epochs when great struggles take place between the
masses and authority, the populace creates for itself an _ogre-esque_
personage--if it is allowable to coin a word to convey a just idea.
Thus, to take an example in our own time, if it had not been for the
“Memorial of Saint Helena,” and the controversies between the Royalists
and the Bonapartists, there was every probability that the character of
Napoleon would have been misunderstood. A few more Abbe de Pradits, a
few more newspaper articles, and from being an emperor, Napoleon would
have turned into an ogre.
How does error propagate itself? The mystery is accomplished under our
very eyes without our perceiving it. No one suspects how much solidity
the art of printing has given both to the envy which pursues greatness,
and to the popular ridicule which fastens a contrary sense on a grand
historical act. Thus, the name of the Prince de Polignac is given
throughout the length and breadth of France to all bad horses that
require whipping; and who knows how that will affect the opinion of the
future as to the _coup d’Etat_ of the Prince de Polignac himself? In
consequence of a whim of Shakespeare--or perhaps it may have been a
revenge, like that of Beaumarchais on Bergasse (Bergearss)--Falstaff is,
in England, a type of the ridiculous; his very name provokes laughter;
he is the king of clowns. Now, instead of being enormously pot-bellied,
absurdly amorous, vain, drunken, old, and corrupted, Falstaff was one of
the most distinguished men of his time, a Knight of the Garter, holding
a high command in the army. At the accession of Henry V. Sir John
Falstaff was only thirty-four years old. This general, who distinguished
himself at the battle of Agincourt, and there took prisoner the
Duc d’Alencon, captured, in 1420, the town of Montereau, which was
vigorously defended. Moreover, under Henry VI. he defeated ten thousand
French troops with fifteen hundred weary and famished men.
So much for war. Now let us pass to literature, and see our own
Rabelais, a sober man who drank nothing but water, but is held to be,
nevertheless, an extravagant lover of good cheer and a resolute drinker.
A thousand ridiculous stories are told about the author of one of the
finest books in French literature,--“Pantagruel.” Aretino, the friend of
Titian, and the Voltaire of his century, has, in our day, a reputation
the exact opposite of his works and of his character; a reputation which
he owes to a grossness of wit in keeping with the writings of his age,
when broad farce was held in honor, and queens and cardinals wrote
tales which would be called, in these days, licentious. One might go on
multiplying such instances indefinitely.
In France, and that, too, during the most serious epoch of modern
history, no woman, unless it be Brunehaut or Fredegonde, has suffered
from popular error so much as Catherine de’ Medici; whereas Marie de’
Medici, all of whose actions were prejudicial to France, has escaped the
shame which ought to cover her name. Marie de’ Medici wasted the wealth
amassed by Henri IV.; she never purged herself of the charge of having
known of the king’s assassination; her _intimate_ was d’Epernon, who
did not ward off Ravaillac’s blow, and who was proved to have known the
murderer personally for a long time. Marie’s conduct was such that she
forced her son to banish her from France, where she was encouraging her
other son, Gaston, to rebel; and the victory Richelieu at last won
over her (on the Day of the Dupes) was due solely to the discovery the
cardinal made, and imparted to Louis XIII., of secret documents relating
to the death of Henri IV.
Catherine de’ Medici, on the contrary, saved the crown of France; she
maintained the royal authority in the midst of circumstances under which
more than one great prince would have succumbed. Having to make head
against factions and ambitions like those of the Guises and the house
of Bourbon, against men such as the two Cardinals of Lorraine, the two
Balafres, and the two Condes, against the queen Jeanne d’Albret, Henri
IV., the Connetable de Montmorency, Calvin, the three Colignys, Theodore
de Beze, she needed to possess and to display the rare qualities and
precious gifts of a statesman under the mocking fire of the Calvinist
press.
Those facts are incontestable. Therefore, to whosoever burrows into the
history of the sixteenth century in France, the figure of Catherine
de’ Medici will seem like that of a great king. When calumny is
once dissipated by facts, recovered with difficulty from among the
contradictions of pamphlets and false anecdotes, all explains itself to
the fame of this extraordinary woman, who had none of the weaknesses of
her sex, who lived chaste amid the license of the most dissolute court
in Europe, and who, in spite of her lack of money, erected noble public
buildings, as if to repair the loss caused by the iconoclasms of the
Calvinists, who did as much harm to art as to the body politic. Hemmed
in between the Guises who claimed to be the heirs of Charlemagne and
the factious younger branch who sought to screen the treachery of the
Connetable de Bourbon behind the throne, Catherine, forced to combat
heresy which was seeking to annihilate the monarchy, without friends,
aware of treachery among the leaders of the Catholic party, foreseeing
a republic in the Calvinist party, Catherine employed the most dangerous
but the surest weapon of public policy,--craft. She resolved to trick
and so defeat, successively, the Guises who were seeking the ruin of the
house of Valois, the Bourbons who sought the crown, and the Reformers
(the Radicals of those days) who dreamed of an impossible republic--like
those of our time; who have, however, nothing to reform. Consequently,
so long as she lived, the Valois kept the throne of France. The great
historian of that time, de Thou, knew well the value of this woman
when, on hearing of her death, he exclaimed: “It is not a woman, it is
monarchy itself that has died!”
Catherine had, in the highest degree, the sense of royalty, and she
defended it with admirable courage and persistency. The reproaches which
Calvinist writers have cast upon her are to her glory; she incurred them
by reason only of her triumphs. Could she, placed as she was, triumph
otherwise than by craft? The whole question lies there.
As for violence, that means is one of the most disputed questions of
public policy; in our time it has been answered on the Place Louis
XV., where they have now set up an Egyptian stone, as if to obliterate
regicide and offer a symbol of the system of materialistic policy which
governs us; it was answered at the Carmes and at the Abbaye; answered
on the steps of Saint-Roch; answered once more by the people against
the king before the Louvre in 1830, as it has since been answered
by Lafayette’s best of all possible republics against the republican
insurrection at Saint-Merri and the rue Transnonnain. All power,
legitimate or illegitimate, must defend itself when attacked; but the
strange thing is that where the people are held heroic in their victory
over the nobility, power is called murderous in its duel with the
people. If it succumbs after its appeal to force, power is then called
imbecile. The present government is attempting to save itself by two
laws from the same evil Charles X. tried to escape by two ordinances;
is it not a bitter derision? Is craft permissible in the hands of power
against craft? may it kill those who seek to kill it? The massacres of
the Revolution have replied to the massacres of Saint-Bartholomew. The
people, become king, have done against the king and the nobility what
the king and the nobility did against the insurgents of the sixteenth
century. Therefore the popular historians, who know very well that in a
like case the people will do the same thing over again, have no excuse
for blaming Catherine de’ Medici and Charles IX.
“All power,” said Casimir Perier, on learning what power ought to be,
“is a permanent conspiracy.” We admire the anti-social maxims put
forth by daring writers; why, then, this disapproval which, in France,
attaches to all social truths when boldly proclaimed? This question will
explain, in itself alone, historical errors. Apply the answer to
the destructive doctrines which flatter popular passions, and to the
conservative doctrines which repress the mad efforts of the people, and
you will find the reason of the unpopularity and also the popularity
of certain personages. Laubardemont and Laffemas were, like some men of
to-day, devoted to the defence of power in which they believed. Soldiers
or judges, they all obeyed royalty. In these days d’Orthez would be
dismissed for having misunderstood the orders of the ministry, but
Charles X. left him governor of a province. The power of the many is
accountable to no one; the power of one is compelled to render account
to its subjects, to the great as well as to the small.
Catherine, like Philip the Second and the Duke of Alba, like the Guises
and Cardinal Granvelle, saw plainly the future that the Reformation was
bringing upon Europe. She and they saw monarchies, religion, authority
shaken. Catherine wrote, from the cabinet of the kings of France, a
sentence of death to that spirit of inquiry which then began to threaten
modern society; a sentence which Louis XIV. ended by executing. The
revocation of the Edict of Nantes was an unfortunate measure only so far
as it caused the irritation of all Europe against Louis XIV. At another
period England, Holland, and the Holy Roman Empire would not have
welcomed banished Frenchmen and encouraged revolt in France.
Why refuse, in these days, to the majestic adversary of the most
barren of heresies the grandeur she derived from the struggle itself?
Calvinists have written much against the “craftiness” of Charles IX.;
but travel through France, see the ruins of noble churches, estimate the
fearful wounds given by the religionists to the social body, learn what
vengeance they inflicted, and you will ask yourself, as you deplore the
evils of individualism (the disease of our present France, the germ of
which was in the questions of liberty of conscience then agitated),--you
will ask yourself, I say, on which side were the executioners. There
are, unfortunately, as Catherine herself says in the third division of
this Study of her career, “in all ages hypocritical writers always ready
to weep over the fate of two hundred scoundrels killed necessarily.”
Caesar, who tried to move the senate to pity the attempt of Catiline,
might perhaps have got the better of Cicero could he have had an
Opposition and its newspapers at his command.
Another consideration explains the historical and popular disfavor
in which Catherine is held. The Opposition in France has always been
Protestant, because it has had no policy but that of _negation_; it
inherits the theories of Lutherans, Calvinists, and Protestants on the
terrible words “liberty,” “tolerance,” “progress,” and “philosophy.” Two
centuries have been employed by the opponents of power in establishing
the doubtful doctrine of the _libre arbitre_,--liberty of will. Two
other centuries were employed in developing the first corollary
of liberty of will, namely, liberty of conscience. Our century is
endeavoring to establish the second, namely, political liberty.
Placed between the ground already lost and the ground still to be
defended, Catherine and the Church proclaimed the salutary principle of
modern societies, _una fides, unus dominus_, using their power of
life and death upon the innovators. Though Catherine was vanquished,
succeeding centuries have proved her justification. The product of
liberty of will, religious liberty, and political liberty (not, observe
this, to be confounded with civil liberty) is the France of to-day.
What is the France of 1840? A country occupied exclusively with material
interests,--without patriotism, without conscience; where power has
no vigor; where election, the fruit of liberty of will and political
liberty, lifts to the surface none but commonplace men; where brute
force has now become a necessity against popular violence; where
discussion, spreading into everything, stifles the action of legislative
bodies; where money rules all questions; where individualism--the
dreadful product of the division of property _ad infinitum_--will
suppress the family and devour all, even the nation, which egoism will
some day deliver over to invasion. Men will say, “Why not the Czar?”
just as they said, “Why not the Duc d’Orleans?” We don’t cling to many
things even now; but fifty years hence we shall cling to nothing.
Thus, according to Catherine de’ Medici and according to all those who
believe in a well-ordered society, in _social man_, the subject cannot
have liberty of will, ought not to _teach_ the dogma of liberty of
conscience, or demand political liberty. But, as no society can exist
without guarantees granted to the subject against the sovereign, there
results for the subject _liberties_ subject to restriction. Liberty, no;
liberties, yes,--precise and well-defined liberties. That is in harmony
with the nature of things.
It is, assuredly, beyond the reach of human power to prevent the
liberty of thought; and no sovereign can interfere with money. The
great statesmen who were vanquished in the long struggle (it lasted five
centuries) recognized the right of subjects to great liberties; but they
did not admit their right to publish anti-social thoughts, nor did they
admit the indefinite liberty of the subject. To them the words “subject”
and “liberty” were terms that contradicted each other; just as the
theory of citizens being all equal constitutes an absurdity which nature
contradicts at every moment. To recognize the necessity of a religion,
the necessity of authority, and then to leave to subjects the right
to deny religion, attack its worship, oppose the exercise of power
by public expression communicable and communicated by thought, was an
impossibility which the Catholics of the sixteenth century would not
hear of.
Alas! the victory of Calvinism will cost France more in the future
than it has yet cost her; for religious sects and humanitarian,
equality-levelling politics are, to-day, the tail of Calvinism;
and, judging by the mistakes of the present power, its contempt for
intellect, its love for material interests, in which it seeks the basis
of its support (though material interests are the most treacherous of
all supports), we may predict that unless some providence intervenes,
the genius of destruction will again carry the day over the genius of
preservation. The assailants, who have nothing to lose and all to gain,
understand each other thoroughly; whereas their rich adversaries
will not make any sacrifice either of money or self-love to draw to
themselves supporters.
The art of printing came to the aid of the opposition begun by the
Vaudois and the Albigenses. As soon as human thought, instead of
condensing itself, as it was formerly forced to do to remain in
communicable form, took on a multitude of garments and became, as
it were, the people itself, instead of remaining a sort of axiomatic
divinity, there were two multitudes to combat,--the multitude of ideas,
and the multitude of men. The royal power succumbed in that warfare, and
we are now assisting, in France, at its last combination with elements
which render its existence difficult, not to say impossible. Power is
action, and the elective principle is discussion. There is no policy, no
statesmanship possible where discussion is permanent.
Therefore we ought to recognize the grandeur of the woman who had the
eyes to see this future and fought it bravely. That the house of Bourbon
was able to succeed to the house of Valois, that it found a crown
preserved to it, was due solely to Catherine de’ Medici. Suppose the
second Balafre had lived? No matter how strong the Bearnais was, it is
doubtful whether he could have seized the crown, seeing how dearly the
Duc de Mayenne and the remains of the Guise party sold it to him. The
means employed by Catherine, who certainly had to reproach herself with
the deaths of Francois II. and Charles IX., whose lives might have
been saved in time, were never, it is observable, made the subject of
accusations by either the Calvinists or modern historians. Though there
was no poisoning, as some grave writers have said, there was other
conduct almost as criminal; there is no doubt she hindered Pare from
saving one, and allowed the other to accomplish his own doom by moral
assassination. But the sudden death of Francois II., and that of Charles
IX., were no injury to the Calvinists, and therefore the causes of these
two events remained in their secret sphere, and were never suspected
either by the writers of the people of that day; they were not divined
except by de Thou, l’Hopital, and minds of that calibre, or by the
leaders of the two parties who were coveting or defending the throne,
and believed such means necessary to their end.
Popular songs attacked, strangely enough, Catherine’s morals. Every
one knows the anecdote of the soldier who was roasting a goose in
the courtyard of the chateau de Tours during the conference between
Catherine and Henri IV., singing, as he did so, a song in which the
queen was grossly insulted. Henri IV. drew his sword to go out and kill
the man; but Catherine stopped him and contented herself with calling
from the window to her insulter:--
“Eh! but it was Catherine who gave you the goose.”
Though the executions at Amboise were attributed to Catherine, and
though the Calvinists made her responsible for all the inevitable evils
of that struggle, it was with her as it was, later, with Robespierre,
who is still waiting to be justly judged. Catherine was, moreover,
rightly punished for her preference for the Duc d’Anjou, to whose
interests the two elder brothers were sacrificed. Henri III., like all
spoilt children, ended in becoming absolutely indifferent to his mother,
and he plunged voluntarily into the life of debauchery which made of him
what his mother had made of Charles IX., a husband without sons, a king
without heirs. Unhappily the Duc d’Alencon, Catherine’s last male child,
had already died, a natural death.
The last words of the great queen were like a summing up of her lifelong
policy, which was, moreover, so plain in its common-sense that all
cabinets are seen under similar circumstances to put it in practice.
“Enough cut off, my son,” she said when Henri III. came to her death-bed
to tell her that the great enemy of the crown was dead, “_now piece
together_.”
By which she meant that the throne should at once reconcile itself
with the house of Lorraine and make use of it, as the only means of
preventing evil results from the hatred of the Guises,--by holding out
to them the hope of surrounding the king. But the persistent craft and
dissimulation of the woman and the Italian, which she had never
failed to employ, was incompatible with the debauched life of her son.
Catherine de’ Medici once dead, the policy of the Valois died also.
Before undertaking to write the history of the manners and morals
of this period in action, the author of this Study has patiently and
minutely examined the principal reigns in the history of France, the
quarrel of the Burgundians and the Armagnacs, that of the Guises and the
Valois, each of which covers a century. His first intention was to
write a picturesque history of France. Three women--Isabella of Bavaria,
Catharine and Marie de’ Medici--hold an enormous place in it, their sway
reaching from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, ending in Louis
XIV. Of these three queens, Catherine is the finer and more interesting.
Hers was virile power, dishonored neither by the terrible amours of
Isabella nor by those, even more terrible, though less known, of Marie
de’ Medici. Isabella summoned the English into France against her son,
and loved her brother-in-law, the Duc d’Orleans. The record of Marie de’
Medici is heavier still. Neither had political genius.
It was in the course of these studies that the writer acquired the
conviction of Catherine’s greatness; as he became initiated into the
constantly renewed difficulties of her position, he saw with what
injustice historians--all influenced by Protestants--had treated this
queen. Out of this conviction grew the three sketches which here follow;
in which some erroneous opinions formed upon Catherine, also upon the
persons who surrounded her, and on the events of her time, are refuted.
If this book is placed among the Philosophical Studies, it is because
it shows the Spirit of a Time, and because we may clearly see in it the
influence of thought.
But before entering the political arena, where Catherine will be seen
facing the two great difficulties of her career, it is necessary to
give a succinct account of her preceding life, from the point of view
of impartial criticism, in order to take in as much as possible of this
vast and regal existence up to the moment when the first part of the
present Study begins.
Never was there any period, in any land, in any sovereign family, a
greater contempt for legitimacy than in the famous house of the Medici.
On the subject of power they held the same doctrine now professed by
Russia, namely: to whichever head the crown goes, he is the true, the
legitimate sovereign. Mirabeau had reason to say: “There has been but
one mesalliance in my family,--that of the Medici”; for in spite of
the paid efforts of genealogists, it is certain that the Medici, before
Everardo de’ Medici, _gonfaloniero_ of Florence in 1314, were simple
Florentine merchants who became very rich. The first personage in this
family who occupies an important place in the history of the famous
Tuscan republic is Silvestro de’ Medici, _gonfaloniero_ in 1378. This
Silvestro had two sons, Cosmo and Lorenzo de’ Medici.
From Cosmo are descended Lorenzo the Magnificent, the Duc de Nemours,
the Duc d’Urbino, father of Catherine, Pope Leo X., Pope Clement VII.,
and Alessandro, not Duke of Florence, as historians call him, but
Duke _della citta di Penna_, a title given by Pope Clement VII., as a
half-way station to that of Grand-duke of Tuscany.
From Lorenzo are descended the Florentine Brutus Lorenzino, who killed
Alessandro, Cosmo, the first grand-duke, and all the sovereigns of
Tuscany till 1737, at which period the house became extinct.
But neither of the two branches--the branch Cosmo and the branch
Lorenzo--reigned through their direct and legitimate lines until the
close of the sixteenth century, when the grand-dukes of Tuscany began
to succeed each other peacefully. Alessandro de’ Medici, he to whom the
title of Duke _della citta di Penna_ was given, was the son of the
Duke d’Urbino, Catherine’s father, by a Moorish slave. For this reason
Lorenzino claimed a double right to kill Alessandro,--as a usurper in
his house, as well as an oppressor of the city. Some historians believe
that Alessandro was the son of Clement VII. The fact that led to the
recognition of this bastard as chief of the republic and head of the
house of the Medici was his marriage with Margaret of Austria, natural
daughter of Charles V.
Francesco de’ Medici, husband of Bianca Capello, accepted as his son a
child of poor parents bought by the celebrated Venetian; and, strange
to say, Ferdinando, on succeeding Francesco, maintained the substituted
child in all his rights. That child, called Antonio de’ Medici, was
considered during four reigns as belonging to the family; he won the
affection of everybody, rendered important services to the family, and
died universally regretted.
Nearly all the first Medici had natural children, whose careers were
invariably brilliant. For instance, the Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici,
afterwards Pope under the name of Clement VII., was the illegitimate son
of Giuliano I. Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici was also a bastard, and came
very near being Pope and the head of the family.
Lorenzo II., the father of Catherine, married in 1518, for his second
wife, Madeleine de la Tour de Boulogne, in Auvergne, and died April 25,
1519, a few days after his wife, who died in giving birth to Catherine.
Catherine was therefore orphaned of father and mother as soon as she
drew breath. Hence the strange adventures of her childhood, mixed up as
they were with the bloody efforts of the Florentines, then seeking
to recover their liberty from the Medici. The latter, desirous of
continuing to reign in Florence, behaved with such circumspection that
Lorenzo, Catherine’s father, had taken the name of Duke d’Urbino.
At Lorenzo’s death, the head of the house of the Medici was Pope Leo
X., who sent the illegitimate son of Giuliano, Giulio de’ Medici, then
cardinal, to govern Florence. Leo X. was great-uncle to Catherine, and
this Cardinal Giulio, afterward Clement VII., was her uncle by the left
hand.
It was during the siege of Florence, undertaken by the Medici to force
their return there, that the Republican party, not content with having
shut Catherine, then nine years old, into a convent, after robbing her
of all her property, actually proposed, on the suggestion of one named
Batista Cei, to expose her between two battlements on the walls to the
artillery of the Medici. Bernardo Castiglione went further in a council
held to determine how matters should be ended: he was of opinion that,
so far from returning her to the Pope as the latter requested, she ought
to be given to the soldiers for dishonor. This will show how all popular
revolutions resemble each other. Catherine’s subsequent policy, which
upheld so firmly the royal power, may well have been instigated in
part by such scenes, of which an Italian girl of nine years of age was
assuredly not ignorant.
The rise of Alessandro de’ Medici, to which the bastard Pope Clement
VII. powerfully contributed, was no doubt chiefly caused by the
affection of Charles V. for his famous illegitimate daughter Margaret.
Thus Pope and emperor were prompted by the same sentiment. At this epoch
Venice had the commerce of the world; Rome had its moral government;
Italy still reigned supreme through the poets, the generals, the
statesmen born to her. At no period of the world’s history, in any land,
was there ever seen so remarkable, so abundant a collection of men of
genius. There were so many, in fact, that even the lesser princes were
superior men. Italy was crammed with talent, enterprise, knowledge,
science, poesy, wealth, and gallantry, all the while torn by intestinal
warfare and overrun with conquerors struggling for possession of her
finest provinces. When men are so strong, they do not fear to admit
their weaknesses. Hence, no doubt, this golden age for bastards. We
must, moreover, do the illegitimate children of the house of the Medici
the justice to say that they were ardently devoted to the glory, power,
and increase of wealth of that famous family. Thus as soon as the _Duca
della citta di Penna_, son of the Moorish woman, was installed as tyrant
of Florence, he espoused the interest of Pope Clement VII., and gave a
home to the daughter of Lorenzo II., then eleven years of age.
When we study the march of events and that of men in this curious
sixteenth century, we ought never to forget that public policy had for
its element a perpetual craftiness and a dissimulation which destroyed,
in all characters, the straightforward, upright bearing our imaginations
demand of eminent personages. In this, above all, is Catherine’s
absolution. It disposes of the vulgar and foolish accusations of
treachery launched against her by the writers of the Reformation. This
was the great age of that statesmanship the code of which was written
by Macchiavelli as well as by Spinosa, by Hobbes as well as by
Montesquieu,--for the dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates contains
Montesquieu’s true thought, which his connection with the Encyclopedists
did not permit him to develop otherwise than as he did.
These principles are to-day the secret law of all cabinets in which
plans for the conquest and maintenance of great power are laid. In
France we blamed Napoleon when he made use of that Italian genius for
craft which was bred in his bone,--though in his case it did not always
succeed. But Charles V., Catherine, Philip II., and Pope Julius would
not have acted otherwise than as he did in the affair of Spain. History,
in the days when Catherine was born, if judged from the point of view of
honesty, would seem an impossible tale. Charles V., obliged to sustain
Catholicism against the attacks of Luther, who threatened the Throne in
threatening the Tiara, allowed the siege of Rome and held Pope Clement
VII. in prison! This same Clement, who had no bitterer enemy than
Charles V., courted him in order to make Alessandro de’ Medici ruler of
Florence, and obtained his favorite daughter for that bastard. No
sooner was Alessandro established than he, conjointly with Clement VII.,
endeavored to injure Charles V. by allying himself with Francois I.,
king of France, by means of Catherine de’ Medici; and both of them
promised to assist Francois in reconquering Italy. Lorenzino de’ Medici
made himself the companion of Alessandro’s debaucheries for the express
purpose of finding an opportunity to kill him. Filippo Strozzi, one of
the great minds of that day, held this murder in such respect that he
swore that his sons should each marry a daughter of the murderer; and
each son religiously fulfilled his father’s oath when they might all
have made, under Catherine’s protection, brilliant marriages; for one
was the rival of Doria, the other a marshal of France. Cosmo de’ Medici,
successor of Alessandro, with whom he had no relationship, avenged the
death of that tyrant in the cruellest manner, with a persistency lasting
twelve years; during which time his hatred continued keen against
the persons who had, as a matter of fact, given him the power. He was
eighteen years old when called to the sovereignty; his first act was to
declare the rights of Alessandro’s legitimate sons null and void,--all
the while avenging their father’s death! Charles V. confirmed the
disinheriting of his grandsons, and recognized Cosmo instead of the son
of Alessandro and his daughter Margaret. Cosmo, placed on the throne by
Cardinal Cibo, instantly exiled the latter; and the cardinal revenged
himself by accusing Cosmo (who was the first grand-duke) of murdering
Alessandro’s son. Cosmo, as jealous of his power as Charles V. was of
his, abdicated in favor of his son Francesco, after causing the death
of his other son, Garcia, to avenge the death of Cardinal Giovanni
de’ Medici, whom Garcia had assassinated. Cosmo the First and his son
Francesco, who ought to have been devoted, body and soul, to the house
of France, the only power on which they might really have relied,
made themselves the lacqueys of Charles V. and Philip II., and were
consequently the secret, base, and perfidious enemies of Catherine de’
Medici, one of the glories of their house.
Such were the leading contradictory and illogical traits, the treachery,
knavery, and black intrigues of a single house, that of the Medici. From
this sketch, we may judge of the other princes of Italy and Europe.
All the envoys of Cosmos I. to the court of France had, in their secret
instructions, an order to poison Strozzi, Catherine’s relation, when he
arrived. Charles V. had already assassinated three of the ambassadors of
Francois I.
It was early in the month of October, 1533, that the _Duca della citta
di Penna_ started from Florence for Livorno, accompanied by the sole
heiress of Lorenzo II., namely, Catherine de’ Medici. The duke and the
Princess of Florence, for that was the title by which the young girl,
then fourteen years of age, was known, left the city surrounded by a
large retinue of servants, officers, and secretaries, preceded by armed
men, and followed by an escort of cavalry. The young princess knew
nothing as yet of what her fate was to be, except that the Pope was to
have an interview at Livorno with the Duke Alessandro; but her uncle,
Filippo Strozzi, very soon informed her of the future before her.
Filippo Strozzi had married Clarice de’ Medici, half-sister on
the father’s side of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, father of
Catherine; but this marriage, which was brought about as much to convert
one of the firmest supporters of the popular party to the cause of the
Medici as to facilitate the recall of that family, then banished from
Florence, never shook the stern champion from his course, though he
was persecuted by his own party for making it. In spite of all apparent
changes in his conduct (for this alliance naturally affected it
somewhat) he remained faithful to the popular party, and declared
himself openly against the Medici as soon as he foresaw their intention
to enslave Florence. This great man even refused the offer of a
principality made to him by Leo X.
At the time of which we are now writing Filippo Strozzi was a victim
to the policy of the Medici, so vacillating in its means, so fixed
and inflexible in its object. After sharing the misfortunes and the
captivity of Clement VII. when the latter, surprised by the Colonna,
took refuge in the Castle of Saint-Angelo, Strozzi was delivered up by
Clement as a hostage and taken to Naples. As the Pope, when he got his
liberty, turned savagely on his enemies, Strozzi came very near losing
his life, and was forced to pay an enormous sum to be released from a
prison where he was closely confined. When he found himself at liberty
he had, with an instinct of kindness natural to an honest man, the
simplicity to present himself before Clement VII., who had perhaps
congratulated himself on being well rid of him. The Pope had such good
cause to blush for his own conduct that he received Strozzi extremely
ill.
Strozzi thus began, early in life, his apprenticeship in the misfortunes
of an honest man in politics,--a man whose conscience cannot lend itself
to the capriciousness of events; whose actions are acceptable only to
the virtuous; and who is therefore persecuted by the world,--by the
people, for opposing their blind passions; by power for opposing its
usurpations. The life of such great citizens is a martyrdom, in which
they are sustained only by the voice of their conscience and an heroic
sense of social duty, which dictates their course in all things. There
were many such men in the republic of Florence, all as great as Strozzi,
and as able as their adversaries the Medici, though vanquished by the
superior craft and wiliness of the latter. What could be more worthy of
admiration than the conduct of the chief of the Pazzi at the time of the
conspiracy of his house, when, his commerce being at that time enormous,
he settled all his accounts with Asia, the Levant, and Europe before
beginning that great attempt; so that, if it failed, his correspondents
should lose nothing.
The history of the establishment of the house of the Medici in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is a magnificent tale which still
remains to be written, though men of genius have already put their hands
to it. It is not the history of a republic, nor of a society, nor of
any special civilization; it is the history of _statesmen_, the eternal
history of Politics,--that of usurpers, that of conquerors.
As soon as Filippo Strozzi returned to Florence he re-established the
preceding form of government and ousted Ippolito de’ Medici, another
bastard, and the very Alessandro with whom, at the later period of which
we are now writing, he was travelling to Livorno. Having completed this
change of government, he became alarmed at the evident inconstancy of
the people of Florence, and, fearing the vengeance of Clement VII., he
went to Lyon to superintend a vast house of business he owned there,
which corresponded with other banking-houses of his own in Venice, Rome,
France, and Spain. Here we find a strange thing. These men who bore the
weight of public affairs and of such a struggle as that with the Medici
(not to speak of contentions with their own party) found time and
strength to bear the burden of a vast business and all its speculations,
also of banks and their complications, which the multiplicity of
coinages and their falsification rendered even more difficult than it is
in our day. The name “banker” comes from the _banc_ (Anglice, _bench_)
upon which the banker sat, and on which he rang the gold and silver
pieces to try their quality. After a time Filippo found in the death of
his wife, whom he adored, a pretext for renewing his relations with the
Republican party, whose secret police becomes the more terrible in
all republics, because every one makes himself a spy in the name of a
liberty which justifies everything.
Filippo returned to Florence at the very moment when that city was
compelled to adopt the yoke of Alessandro; but he had previously gone
to Rome and seen Pope Clement VII., whose affairs were now so prosperous
that his disposition toward Strozzi was much changed. In the hour of
triumph the Medici were so much in need of a man like Filippo--were it
only to smooth the return of Alessandro--that Clement urged him to take
a seat at the Council of the bastard who was about to oppress the city;
and Strozzi consented to accept the diploma of a senator.
But, for the last two years and more, he had seen, like Seneca and
Burrhus, the beginnings of tyranny in his Nero. He felt himself, at the
moment of which we write, an object of so much distrust on the part
of the people and so suspected by the Medici whom he was constantly
resisting, that he was confident of some impending catastrophe.
Consequently, as soon as he heard from Alessandro of the negotiation for
Catherine’s marriage with the son of Francois I., the final arrangements
for which were to be made at Livorno, where the negotiators had
appointed to meet, he formed the plan of going to France, and attaching
himself to the fortunes of his niece, who needed a guardian.
Alessandro, delighted to rid himself of a man so unaccommodating in the
affairs of Florence, furthered a plan which relieved him of one murder
at least, and advised Strozzi to put himself at the head of Catherine’s
household. In order to dazzle the eyes of France the Medici had selected
a brilliant suite for her whom they styled, very unwarrantably, the
Princess of Florence, and who also went by the name of the little
Duchess d’Urbino. The cortege, at the head of which rode Alessandro,
Catherine, and Strozzi, was composed of more than a thousand persons,
not including the escort and servants. When the last of it issued from
the gates of Florence the head had passed that first village beyond the
city where they now braid the Tuscan straw hats. It was beginning to be
rumored among the people that Catherine was to marry a son of Francois
I.; but the rumor did not obtain much belief until the Tuscans beheld
with their own eyes this triumphal procession from Florence to Livorno.
Catherine herself, judging by all the preparations she beheld, began to
suspect that her marriage was in question, and her uncle then revealed
to her the fact that the first ambitious project of his house had
aborted, and that the hand of the dauphin had been refused to her.
Alessandro still hoped that the Duke of Albany would succeed in changing
this decision of the king of France who, willing as he was to buy the
support of the Medici in Italy, would only grant them his second son,
the Duc d’Orleans. This petty blunder lost Italy to France, and did not
prevent Catherine from becoming queen.
The Duke of Albany, son of Alexander Stuart, brother of James III.,
king of Scotland, had married Anne de la Tour de Boulogne, sister of
Madeleine de la Tour de Boulogne, Catherine’s mother; he was therefore
her maternal uncle. It was through her mother that Catherine was so rich
and allied to so many great families; for, strangely enough, her rival,
Diane de Poitiers, was also her cousin. Jean de Poitiers, father of
Diane, was son of Jeanne de Boulogne, aunt of the Duchess d’Urbino.
Catherine was also a cousin of Mary Stuart, her daughter-in-law.
Catherine now learned that her dowry in money was a hundred thousand
ducats. A ducat was a gold piece of the size of an old French louis,
though less thick. (The old louis was worth twenty-four francs--the
present one is worth twenty). The Comtes of Auvergne and Lauraguais
were also made a part of the dowry, and Pope Clement added one hundred
thousand ducats in jewels, precious stones, and other wedding gifts; to
which Alessandro likewise contributed his share.
On arriving at Livorno, Catherine, still so young, must have been
flattered by the extreme magnificence displayed by Pope Clement (“her
uncle in Notre-Dame,” then head of the house of the Medici), in order to
outdo the court of France. He had already arrived at Livorno in one of
his galleys, which was lined with crimson satin fringed with gold,
and covered with a tent-like awning in cloth of gold. This galley,
the decoration of which cost twenty thousand ducats, contained several
apartments destined for the bride of Henri of France, all of which were
furnished with the richest treasures of art the Medici could collect.
The rowers, magnificently apparelled, and the crew were under the
command of a prior of the order of the Knights of Rhodes. The household
of the Pope were in three other galleys. The galleys of the Duke of
Albany, anchored near those of Clement VII., added to the size and
dignity of the flotilla.
Duke Alessandro presented the officers of Catherine’s household to the
Pope, with whom he had a secret conference, in which, it would appear,
he presented to his Holiness Count Sebastiano Montecuculi, who had just
left, somewhat abruptly, the service of Charles V. and that of his two
generals, Antonio di Leyva and Ferdinando di Gonzago. Was there between
the two bastards, Giulio and Alessandro, a premeditated intention of
making the Duc d’Orleans dauphin? What reward was promised to Sebastiano
Montecuculi, who, before entering the service of Charles V. had studied
medicine? History is silent on that point. We shall see presently what
clouds hang round that fact. The obscurity is so great that, quite
recently, grave and conscientious historians have admitted Montecuculi’s
innocence.
Catherine then heard officially from the Pope’s own lips of the alliance
reserved for her. The Duke of Albany had been able to do no more than
hold the king of France, and that with difficulty, to his promise of
giving Catherine the hand of his second son, the Duc d’Orleans. The
Pope’s impatience was so great, and he was so afraid that his plans
would be thwarted either by some intrigue of the emperor, or by the
refusal of France, or by the grandees of the kingdom looking with evil
eye upon the marriage, that he gave orders to embark at once, and sailed
for Marseille, where he arrived toward the end of October, 1533.
Notwithstanding its wealth, the house of the Medici was eclipsed on this
occasion by the court of France. To show the lengths to which the Medici
pushed their magnificence, it is enough to say that the “dozen” put
into the bride’s purse by the Pope were twelve gold medals of priceless
historical value, which were then unique. But Francois I., who loved
the display of festivals, distinguished himself on this occasion. The
wedding festivities of Henri de Valois and Catherine de’ Medici lasted
thirty-four days.
It is useless to repeat the details, which have been given in all the
histories of Provence and Marseille, as to this celebrated interview
between the Pope and the king of France, which was opened by a jest of
the Duke of Albany as to the duty of keeping fasts,--a jest mentioned
by Brantome and much enjoyed by the court, which shows the tone of the
manners of that day.
Many conjectures have been made as to Catherine’s barrenness, which
lasted ten years. Strange calumnies still rest upon this queen, all of
whose actions were fated to be misjudged. It is sufficient to say that
the cause was solely in Henri II. After the difficulty was removed,
Catherine had ten children. The delay was, in one respect, fortunate for
France. If Henri II. had had children by Diane de Poitiers the politics
of the kingdom would have been dangerously complicated. When the
difficulty was removed the Duchesse de Valentinois had reached the
period of a woman’s second youth. This matter alone will show that the
true life of Catherine de’ Medici is still to be written, and also--as
Napoleon said with profound wisdom--that the history of France should be
either in one volume only, or one thousand.
Here is a contemporaneous and succinct account of the meeting of Clement
VII. and the king of France:
“His Holiness the Pope, having been conducted to the palace, which
was, as I have said, prepared beyond the port, every one retired
to their own quarters till the morrow, when his Holiness was to
make his entry; the which was made with great sumptuousness and
magnificence, he being seated in a chair carried on the shoulders
of two men and wearing his pontifical robes, but not the tiara.
Pacing before him was a white hackney, bearing the sacrament of
the altar,--the said hackney being led by reins of white silk held
by two footmen finely equipped. Next came all the cardinals in
their robes, on pontifical mules, and Madame la Duchesse d’Urbino
in great magnificence, accompanied by a vast number of ladies and
gentlemen, both French and Italian.
“The Holy Father having arrived in the midst of this company at
the place appointed for his lodging, every one retired; and all
this, being well-ordered, took place without disorder or tumult.
While the Pope was thus making his entry, the king crossed the
water in a frigate and went to the lodging the Pope had just
quitted, in order to go the next day and make obeisance to the
Holy Father as a Most Christian king.
“The next day the king being prepared set forth for the palace
where was the Pope, accompanied by the princes of the blood, such
as Monseigneur le Duc de Vendomois (father of the Vidame de
Chartres), the Comte de Sainct-Pol, Messieurs de Montpensier and
la Roche-sur-Yon, the Duc de Nemours (brother of the Duc de
Savoie) who died in this said place, the Duke of Albany, and many
others, whether counts, barons, or seigneurs; nearest to the king
was the Seigneur de Montmorency, his Grand-master.
“The king, being arrived at the palace, was received by the Pope
and all the college of cardinals, assembled in consistory, most
civilly. This done, each retired to the place ordained for him,
the king taking with him several cardinals to feast them,--among
them Cardinal de’ Medici, nephew of the Pope, a very splendid man
with a fine retinue.
“On the morrow those persons chosen by his Holiness and by the
king began to assemble to discuss the matters for which the
meeting was made. First, the matter of the Faith was treated of,
and a bull was put forth repressing heresy and preventing that
things come to greater combustion than they now are.
“After this was concluded the marriage of the Duc d’Orleans,
second son of the king, with Catherine de’ Medici, Duchesse
d’Urbino, niece of his Holiness, under the conditions such, or
like to those, as were proposed formerly by the Duke of Albany.
The said espousals were celebrated with great magnificence, and
our Holy Father himself wedded the pair. The marriage thus
consummated, the Holy Father held a consistory at which he created
four cardinals and devoted them to the king,--to wit: Cardinal Le
Veneur, formerly bishop of Lisieux and grand almoner; the Cardinal
de Boulogne of the family of la Chambre, brother on the mother’s
side of the Duke of Albany; the Cardinal de Chatillon of the house
of Coligny, nephew of the Sire de Montmorency, and the Cardinal de
Givry.”
When Strozzi delivered the dowry in presence of the court he noticed
some surprise on the part of the French seigneurs; they even said aloud
that it was little enough for such a mesalliance (what would they have
said in these days?). Cardinal Ippolito replied, saying:--
“You must be ill-informed as to the secrets of your king. His Holiness
has bound himself to give to France three pearls of inestimable value,
namely: Genoa, Milan, and Naples.”
The Pope left Sebastiano Montecuculi to present himself to the court
of France, to which the count offered his services, complaining of
his treatment by Antonio di Leyva and Ferdinando di Gonzago, for which
reason his services were accepted. Montecuculi was not made a part
of Catherine’s household, which was wholly composed of French men and
women, for, by a law of the monarchy, the execution of which the Pope
saw with great satisfaction, Catherine was naturalized by letters-patent
as a Frenchwoman before the marriage. Montecuculi was appointed in the
first instance to the household of the queen, the sister of Charles V.
After a while he passed into the service of the dauphin as cup-bearer.
The new Duchesse d’Orleans soon found herself a nullity at the court of
Francois I. Her young husband was in love with Diane de Poitiers, who
certainly, in the matter of birth, could rival Catherine, and was far
more of a great lady than the little Florentine. The daughter of the
Medici was also outdone by Queen Eleonore, sister of Charles V., and by
Madame d’Etampes, whose marriage with the head of the house of Brosse
made her one of the most powerful and best titled women in France.
Catherine’s aunt the Duchess of Albany, the Queen of Navarre, the
Duchesse de Guise, the Duchesse de Vendome, Madame la Connetable de
Montmorency, and other women of like importance, eclipsed by birth and
by their rights, as well as by their power at the most sumptuous court
of France (not excepting that of Louis XIV.), the daughter of the
Florentine grocers, who was richer and more illustrious through the
house of the Tour de Boulogne than by her own family of Medici.
The position of his niece was so bad and difficult that the republican
Filippo Strozzi, wholly incapable of guiding her in the midst of such
conflicting interests, left her after the first year, being recalled to
Italy by the death of Clement VII. Catherine’s conduct, when we remember
that she was scarcely fifteen years old, was a model of prudence. She
attached herself closely to the king, her father-in-law; she left him as
little as she could, following him on horseback both in hunting and in
war. Her idolatry for Francois I. saved the house of the Medici from all
suspicion when the dauphin was poisoned. Catherine was then, and so was
her husband, at the headquarters of the king in Provence; for Charles
V. had speedily invaded France and the late scene of the marriage
festivities had become the theatre of a cruel war.
At the moment when Charles V. was put to flight, leaving the bones of
his army in Provence, the dauphin was returning to Lyon by the Rhone.
He stopped to sleep at Tournon, and, by way of pastime, practised some
violent physical exercises,--which were nearly all the education his
brother and he, in consequence of their detention as hostages, had ever
received. The prince had the imprudence--it being the month of
August, and the weather very hot--to ask for a glass of water, which
Montecuculi, as his cup-bearer, gave to him, with ice in it. The dauphin
died almost immediately. Francois I. adored his son. The dauphin was,
according to all accounts, a charming young man. His father, in despair,
gave the utmost publicity to the proceedings against Montecuculi, which
he placed in the hands of the most able magistrates of that day. The
count, after heroically enduring the first tortures without confessing
anything, finally made admissions by which he implicated Charles V. and
his two generals, Antonio di Leyva and Ferdinando di Gonzago. No affair
was ever more solemnly debated. Here is what the king did, in the words
of an ocular witness:--
“The king called an assembly at Lyon of all the princes of his
blood, all the knights of his order, and other great personages of
the kingdom; also the legal and papal nuncio, the cardinals who
were at his court, together with the ambassadors of England,
Scotland, Portugal, Venice, Ferrara, and others; also all the
princes and noble strangers, both Italian and German, who were
then residing at his court in great numbers. These all being
assembled, he caused to be read to them, in presence of each
other, from beginning to end, the trial of the unhappy man who
poisoned Monseigneur the late dauphin,--with all the
interrogatories, confessions, confrontings, and other ceremonies
usual in criminal trials; he, the king, not being willing that the
sentence should be executed until all present had given their
opinion on this heinous and miserable case.”
The fidelity, devotion, and cautious skill of the Comte de Montecuculi
may seem extraordinary in our time, when all the world, even ministers
of State, tell everything about the least little event with which they
have to do; but in those days princes could find devoted servants, or
knew how to choose them. Monarchical Moreys existed because in those
days there was _faith_. Never ask devotion of _self-interest_, because
such interest may change; but expect all from sentiments, religious
faith, monarchical faith, patriotic faith. Those three beliefs produced
such men as the Berthereaus of Geneva, the Sydneys and Straffords of
England, the murderers of Thomas a Becket, the Jacques Coeurs, the
Jeanne d’Arcs, the Richelieus, Dantons, Bonchamps, Talmonts, and also
the Clements, Chabots, and others.
The dauphin was poisoned in the same manner, and possibly by the same
drug which afterwards served MADAME under Louis XIV. Pope Clement VII.
had been dead two years; Duke Alessandro, plunged in debauchery, seemed
to have no interest in the elevation of the Duc d’Orleans; Catherine,
then seventeen, and full of admiration for her father-in-law, was with
him at the time; Charles V. alone appeared to have an interest in his
death, for Francois I. was negotiating for his son an alliance which
would assuredly have aggrandized France. The count’s confession was
therefore very skilfully based on the passions and politics of the
moment; Charles V. was then flying from France, leaving his armies
buried in Provence with his happiness, his reputation, and his hopes
of dominion. It is to be remarked that if torture had forced admissions
from an innocent man, Francois I. gave Montecuculi full liberty to speak
in presence of an imposing assembly, and before persons in whose eyes
innocence had some chance to triumph. The king, who wanted the truth,
sought it in good faith.
In spite of her now brilliant future, Catherine’s situation at court was
not changed by the death of the dauphin. Her barrenness gave reason to
fear a divorce in case her husband should ascend the throne. The dauphin
was under the spell of Diane de Poitiers, who assumed to rival Madame
d’Etampes, the king’s mistress. Catherine redoubled in care and cajolery
of her father-in-law, being well aware that her sole support was in
him. The first ten years of Catherine’s married life were years of
ever-renewed grief, caused by the failure, one by one, of her hopes of
pregnancy, and the vexations of her rivalry with Diane. Imagine what
must have been the life of a young princess, watched by a jealous
mistress who was supported by a powerful party,--the Catholic
party,--and by the two powerful alliances Diane had made in marrying one
daughter to Robert de la Mark, Duc de Bouillon, Prince of Sedan, and the
other to Claude de Lorraine, Duc d’Aumale.
Catherine, helpless between the party of Madame d’Etampes and the party
of the Senechale (such was Diane’s title during the reign of Francois
I.), which divided the court and politics into factions for these mortal
enemies, endeavored to make herself the friend of both Diane de Poitiers
and Madame d’Etampes. She, who was destined to become so great a queen,
played the part of a servant. Thus she served her apprenticeship in that
double-faced policy which was ever the secret motor of her life. Later,
the _queen_ was to stand between Catholics and Calvinists, just as the
_woman_ had stood for ten years between Madame d’Etampes and Madame de
Poitiers. She studied the contradictions of French politics; she saw
Francois I. sustaining Calvin and the Lutherans in order to embarrass
Charles V., and then, after secretly and patiently protecting the
Reformation in Germany, and tolerating the residence of Calvin at the
court of Navarre, he suddenly turned against it with excessive rigor.
Catherine beheld on the one hand the court, and the women of the court,
playing with the fire of heresy, and on the other, Diane at the head
of the Catholic party with the Guises, solely because the Duchesse
d’Etampes supported Calvin and the Protestants.
Such was the political education of this queen, who saw in the cabinet
of the king of France the same errors committed as in the house of the
Medici. The dauphin opposed his father in everything; he was a bad
son. He forgot the cruel but most vital maxim of royalty, namely, that
thrones need solidarity; and that a son who creates opposition during
the lifetime of his father must follow that father’s policy when he
mounts the throne. Spinosa, who was as great a statesman as he was
a philosopher, said--in the case of one king succeeding another by
insurrection or crime,--
“If the new king desires to secure the safety of his throne and of
his own life he must show such ardor in avenging the death of his
predecessor that no one shall feel a desire to commit the same
crime. But to avenge it _worthily_ it is not enough to shed the
blood of his subjects, he must approve the axioms of the king he
replaces, and take the same course in governing.”
It was the application of this maxim which gave Florence to the Medici.
Cosmo I. caused to be assassinated at Venice, after eleven years’ sway,
the Florentine Brutus, and, as we have already said, persecuted the
Strozzi. It was forgetfulness of this maxim which ruined Louis XVI.
That king was false to every principle of royal government when he
re-established the parliaments suppressed by his grandfather. Louis
XV. saw the matter clearly. The parliaments, and notably that of
Paris, counted for fully half in the troubles which necessitated the
convocation of the States-general. The fault of Louis XV. was, that in
breaking down that barrier which separated the throne from the people he
did not erect a stronger; in other words, that he did not substitute for
parliament a strong constitution of the provinces. There lay the remedy
for the evils of the monarchy; thence should have come the voting on
taxes, the regulation of them, and a slow approval of reforms that were
necessary to the system of monarchy.
The first act of Henri II. was to give his confidence to the Connetable
de Montmorency, whom his father had enjoined him to leave in disgrace.
The Connetable de Montmorency was, with Diane de Poitiers, to whom he
was closely bound, the master of the State. Catherine was therefore less
happy and less powerful after she became queen of France than while she
was dauphiness. From 1543 she had a child every year for ten years, and
was occupied with maternal cares during the period covered by the last
three years of the reign of Francois I. and nearly the whole of the
reign of Henri II. We may see in this recurring fecundity the influence
of a rival, who was able thus to rid herself of the legitimate wife,--a
barbarity of feminine policy which must have been one of Catherine’s
grievances against Diane.
Thus set aside from public life, this superior woman passed her time
in observing the self-interests of the court people and of the various
parties which were formed about her. All the Italians who had
followed her were objects of violent suspicion. After the execution
of Montecuculi the Connetable de Montmorency, Diane, and many of the
keenest politicians of the court were filled with suspicion of the
Medici; though Francois I. always repelled it. Consequently, the Gondi,
Strozzi, Ruggieri, Sardini, etc.,--in short, all those who were
called distinctively “the Italians,”--were compelled to employ greater
resources of mind, shrewd policy, and courage, to maintain themselves at
court against the weight of disfavor which pressed upon them.
During her husband’s reign Catherine’s amiability to Diane de Poitiers
went to such great lengths that intelligent persons must regard it as
proof of that profound dissimulation which men, events, and the conduct
of Henri II. compelled Catherine de’ Medici to employ. But they go too
far when they declare that she never claimed her rights as wife
and queen. In the first place, the sense of dignity which Catherine
possessed in the highest degree forbade her claiming what historians
call her rights as a wife. The ten children of the marriage explain
Henri’s conduct; and his wife’s maternal occupations left him free to
pass his time with Diane de Poitiers. But the king was never lacking in
anything that was due to himself; and he gave Catherine an “entry” into
Paris, to be crowned as queen, which was worthy of all such pageants
that had ever taken place. The archives of the Parliament, and those of
the Cour des Comptes, show that those two great bodies went to meet
her outside of Paris as far as Saint Lazare. Here is an extract from du
Tillet’s account of it:--
“A platform had been erected at Saint-Lazare, on which was a
throne (du Tillet calls it a _chair de parement_). Catherine took
her seat upon it, wearing a surcoat, or species of ermine
short-cloak covered with precious stones, a bodice beneath it with
the royal mantle, and on her head a crown enriched with pearls and
diamonds, and held in place by the Marechale de la Mark, her lady
of honor. Around her _stood_ the princes of the blood, and other
princes and seigneurs, richly apparelled, also the chancellor of
France in a robe of gold damask on a background of crimson-red.
Before the queen, and on the same platform, were seated, in two
rows, twelve duchesses or countesses, wearing ermine surcoats,
bodices, robes, and circlets,--that is to say, the coronets of
duchesses and countesses. These were the Duchesses d’Estouteville,
Montpensier (elder and younger); the Princesses de la
Roche-sur-Yon; the Duchesses de Guise, de Nivernois, d’Aumale, de
Valentinois (Diane de Poitiers), Mademoiselle la batarde legitimee
de France (the title of the king’s daughter, Diane, who was
Duchesse de Castro-Farnese and afterwards Duchesse de
Montmorency-Damville), Madame la Connetable, and Mademoiselle de
Nemours; without mentioning other demoiselles who were not seated.
The four presidents of the courts of justice, wearing their caps,
several other members of the court, and the clerk du Tillet, mounted
the platform, made reverent bows, and the chief judge, Lizet,
kneeling down, harangued the queen. The chancellor then knelt down
and answered. The queen made her entry at half-past three o’clock in
an open litter, having Madame Marguerite de France sitting
opposite to her, and on either side of the litter the Cardinals of
Amboise, Chatillon, Boulogne, and de Lenoncourt in their episcopal
robes. She left her litter at the church of Notre-Dame, where she
was received by the clergy. After offering her prayer, she was
conducted by the rue de la Calandre to the palace, where the royal
supper was served in the great hall. She there appeared, seated at
the middle of the marble table, beneath a velvet dais strewn with
golden fleur-de-lis.”
We may here put an end to one of those popular beliefs which are
repeated in many writers from Sauval down. It has been said that Henri
II. pushed his neglect of the proprieties so far as to put the initials
of his mistress on the buildings which Catherine advised him to continue
or to begin with so much magnificence. But the double monogram which can
be seen at the Louvre offers a daily denial to those who are so little
clear-sighted as to believe in silly nonsense which gratuitously insults
our kings and queens. The H or Henri and the two C’s of Catherine which
back it, appear to represent the two D’s of Diane. The coincidence may
have pleased Henri II., but it is none the less true that the royal
monogram contained officially the initial of the king and that of the
queen. This is so true that the monogram can still be seen on the column
of the Halle au Ble, which was built by Catherine alone. It can also be
seen in the crypt of Saint-Denis, on the tomb which Catherine erected
for herself in her lifetime beside that of Henri II., where her figure
is modelled from nature by the sculptor to whom she sat for it.
On a solemn occasion, when he was starting, March 25, 1552, for his
expedition into Germany, Henri II. declared Catherine regent during his
absence, and also in case of his death. Catherine’s most cruel enemy,
the author of “Marvellous Discourses on Catherine the Second’s Behavior”
admits that she carried on the government with universal approval and
that the king was satisfied with her administration. Henri received both
money and men at the time he wanted them; and finally, after the fatal
day of Saint-Quentin, Catherine obtained considerable sums of money from
the people of Paris, which she sent to Compiegne, where the king then
was.
In politics, Catherine made immense efforts to obtain a little
influence. She was clever enough to bring the Connetable de Montmorency,
all-powerful under Henri II., to her interests. We all know the terrible
answer that the king made, on being harassed by Montmorency in her
favor. This answer was the result of an attempt by Catherine to give the
king good advice, in the few moments she was ever alone with him, when
she explained the Florentine policy of pitting the grandees of the
kingdom one against another and establishing the royal authority on
their ruins. But Henri II., who saw things only through the eyes of
Diane and the Connetable, was a truly feudal king and the friend of all
the great families of his kingdom.
After the futile attempt of the Connetable in her favor, which must have
been made in the year 1556, Catherine began to cajole the Guises for
the purpose of detaching them from Diane and opposing them to the
Connetable. Unfortunately, Diane and Montmorency were as vehement
against the Protestants as the Guises. There was therefore not the same
animosity in their struggle as there might have been had the religious
question entered it. Moreover, Diane boldly entered the lists against
the queen’s project by coquetting with the Guises and giving her
daughter to the Duc d’Aumale. She even went so far that certain authors
declared she gave more than mere good-will to the gallant Cardinal de
Lorraine; and the lampooners of the time made the following quatrain on
Henri II:
“Sire, if you’re weak and let your will relax
Till Diane and Lorraine do govern you,
Pound, knead and mould, re-melt and model you,
Sire, you are nothing--nothing else than wax.”
It is impossible to regard as sincere the signs of grief and the
ostentation of mourning which Catherine showed on the death of Henri II.
The fact that the king was attached by an unalterable passion to Diane
de Poitiers naturally made Catherine play the part of a neglected wife
who adores her husband; but, like all women who act by their head, she
persisted in this dissimulation and never ceased to speak tenderly of
Henri II. In like manner Diane, as we know, wore mourning all her life
for her husband the Senechal de Breze. Her colors were black and white,
and the king was wearing them at the tournament when he was killed.
Catherine, no doubt in imitation of her rival, wore mourning for Henri
II. for the rest of her life. She showed a consummate perfidy toward
Diane de Poitiers, to which historians have not given due attention. At
the king’s death the Duchesse de Valentinois was completely disgraced
and shamefully abandoned by the Connetable, a man who was always below
his reputation. Diane offered her estate and chateau of Chenonceaux to
the queen. Catherine then said, in presence of witnesses:--
“I can never forget that she made the happiness of my dear Henri. I am
ashamed to accept her gift; I wish to give her a domain in place of it,
and I shall offer her that of Chaumont-sur-Loire.”
Accordingly, the deed of exchange was signed at Blois in 1559. Diane,
whose sons-in-law were the Duc d’Aumale and the Duc de Bouillon (then a
sovereign prince), kept her wealth, and died in 1566 aged sixty-six.
She was therefore nineteen years older than Henri II. These dates, taken
from her epitaph which was copied from her tomb by the historian who
concerned himself so much about her at the close of the last century,
clear up quite a number of historical difficulties. Some historians have
declared she was forty, others that she was sixteen at the time of
her father’s condemnation in 1523; in point of fact she was then
twenty-four. After reading everything for and against her conduct
towards Francois I. we are unable to affirm or to deny anything. This is
one of the passages of history that will ever remain obscure. We may
see by what happens in our own day how history is falsified at the very
moment when events happen.
Catherine, who had founded great hopes on the age of her rival, tried
more than once to overthrow her. It was a dumb, underhand, terrible
struggle. The day came when Catherine believed herself for a moment on
the verge of success. In 1554, Diane, who was ill, begged the king to
go to Saint-Germain and leave her for a short time until she recovered.
This stately coquette did not choose to be seen in the midst of medical
appliances and without the splendors of apparel. Catherine arranged, as
a welcome to her husband, a magnificent ballet, in which six beautiful
young girls were to recite a poem in his honor. She chose for this
function Miss Fleming, a relation of her uncle the Duke of Albany, the
handsomest young woman, some say, that was ever seen, white and very
fair; also one of her own relations, Clarice Strozzi, a magnificent
Italian with superb black hair, and hands that were of rare beauty;
Miss Lewiston, maid of honor to Mary Stuart; Mary Stuart herself;
Madame Elizabeth of France (who was afterwards that unfortunate Queen
of Spain); and Madame Claude. Elizabeth and Claude were eight and nine
years old, Mary Stuart twelve; evidently the queen intended to bring
forward Miss Fleming and Clarice Strozzi and present them without rivals
to the king. The king fell in love with Miss Fleming, by whom he had a
natural son, Henri de Valois, Comte d’Angouleme, grand-prior of France.
But the power and influence of Diane were not shaken. Like Madame de
Pompadour with Louis XV., the Duchesse de Valentinois forgave all. But
what sort of love did this attempt show in Catherine? Was it love to her
husband or love of power? Women may decide.
A great deal is said in these days of the license of the press; but it
is difficult to imagine the lengths to which it went when printing was
first invented. We know that Aretino, the Voltaire of his time, made
kings and emperors tremble, more especially Charles V.; but the world
does not know so well the audacity and license of pamphlets. The chateau
de Chenonceaux, which we have just mentioned, was given to Diane, or
rather not given, she was implored to accept it to make her forget one
of the most horrible publications ever levelled against a woman, and
which shows the violence of the warfare between herself and Madame
d’Etampes. In 1537, when she was thirty-eight years of age, a rhymester
of Champagne named Jean Voute, published a collection of Latin verses in
which were three epigrams upon her. It is to be supposed that the poet
was sure of protection in high places, for the pamphlet has a preface in
praise of itself, signed by Salmon Macrin, first valet-de-chambre to
the king. Only one passage is quotable from these epigrams, which are
entitled: IN PICTAVIAM, ANAM AULIGAM.
“A painted trap catches no game,” says the poet, after telling Diane
that she painted her face and bought her teeth and hair. “You may buy
all that superficially makes a woman, but you can’t buy that your lover
wants; for he wants life, and you are dead.”
This collection, printed by Simon de Colines, is dedicated to a
bishop!--to Francois Bohier, the brother of the man who, to save
his credit at court and redeem his offence, offered to Diane, on the
accession of Henri II., the chateau de Chenonceaux, built by his father,
Thomas Bohier, a councillor of state under four kings: Louis XI.,
Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francois I. What were the pamphlets
published against Madame de Pompadour and against Marie-Antoinette
compared to these verses, which might have been written by Martial?
Voute must have made a bad end. The estate and chateau cost Diane
nothing more than the forgiveness enjoined by the gospel. After all,
the penalties inflicted on the press, though not decreed by juries, were
somewhat more severe than those of to-day.
The queens of France, on becoming widows, were required to remain in the
king’s chamber forty days without other light than that of wax tapers;
they did not leave the room until after the burial of the king. This
inviolable custom was a great annoyance to Catherine, who feared
cabals; and, by chance, she found a means to evade it, thus: Cardinal
de Lorraine, leaving, very early in the morning, the house of the _belle
Romaine_, a celebrated courtesan of the period, who lived in the rue
Culture-Sainte-Catherine, was set upon and maltreated by a party of
libertines. “On which his holiness, being much astonished” (says Henri
Estienne), “gave out that the heretics were preparing ambushes against
him.” The court at once removed from Paris to Saint-Germain, and the
queen-mother, declaring that she would not abandon the king her son,
went with him.
The accession of Francois II., the period at which Catherine confidently
believed she could get possession of the regal power, was a moment of
cruel disappointment, after the twenty-six years of misery she had lived
through at the court of France. The Guises laid hands on power with
incredible audacity. The Duc de Guise was placed in command of the army;
the Connetable was dismissed; the cardinal took charge of the treasury
and the clergy.
Catherine now began her political career by a drama which, though it did
not have the dreadful fame of those of later years, was, nevertheless,
most horrible; and it must, undoubtedly, have accustomed her to the
terrible after emotions of her life. While appearing to be in harmony
with the Guises, she endeavored to pave the way for her ultimate triumph
by seeking a support in the house of Bourbon, and the means she took
were as follows: Whether it was that (before the death of Henri II.),
and after fruitlessly attempting violent measures, she wished to awaken
jealousy in order to bring the king back to her; or whether as she
approached middle-age it seemed to her cruel that she had never known
love, certain it is that she showed a strong interest in a seigneur of
the royal blood, Francois de Vendome, son of Louis de Vendome (the house
from which that of the Bourbons sprang), and Vidame de Chartres,
the name under which he is known in history. The secret hatred which
Catherine bore to Diane was revealed in many ways, to which historians,
preoccupied by political interests, have paid no attention. Catherine’s
attachment to the vidame proceeded from the fact that the young man had
offered an insult to the favorite. Diane’s greatest ambition was for the
honor of an alliance with the royal family of France. The hand of her
second daughter (afterwards Duchesse d’Aumale) was offered on her behalf
to the Vidame de Chartres, who was kept poor by the far-sighted policy
of Francois I. In fact, when the Vidame de Chartres and the Prince de
Conde first came to court, Francois I. gave them--what? The office of
chamberlain, with a paltry salary of twelve hundred crowns a year, the
same that he gave to the simplest gentlemen. Though Diane de Poitiers
offered an immense dowry, a fine office under the crown, and the favor
of the king, the vidame refused. After which, this Bourbon, already
factious, married Jeanne, daughter of the Baron d’Estissac, by whom he
had no children. This act of pride naturally commended him to Catherine,
who greeted him after that with marked favor and made a devoted friend
of him.
Historians have compared the last Duc de Montmorency, beheaded at
Toulouse, to the Vidame de Chartres, in the art of pleasing, in
attainments, accomplishments, and talent. Henri II. showed no jealousy;
he seemed not even to suppose that a queen of France could fail in her
duty, or a Medici forget the honor done to her by a Valois. But during
this time when the queen was, it is said, coquetting with the Vidame
de Chartres, the king, after the birth of her last child, had virtually
abandoned her. This attempt at making him jealous was to no purpose, for
Henri died wearing the colors of Diane de Poitiers.
At the time of the king’s death Catherine was, therefore, on terms of
gallantry with the vidame,--a situation which was quite in conformity
with the manners and morals of a time when love was both so chivalrous
and so licentious that the noblest actions were as natural as the most
blamable; although historians, as usual, have committed the mistake in
this case of taking the exception for the rule.
The four sons of Henri II. of course rendered null the position of the
Bourbons, who were all extremely poor and were now crushed down by the
contempt which the Connetable de Montmorency’s treachery brought upon
them, in spite of the fact that the latter had thought best to fly the
kingdom.
The Vidame de Chartres--who was to the first Prince de Conde what
Richelieu was to Mazarin, his father in policy, his model, and, above
all, his master in gallantry--concealed the excessive ambition of his
house beneath an external appearance of light-hearted gaiety. Unable
during the reign of Henri II. to make head against the Guises, the
Montmorencys, the Scottish princes, the cardinals, and the Bouillons,
he distinguished himself by his graceful bearing, his manners, his wit,
which won him the favor of many charming women and the heart of some
for whom he cared nothing. He was one of those privileged beings
whose seductions are irresistible, and who owe to love the power of
maintaining themselves according to their rank. The Bourbons would not
have resented, as did Jarnac, the slander of la Chataigneraie; they
were willing enough to accept the lands and castles of their
mistresses,--witness the Prince de Conde, who accepted the estate of
Saint-Valery from Madame la Marechale de Saint-Andre.
During the first twenty days of mourning after the death of Henri II.
the situation of the vidame suddenly changed. As the object of the queen
mother’s regard, and permitted to pay his court to her as court is paid
to a queen, very secretly, he seemed destined to play an important role,
and Catherine did, in fact, resolve to use him. The vidame received
letters from her for the Prince de Conde, in which she pointed out to
the latter the necessity of an alliance against the Guises. Informed of
this intrigue, the Guises entered the queen’s chamber for the purpose of
compelling her to issue an order consigning the vidame to the Bastille,
and Catherine, to save herself, was under the hard necessity of obeying
them. After a captivity of some months, the vidame died on the very day
he left prison, which was shortly before the conspiracy of Amboise. Such
was the conclusion of the first and only amour of Catherine de’ Medici.
Protestant historians have said that the queen caused the vidame to be
poisoned, to lay the secret of her gallantries in a tomb!
We have now shown what was the apprenticeship of this woman for the
exercise of her royal power.
PART I. THE CALVINIST MARTYR
I. A HOUSE WHICH NO LONGER EXISTS
AT THE CORNER OF A STREET WHICH NO LONGER EXISTS IN A PARIS WHICH NO
LONGER EXISTS
Few persons in the present day know how plain and unpretentious were
the dwellings of the burghers of Paris in the sixteenth century, and how
simple their lives. Perhaps this simplicity of habits and of thought was
the cause of the grandeur of that old bourgeoisie which was certainly
grand, free, and noble,--more so, perhaps, than the bourgeoisie of the
present day. Its history is still to be written; it requires and it
awaits a man of genius. This reflection will doubtless rise to the lips
of every one after reading the almost unknown incident which forms
the basis of this Study and is one of the most remarkable facts in the
history of that bourgeoisie. It will not be the first time in history
that conclusion has preceded facts.
In 1560, the houses of the rue de la Vieille-Pelleterie skirted the left
bank of the Seine, between the pont Notre-Dame and the pont au Change.
A public footpath and the houses then occupied the space covered by the
present roadway. Each house, standing almost in the river, allowed its
dwellers to get down to the water by stone or wooden stairways, closed
and protected by strong iron railings or wooden gates, clamped with
iron. The houses, like those in Venice, had an entrance on _terra
firma_ and a water entrance. At the moment when the present sketch is
published, only one of these houses remains to recall the old Paris of
which we speak, and that is soon to disappear; it stands at the
corner of the Petit-Pont, directly opposite to the guard-house of the
Hotel-Dieu.
Formerly each dwelling presented on the river-side the fantastic
appearance given either by the trade of its occupant and his habits,
or by the originality of the exterior constructions invented by the
proprietors to use or abuse the Seine. The bridges being encumbered with
more mills than the necessities of navigation could allow, the Seine
formed as many enclosed basins as there were bridges. Some of these
basins in the heart of old Paris would have offered precious scenes and
tones of color to painters. What a forest of crossbeams supported the
mills with their huge sails and their wheels! What strange effects were
produced by the piles or props driven into the water to project the
upper floors of the houses above the stream! Unfortunately, the art of
genre painting did not exist in those days, and that of engraving was
in its infancy. We have therefore lost that curious spectacle, still
offered, though in miniature, by certain provincial towns, where the
rivers are overhung with wooden houses, and where, as at Vendome, the
basins, full of water grasses, are enclosed by immense iron railings, to
isolate each proprietor’s share of the stream, which extends from bank
to bank.
The name of this street, which has now disappeared from the map,
sufficiently indicates the trade that was carried on in it. In those
days the merchants of each class of commerce, instead of dispersing
themselves about the city, kept together in the same neighborhood and
protected themselves mutually. Associated in corporations which limited
their number, they were still further united into guilds by the Church.
In this way prices were maintained. Also, the masters were not at the
mercy of their workmen, and did not obey their whims as they do to-day;
on the contrary, they made them their children, their apprentices, took
care of them, and taught them the intricacies of the trade. In order
to become a master, a workman had to produce a masterpiece, which was
always dedicated to the saint of his guild. Will any one dare to say
that the absence of competition destroyed the desire for perfection, or
lessened the beauty of products? What say you, you whose admiration
for the masterpieces of past ages has created the modern trade of the
sellers of bric-a-brac?
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the trade of the furrier was
one of the most flourishing industries. The difficulty of obtaining
furs, which, being all brought from the north, required long and
perilous journeys, gave a very high price and value to those products.
Then, as now, high prices led to consumption; for vanity likes to
override obstacles. In France, as in other kingdoms, not only did royal
ordinances restrict the use of furs to the nobility (proved by the part
which ermine plays in the old blazons), but also certain rare furs, such
as _vair_ (which was undoubtedly Siberian sable), could not be worn by
any but kings, dukes, and certain lords clothed with official powers.
A distinction was made between the greater and lesser _vair_. The very
name has been so long disused, that in a vast number of editions of
Perrault’s famous tale, Cinderella’s slipper, which was no doubt of
_vair_ (the fur), is said to have been made of _verre_ (glass). Lately
one of our most distinguished poets was obliged to establish the
true orthography of the word for the instruction of his
brother-feuilletonists in giving an account of the opera of the
“Cenerentola,” where the symbolic slipper has been replaced by a ring,
which symbolizes nothing at all.
Naturally the sumptuary laws about the wearing of fur were perpetually
infringed upon, to the great satisfaction of the furriers. The
costliness of stuffs and furs made a garment in those days a durable
thing,--as lasting as the furniture, the armor, and other items of that
strong life of the fifteenth century. A woman of rank, a seigneur, all
rich men, also all the burghers, possessed at the most two garments for
each season, which lasted their lifetime and beyond it. These garments
were bequeathed to their children. Consequently the clause in the
marriage-contract relating to arms and clothes, which in these days is
almost a dead letter because of the small value of wardrobes that need
constant renewing, was then of much importance. Great costs brought with
them solidity. The toilet of a woman constituted a large capital; it was
reckoned among the family possessions, and was kept in those enormous
chests which threaten to break through the floors of our modern houses.
The jewels of a woman of 1840 would have been the _undress_ ornaments of
a great lady in 1540.
To-day, the discovery of America, the facilities of transportation,
the ruin of social distinctions which has paved the way for the ruin of
apparent distinctions, has reduced the trade of the furrier to what it
now is,--next to nothing. The article which a furrier sells to-day, as
in former days, for twenty _livres_ has followed the depreciation of
money: formerly the _livre_, which is now worth one franc and is usually
so called, was worth twenty francs. To-day, the lesser bourgeoisie and
the courtesans who edge their capes with sable, are ignorant than in
1440 an ill-disposed police-officer would have incontinently arrested
them and marched them before the justice at the Chatelet. Englishwomen,
who are so fond of ermine, do not know that in former times none but
queens, duchesses, and chancellors were allowed to wear that royal fur.
There are to-day in France several ennobled families whose true name is
Pelletier or Lepelletier, the origin of which is evidently derived from
some rich furrier’s counter, for most of our burgher’s names began in
some such way.
This digression will explain, not only the long feud as to precedence
which the guild of drapers maintained for two centuries against the
guild of furriers and also of mercers (each claiming the right to walk
first, as being the most important guild in Paris), but it will also
serve to explain the importance of the Sieur Lecamus, a furrier honored
with the custom of two queens, Catherine de’ Medici and Mary Stuart,
also the custom of the parliament,--a man who for twenty years was the
syndic of his corporation, and who lived in the street we have just
described.
The house of Lecamus was one of three which formed the three angles
of the open space at the end of the pont au Change, where nothing now
remains but the tower of the Palais de Justice, which made the fourth
angle. On the corner of this house, which stood at the angle of the pont
au Change and the quai now called the quai aux Fleurs, the architect had
constructed a little shrine for a Madonna, which was always lighted by
wax-tapers and decked with real flowers in summer and artificial ones in
winter. On the side of the house toward the rue du Pont, as on the side
toward the rue de la Vieille-Pelleterie, the upper story of the house
was supported by wooden pillars. All the houses in this mercantile
quarter had an arcade behind these pillars, where the passers in the
street walked under cover on a ground of trodden mud which kept the
place always dirty. In all French towns these arcades or galleries are
called _les piliers_, a general term to which was added the name of
the business transacted under them,--as “piliers des Halles” (markets),
“piliers de la Boucherie” (butchers).
These galleries, a necessity in the Parisian climate, which is so
changeable and so rainy, gave this part of the city a peculiar character
of its own; but they have now disappeared. Not a single house in the
river bank remains, and not more than about a hundred feet of the old
“piliers des Halles,” the last that have resisted the action of time,
are left; and before long even that relic of the sombre labyrinth of old
Paris will be demolished. Certainly, the existence of such old ruins
of the middle-ages is incompatible with the grandeurs of modern Paris.
These observations are meant not so much to regret the destruction of
the old town, as to preserve in words, and by the history of those who
lived there, the memory of a place now turned to dust, and to excuse
the following description, which may be precious to a future age now
treading on the heels of our own.
The walls of this house were of wood covered with slate. The spaces
between the uprights had been filled in, as we may still see in some
provincial towns, with brick, so placed, by reversing their thickness,
as to make a pattern called “Hungarian point.” The window-casings and
lintels, also in wood, were richly carved, and so was the corner pillar
where it rose above the shrine of the Madonna, and all the other pillars
in front of the house. Each window, and each main beam which separated
the different storeys, was covered with arabesques of fantastic
personages and animals wreathed with conventional foliage. On the street
side, as on the river side, the house was capped with a roof looking as
if two cards were set up one against the other,--thus presenting a gable
to the street and a gable to the water. This roof, like the roof of
a Swiss chalet, overhung the building so far that on the second floor
there was an outside gallery with a balustrade, on which the owners of
the house could walk under cover and survey the street, also the river
basin between the bridges and the two lines of houses.
These houses on the river bank were very valuable. In those days a
system of drains and fountains was still to be invented; nothing of the
kind as yet existed except the circuit sewer, constructed by Aubriot,
provost of Paris under Charles the Wise, who also built the Bastille,
the pont Saint-Michel and other bridges, and was the first man of
genius who ever thought of the sanitary improvement of Paris. The houses
situated like that of Lecamus took from the river the water necessary
for the purposes of life, and also made the river serve as a natural
drain for rain-water and household refuse. The great works that the
“merchants’ provosts” did in this direction are fast disappearing.
Middle-aged persons alone can remember to have seen the great holes in
the rue Montmartre, rue du Temple, etc., down which the waters poured.
Those terrible open jaws were in the olden time of immense benefit to
Paris. Their place will probably be forever marked by the sudden rise
of the paved roadways at the spots where they opened,--another
archaeological detail which will be quite inexplicable to the historian
two centuries hence. One day, about 1816, a little girl who was carrying
a case of diamonds to an actress at the Ambigu, for her part as queen,
was overtaken by a shower and so nearly washed down the great drainhole
in the rue du Temple that she would have disappeared had it not been for
a passer who heard her cries. Unluckily, she had let go the diamonds,
which were, however, recovered later at a man-hole. This event made a
great noise, and gave rise to many petitions against these engulfers of
water and little girls. They were singular constructions about five feet
high, furnished with iron railings, more or less movable, which
often caused the inundation of the neighboring cellars, whenever the
artificial river produced by sudden rains was arrested in its course by
the filth and refuse collected about these railings, which the owners of
the abutting houses sometimes forgot to open.
The front of this shop of the Sieur Lecamus was all window, formed of
sashes of leaded panes, which made the interior very dark. The furs were
taken for selection to the houses of rich customers. As for those who
came to the shop to buy, the goods were shown to them outside, between
the pillars,--the arcade being, let us remark, encumbered during the
day-time with tables, and clerks sitting on stools, such as we all
remember seeing some fifteen years ago under the “piliers des Halles.”
From these outposts, the clerks and apprentices talked, questioned,
answered each other, and called to the passers,--customs which the great
Walter Scott has made use of in his “Fortunes of Nigel.”
The sign, which represented an ermine, hung outside, as we still see in
some village hostelries, from a rich bracket of gilded iron filagree.
Above the ermine, on one side of the sign, were the words:--
LECAMVS
FURRIER
TO MADAME LA ROYNE ET DU ROY NOSTRE SIRE.
On the other side of the sign were the words:--
TO MADAME LA ROYNE-MERE
AND MESSIEURS DV PARLEMENT.
The words “Madame la Royne-mere” had been lately added. The gilding was
fresh. This addition showed the recent changes produced by the sudden
and violent death of Henri II., which overturned many fortunes at court
and began that of the Guises.
The back-shop opened on the river. In this room usually sat the
respectable proprietor himself and Mademoiselle Lecamus. In those days
the wife of a man who was not noble had no right to the title of dame,
“madame”; but the wives of the burghers of Paris were allowed to use
that of “mademoiselle,” in virtue of privileges granted and confirmed
to their husbands by the several kings to whom they had done
service. Between this back-shop and the main shop was the well of a
corkscrew-staircase which gave access to the upper story, where were
the great ware-room and the dwelling-rooms of the old couple, and
the garrets lighted by skylights, where slept the children, the
servant-woman, the apprentices, and the clerks.
This crowding of families, servants, and apprentices, the little space
which each took up in the building where the apprentices all slept in
one large chamber under the roof, explains the enormous population of
Paris then agglomerated on one-tenth of the surface of the present city;
also the queer details of private life in the middle ages; also, the
contrivances of love which, with all due deference to historians, are
found only in the pages of the romance-writers, without whom they would
be lost to the world. At this period very great _seigneurs_, such, for
instance, as Admiral de Coligny, occupied three rooms, and their suites
lived at some neighboring inn. There were not, in those days, more than
fifty private mansions in Paris, and those were fifty palaces belonging
to sovereign princes, or to great vassals, whose way of living was
superior to that of the greatest German rulers, such as the Duke of
Bavaria and the Elector of Saxony.
The kitchen of the Lecamus family was beneath the back-shop and looked
out upon the river. It had a glass door opening upon a sort of iron
balcony, from which the cook drew up water in a bucket, and where the
household washing was done. The back-shop was made the dining-room,
office, and salon of the merchant. In this important room (in all such
houses richly panelled and adorned with some special work of art, and
also a carved chest) the life of the merchant was passed; there the
joyous suppers after the work of the day was over, there the secret
conferences on the political interests of the burghers and of royalty
took place. The formidable corporations of Paris were at that time able
to arm a hundred thousand men. Therefore the opinions of the merchants
were backed by their servants, their clerks, their apprentices, their
workmen. The burghers had a chief in the “provost of the merchants” who
commanded them, and in the Hotel de Ville, a palace where they possessed
the right to assemble. In the famous “burghers’ parlor” their solemn
deliberations took place. Had it not been for the continual sacrifices
which by that time made war intolerable to the corporations, who were
weary of their losses and of the famine, Henri IV., that factionist who
became king, might never perhaps have entered Paris.
Every one can now picture to himself the appearance of this corner of
old Paris, where the bridge and quai still are, where the trees of the
quai aux Fleurs now stand, but where no trace remains of the period
of which we write except the tall and famous tower of the Palais de
Justice, from which the signal was given for the Saint Bartholomew.
Strange circumstance! one of the houses standing at the foot of that
tower then surrounded by wooden shops, that, namely, of Lecamus, was
about to witness the birth of facts which were destined to prepare for
that night of massacre, which was, unhappily, more favorable than fatal
to Calvinism.
At the moment when our history begins, the audacity of the new religious
doctrines was putting all Paris in a ferment. A Scotchman named Stuart
had just assassinated President Minard, the member of the Parliament
to whom public opinion attributed the largest share in the execution of
Councillor Anne du Bourg; who was burned on the place de Greve after the
king’s tailor--to whom Henri II. and Diane de Poitiers had caused the
torture of the “question” to be applied in their very presence. Paris
was so closely watched that the archers compelled all passers along
the street to pray before the shrines of the Madonna so as to discover
heretics by their unwillingness or even refusal to do an act contrary to
their beliefs.
The two archers who were stationed at the corner of the Lecamus house
had departed, and Cristophe, son of the furrier, vehemently suspected of
deserting Catholicism, was able to leave the shop without fear of being
made to adore the Virgin. By seven in the evening, in April, 1560,
darkness was already falling, and the apprentices, seeing no signs of
customers on either side of the arcade, were beginning to take in the
merchandise exposed as samples beneath the pillars, in order to close
the shop. Christophe Lecamus, an ardent young man about twenty-two years
old, was standing on the sill of the shop-door, apparently watching the
apprentices.
“Monsieur,” said one of them, addressing Christophe and pointing to
a man who was walking to and fro under the gallery with an air of
indecision, “perhaps that’s a thief or a spy; anyhow, the shabby wretch
can’t be an honest man; if he wanted to speak to us he would come
over frankly, instead of sidling along as he does--and what a face!”
continued the apprentice, mimicking the man, “with his nose in his
cloak, his yellow eyes, and that famished look!”
When the stranger thus described caught sight of Christophe alone on
the door-sill, he suddenly left the opposite gallery where he was then
walking, crossed the street rapidly, and came under the arcade in front
of the Lecamus house. There he passed slowly along in front of the shop,
and before the apprentices returned to close the outer shutters he said
to Christophe in a low voice:--
“I am Chaudieu.”
Hearing the name of one of the most illustrious ministers and devoted
actors in the terrible drama called “The Reformation,” Christophe
quivered as a faithful peasant might have quivered on recognizing his
disguised king.
“Perhaps you would like to see some furs? Though it is almost dark
I will show you some myself,” said Christophe, wishing to throw the
apprentices, whom he heard behind him, off the scent.
With a wave of his hand he invited the minister to enter the shop, but
the latter replied that he preferred to converse outside. Christophe
then fetched his cap and followed the disciple of Calvin.
Though banished by an edict, Chaudieu, the secret envoy of Theodore de
Beze and Calvin (who were directing the French Reformation from Geneva),
went and came, risking the cruel punishment to which the Parliament, in
unison with the Church and Royalty, had condemned one of their number,
the celebrated Anne du Bourg, in order to make a terrible example.
Chaudieu, whose brother was a captain and one of Admiral Coligny’s best
soldiers, was a powerful auxiliary by whose arm Calvin shook France at
the beginning of the twenty two years of religious warfare now on the
point of breaking out. This minister was one of the hidden wheels whose
movements can best exhibit the wide-spread action of the Reform.
Chaudieu led Christophe to the water’s edge through an underground
passage, which was like that of the Marion tunnel filled up by the
authorities about ten years ago. This passage, which was situated
between the Lecamus house and the one adjoining it, ran under the rue
de la Vieille-Pelleterie, and was called the Pont-aux-Fourreurs. It was
used by the dyers of the City to go to the river and wash their flax and
silks, and other stuffs. A little boat was at the entrance of it, rowed
by a single sailor. In the bow was a man unknown to Christophe, a man of
low stature and very simply dressed. Chaudieu and Christophe entered the
boat, which in a moment was in the middle of the Seine; the sailor then
directed its course beneath one of the wooden arches of the pont au
Change, where he tied up quickly to an iron ring. As yet, no one had
said a word.
“Here we can speak without fear; there are no traitors or spies here,”
said Chaudieu, looking at the two as yet unnamed men. Then, turning an
ardent face to Christophe, “Are you,” he said, “full of that devotion
that should animate a martyr? Are you ready to endure all for our sacred
cause? Do you fear the tortures applied to the Councillor du Bourg, to
the king’s tailor,--tortures which await the majority of us?”
“I shall confess the gospel,” replied Lecamus, simply, looking at the
windows of his father’s back-shop.
The family lamp, standing on the table where his father was making up
his books for the day, spoke to him, no doubt, of the joys of family and
the peaceful existence which he now renounced. The vision was rapid, but
complete. His mind took in, at a glance, the burgher quarter full of its
own harmonies, where his happy childhood had been spent, where lived his
promised bride, Babette Lallier, where all things promised him a
sweet and full existence; he saw the past; he saw the future, and he
sacrificed it, or, at any rate, he staked it all. Such were the men of
that day.
“We need ask no more,” said the impetuous sailor; “we know him for one
of our _saints_. If the Scotchman had not done the deed he would kill us
that infamous Minard.”
“Yes,” said Lecamus, “my life belongs to the church; I shall give it
with joy for the triumph of the Reformation, on which I have seriously
reflected. I know that what we do is for the happiness of the peoples.
In two words: Popery drives to celibacy, the Reformation establishes the
family. It is time to rid France of her monks, to restore their lands to
the Crown, who will, sooner or later, sell them to the burghers. Let us
learn to die for our children, and make our families some day free and
prosperous.”
The face of the young enthusiast, that of Chaudieu, that of the sailor,
that of the stranger seated in the bow, lighted by the last gleams of
the twilight, formed a picture which ought the more to be described
because the description contains in itself the whole history of the
times--if it is, indeed, true that to certain men it is given to sum up
in their own persons the spirit of their age.
The religious reform undertaken by Luther in Germany, John Knox in
Scotland, Calvin in France, took hold especially of those minds in
the lower classes into which thought had penetrated. The great lords
sustained the movement only to serve interests that were foreign to the
religious cause. To these two classes were added adventurers, ruined
noblemen, younger sons, to whom all troubles were equally acceptable.
But among the artisan and merchant classes the new faith was sincere and
based on calculation. The masses of the poorer people adhered at once
to a religion which gave the ecclesiastical property to the State,
and deprived the dignitaries of the Church of their enormous revenues.
Commerce everywhere reckoned up the profits of this religious operation,
and devoted itself body, soul, and purse, to the cause.
But among the young men of the French bourgeoisie the Protestant
movement found that noble inclination to sacrifices of all kinds which
inspires youth, to which selfishness is, as yet, unknown. Eminent men,
sagacious minds, discerned the Republic in the Reformation; they desired
to establish throughout Europe the government of the United
Provinces, which ended by triumphing over the greatest Power of those
times,--Spain, under Philip the Second, represented in the Low Countries
by the Duke of Alba. Jean Hotoman was then meditating his famous book,
in which this project is put forth,--a book which spread throughout
France the leaven of these ideas, which were stirred up anew by the
Ligue, repressed by Richelieu, then by Louis XIV., always protected by
the younger branches, by the house of Orleans in 1789, as by the house
of Bourbon in 1589. Whoso says “Investigate” says “Revolt.” All revolt
is either the cloak that hides a prince, or the swaddling-clothes of a
new mastery. The house of Bourbon, the younger sons of the Valois, were
at work beneath the surface of the Reformation.
At the moment when the little boat floated beneath the arch of the pont
au Change the question was strangely complicated by the ambitions of the
Guises, who were rivalling the Bourbons. Thus the Crown, represented by
Catherine de’ Medici, was able to sustain the struggle for thirty years
by pitting the one house against the other house; whereas later, the
Crown, instead of standing between various jealous ambitions, found
itself without a barrier, face to face with the people: Richelieu and
Louis XIV. had broken down the barrier of the Nobility; Louis XV. had
broken down that of the Parliaments. Alone before the people, as Louis
XVI. was, a king must inevitably succumb.
Christophe Lecamus was a fine representative of the ardent and devoted
portion of the people. His wan face had the sharp hectic tones which
distinguish certain fair complexions; his hair was yellow, of a coppery
shade; his gray-blue eyes were sparkling. In them alone was his fine
soul visible; for his ill-proportioned face did not atone for its
triangular shape by the noble mien of an elevated mind, and his low
forehead indicated only extreme energy. Life seemed to centre in his
chest, which was rather hollow. More nervous than sanguine, Cristophe’s
bodily appearance was thin and threadlike, but wiry. His pointed noise
expressed the shrewdness of the people, and his countenance revealed an
intelligence capable of conducting itself well on a single point of the
circumference, without having the faculty of seeing all around it. His
eyes, the arching brows of which, scarcely covered with a whitish down,
projected like an awning, were strongly circled by a pale-blue band, the
skin being white and shining at the spring of the nose,--a sign which
almost always denotes excessive enthusiasm. Christophe was of the
people,--the people who devote themselves, who fight for their
devotions, who let themselves be inveigled and betrayed; intelligent
enough to comprehend and serve an idea, too upright to turn it to his
own account, too noble to sell himself.
Contrasting with this son of Lecamus, Chaudieu, the ardent minister,
with brown hair thinned by vigils, a yellow skin, an eloquent mouth, a
militant brow, with flaming brown eyes, and a short and prominent chin,
embodied well the Christian faith which brought to the Reformation so
many sincere and fanatical pastors, whose courage and spirit aroused the
populations. The aide-de-camp of Calvin and Theodore de Beze contrasted
admirably with the son of the furrier. He represented the fiery cause of
which the effect was seen in Christophe.
The sailor, an impetuous being, tanned by the open air, accustomed to
dewy nights and burning days, with closed lips, hasty gestures, orange
eyes, ravenous as those of a vulture, and black, frizzled hair, was the
embodiment of an adventurer who risks all in a venture, as a gambler
stakes all on a card. His whole appearance revealed terrific passions,
and an audacity that flinched at nothing. His vigorous muscles were made
to be quiescent as well as to act. His manner was more audacious than
noble. His nose, though thin, turned up and snuffed battle. He seemed
agile and capable. You would have known him in all ages for the leader
of a party. If he were not of the Reformation, he might have been
Pizarro, Fernando Cortez, or Morgan the Exterminator,--a man of violent
action of some kind.
The fourth man, sitting on a thwart wrapped in his cloak, belonged,
evidently, to the highest portion of society. The fineness of his linen,
its cut, the material and scent of his clothing, the style and skin of
his gloves, showed him to be a man of courts, just as his bearing, his
haughtiness, his composure and his all-embracing glance proved him to
be a man of war. The aspect of this personage made a spectator uneasy in
the first place, and then inclined him to respect. We respect a man
who respects himself. Though short and deformed, his manners instantly
redeemed the disadvantages of his figure. The ice once broken, he showed
a lively rapidity of decision, with an indefinable dash and fire which
made him seem affable and winning. He had the blue eyes and the curved
nose of the house of Navarre, and the Spanish cut of the marked features
which were in after days the type of the Bourbon kings.
In a word, the scene now assumed a startling interest.
“Well,” said Chaudieu, as young Lecamus ended his speech, “this boatman
is La Renaudie. And here is Monsiegneur the Prince de Conde,” he added,
motioning to the deformed little man.
Thus these four men represented the faith of the people, the spirit
of the Scriptures, the mailed hand of the soldier, and royalty itself
hidden in that dark shadow of the bridge.
“You shall now know what we expect of you,” resumed the minister, after
allowing a short pause for Christophe’s astonishment. “In order that
you may make no mistake, we feel obliged to initiate you into the most
important secrets of the Reformation.”
The prince and La Renaudie emphasized the minister’s speech by a
gesture, the latter having paused to allow the prince to speak, if he
so wished. Like all great men engaged in plotting, whose system it is
to conceal their hand until the decisive moment, the prince kept
silence--but not from cowardice. In these crises he was always the soul
of the conspiracy; recoiling from no danger and ready to risk his own
head; but from a sort of royal dignity he left the explanation of the
enterprise to his minister, and contented himself with studying the new
instrument he was about to use.
“My child,” said Chaudieu, in the Huguenot style of address, “we are
about to do battle for the first time with the Roman prostitute. In a
few days either our legions will be dying on the scaffold, or the Guises
will be dead. This is the first call to arms on behalf of our religion
in France, and France will not lay down those arms till they have
conquered. The question, mark you this, concerns the nation, not the
kingdom. The majority of the nobles of the kingdom see plainly what
the Cardinal de Lorraine and his brother are seeking. Under pretext of
defending the Catholic religion, the house of Lorraine means to claim
the crown of France as its patrimony. Relying on the Church, it has made
the Church a formidable ally; the monks are its support, its acolytes,
its spies. It has assumed the post of guardian to the throne it is
seeking to usurp; it protects the house of Valois which it means to
destroy. We have decided to take up arms because the liberties of the
people and the interests of the nobles are equally threatened. Let us
smother at its birth a faction as odious as that of the Burgundians who
formerly put Paris and all France to fire and sword. It required a Louis
XI. to put a stop to the quarrel between the Burgundians and the Crown;
and to-day a prince de Conde is needed to prevent the house of Lorraine
from re-attempting that struggle. This is not a civil war; it is a duel
between the Guises and the Reformation,--a duel to the death! We will
make their heads fall, or they shall have ours.”
“Well said!” cried the prince.
“In this crisis, Christophe,” said La Renaudie, “we mean to neglect
nothing which shall strengthen our party,--for there is a party in the
Reformation, the party of thwarted interests, of nobles sacrificed to
the Lorrains, of old captains shamefully treated at Fontainebleau, from
which the cardinal has banished them by setting up gibbets on which to
hang those who ask the king for the cost of their equipment and their
back-pay.”
“This, my child,” resumed Chaudieu, observing a sort of terror in
Christophe, “this it is which compels us to conquer by arms instead of
conquering by conviction and by martyrdom. The queen-mother is on the
point of entering into our views. Not that she means to abjure; she has
not reached that decision as yet; but she may be forced to it by our
triumph. However that may be, Queen Catherine, humiliated and in despair
at seeing the power she expected to wield on the death of the king
passing into the hands of the Guises, alarmed at the empire of the young
queen, Mary, niece of the Lorrains and their auxiliary, Queen Catherine
is doubtless inclined to lend her support to the princes and lords who
are now about to make an attempt which will deliver her from the Guises.
At this moment, devoted as she may seem to them, she hates them; she
desires their overthrow, and will try to make use of us against them;
but Monseigneur the Prince de Conde intends to make use of her against
all. The queen-mother will, undoubtedly, consent to all our plans. We
shall have the Connetable on our side; Monseigneur has just been to see
him at Chantilly; but he does not wish to move without an order from his
masters. Being the uncle of Monseigneur, he will not leave him in the
lurch; and this generous prince does not hesitate to fling himself into
danger to force Anne de Montmorency to a decision. All is prepared,
and we have cast our eyes on you as the means of communicating to Queen
Catherine our treaty of alliance, the drafts of edicts, and the bases of
the new government. The court is at Blois. Many of our friends are with
it; but they are to be our future chiefs, and, like Monseigneur,”
he added, motioning to the prince, “they must not be suspected.
The queen-mother and our friends are so closely watched that it is
impossible to employ as intermediary any known person of importance;
they would instantly be suspected and kept from communicating with
Madame Catherine. God sends us at this crisis the shepherd David and his
sling to do battle with Goliath of Guise. Your father, unfortunately
for him a good Catholic, is furrier to the two queens. He is constantly
supplying them with garments. Get him to send you on some errand to the
court. You will excite no suspicion, and you cannot compromise Queen
Catherine in any way. All our leaders would lose their heads if a single
imprudent act allowed their connivance with the queen-mother to be seen.
Where a great lord, if discovered, would give the alarm and destroy our
chances, an insignificant man like you will pass unnoticed. See! The
Guises keep the town so full of spies that we have only the river where
we can talk without fear. You are now, my son, like a sentinel who must
die at his post. Remember this: if you are discovered, we shall all
abandon you; we shall even cast, if necessary, opprobrium and infamy
upon you. We shall say that you are a creature of the Guises, made to
play this part to ruin us. You see therefore that we ask of you a total
sacrifice.”
“If you perish,” said the Prince de Conde, “I pledge my honor as a noble
that your family shall be sacred for the house of Navarre; I will bear
it on my heart and serve it in all things.”
“Those words, my prince, suffice,” replied Christophe, without
reflecting that the conspirator was a Gascon. “We live in times when
each man, prince or burgher, must do his duty.”
“There speaks the true Huguenot. If all our men were like that,” said
La Renaudie, laying his hand on Christophe’s shoulder, “we should be
conquerors to-morrow.”
“Young man,” resumed the prince, “I desire to show you that if Chaudieu
preaches, if the nobleman goes armed, the prince fights. Therefore, in
this hot game all stakes are played.”
“Now listen to me,” said La Renaudie. “I will not give you the papers
until you reach Beaugency; for they must not be risked during the whole
of your journey. You will find me waiting for you there on the wharf; my
face, voice, and clothes will be so changed you cannot recognize me, but
I shall say to you, ‘Are you a _guepin_?’ and you will answer, ‘Ready to
serve.’ As to the performance of your mission, these are the means:
You will find a horse at the ‘Pinte Fleurie,’ close to Saint-Germain
l’Auxerrois. You will there ask for Jean le Breton, who will take you
to the stable and give you one of my ponies which is known to do thirty
leagues in eight hours. Leave by the gate of Bussy. Breton has a pass
for me; use it yourself, and make your way by skirting the towns. You
can thus reach Orleans by daybreak.”
“But the horse?” said young Lecamus.
“He will not give out till you reach Orleans,” replied La Renaudie.
“Leave him at the entrance of the faubourg Bannier; for the gates are
well guarded, and you must not excite suspicion. It is for you, friend,
to play your part intelligently. You must invent whatever fable seems
to you best to reach the third house to the left on entering Orleans; it
belongs to a certain Tourillon, glove-maker. Strike three blows on the
door, and call out: ‘On service from Messieurs de Guise!’ The man will
appear to be a rabid Guisist; no one knows but our four selves that he
is one of us. He will give you a faithful boatman,--another Guisist of
his own cut. Go down at once to the wharf, and embark in a boat painted
green and edged with white. You will doubtless land at Beaugency
to-morrow about mid-day. There I will arrange to find you a boat which
will take you to Blois without running any risk. Our enemies the Guises
do not watch the rivers, only the landings. Thus you will be able to see
the queen-mother to-morrow or the day after.”
“Your words are written there,” said Christophe, touching his forehead.
Chaudieu embraced his child with singular religious effusion; he was
proud of him.
“God keep thee!” he said, pointing to the ruddy light of the sinking
sun, which was touching the old roofs covered with shingles and sending
its gleams slantwise through the forest of piles among which the water
was rippling.
“You belong to the race of the Jacques Bonhomme,” said La Renaudie,
pressing Christophe’s hand.
“We shall meet again, _monsieur_,” said the prince, with a gesture
of infinite grace, in which there was something that seemed almost
friendship.
With a stroke of his oars La Renaudie put the boat at the lower step
of the stairway which led to the house. Christophe landed, and the boat
disappeared instantly beneath the arches of the pont au Change.
II. THE BURGHERS
Christophe shook the iron railing which closed the stairway on the
river, and called. His mother heard him, opened one of the windows of
the back shop, and asked what he was doing there. Christophe answered
that he was cold and wanted to get in.
“Ha! my master,” said the Burgundian maid, “you went out by the
street-door, and you return by the water-gate. Your father will be fine
and angry.”
Christophe, bewildered by a confidence which had just brought him into
communication with the Prince de Conde, La Renaudie, and Chaudieu, and
still more moved at the prospect of impending civil war, made no answer;
he ran hastily up from the kitchen to the back shop; but his mother, a
rabid Catholic, could not control her anger.
“I’ll wager those three men I saw you talking with are Ref--”
“Hold your tongue, wife!” said the cautious old man with white hair who
was turning over a thick ledger. “You dawdling fellows,” he went on,
addressing three journeymen, who had long finished their suppers, “why
don’t you go to bed? It is eight o’clock, and you have to be up at
five; besides, you must carry home to-night President de Thou’s cap
and mantle. All three of you had better go, and take your sticks and
rapiers; and then, if you meet scamps like yourselves, at least you’ll
be in force.”
“Are we going to take the ermine surcoat the young queen has ordered to
be sent to the hotel des Soissons? there’s an express going from there
to Blois for the queen-mother,” said one of the clerks.
“No,” said his master, “the queen-mother’s bill amounts to three
thousand crowns; it is time to get the money, and I am going to Blois
myself very soon.”
“Father, I do not think it right at your age and in these dangerous
times to expose yourself on the high-roads. I am twenty-two years old,
and you ought to employ me on such errands,” said Christophe, eyeing the
box which he supposed contained the surcoat.
“Are you glued to your seats?” cried the old man to his apprentices,
who at once jumped up and seized their rapiers, cloaks, and Monsieur de
Thou’s furs.
The next day the Parliament was to receive in state, as its president,
this illustrious judge, who, after signing the death warrant of
Councillor du Bourg, was destined before the close of the year to sit in
judgment on the Prince de Conde!
“Here!” said the old man, calling to the maid, “go and ask friend
Lallier if he will come and sup with us and bring the wine; we’ll
furnish the victuals. Tell him, above all, to bring his daughter.”
Lecamus, the syndic of the guild of furriers, was a handsome old man of
sixty, with white hair, and a broad, open brow. As court furrier for the
last forty years, he had witnessed all the revolutions of the reign of
Francois I. He had seen the arrival at the French court of the young
girl Catherine de’ Medici, then scarcely fifteen years of age. He
had observed her giving way before the Duchesse d’Etampes, her
father-in-law’s mistress; giving way before the Duchesse de Valentinois,
the mistress of her husband the late king. But the furrier had brought
himself safely through all the chances and changes by which court
merchants were often involved in the disgrace and overthrow of
mistresses. His caution led to his good luck. He maintained an attitude
of extreme humility. Pride had never caught him in its toils. He made
himself so small, so gentle, so compliant, of so little account at court
and before the queens and princesses and favorites, that this modesty,
combined with good-humor, had kept the royal sign above his door.
Such a policy was, of course, indicative of a shrewd and perspicacious
mind. Humble as Lecamus seemed to the outer world, he was despotic in
his own home; there he was an autocrat. Most respected and honored by
his brother craftsmen, he owed to his long possession of the first place
in the trade much of the consideration that was shown to him. He was,
besides, very willing to do kindnesses to others, and among the many
services he had rendered, none was more striking than the assistance
he had long given to the greatest surgeon of the sixteenth century,
Ambroise Pare, who owed to him the possibility of studying for his
profession. In all the difficulties which came up among the merchants
Lecamus was always conciliating. Thus a general good opinion of
him consolidated his position among his equals; while his borrowed
characteristics kept him steadily in favor with the court.
Not only this, but having intrigued for the honor of being on the vestry
of his parish church, he did what was necessary to bring him into the
odor of sanctity with the rector of Saint-Pierre aux Boeufs, who looked
upon him as one of the men most devoted to the Catholic religion
in Paris. Consequently, at the time of the convocation of the
States-General he was unanimously elected to represent the _tiers etat_
through the influence of the clergy of Paris,--an influence which
at that period was immense. This old man was, in short, one of those
secretly ambitious souls who will bend for fifty years before all the
world, gliding from office to office, no one exactly knowing how it came
about that he was found securely and peacefully seated at last where no
man, even the boldest, would have had the ambition at the beginning of
life to fancy himself; so great was the distance, so many the gulfs
and the precipices to cross! Lecamus, who had immense concealed wealth,
would not run any risks, and was silently preparing a brilliant future
for his son. Instead of having the personal ambition which sacrifices
the future to the present, he had family ambition,--a lost sentiment
in our time, a sentiment suppressed by the folly of our laws of
inheritance. Lecamus saw himself first president of the Parliament of
Paris in the person of his grandson.
Christophe, godson of the famous historian de Thou, was given a most
solid education; but it had led him to doubt and to the spirit of
examination which was then affecting both the Faculties and the students
of the universities. Christophe was, at the period of which we are now
writing, pursuing his studies for the bar, that first step toward the
magistracy. The old furrier was pretending to some hesitation as to his
son. Sometimes he seemed to wish to make Christophe his successor; then
again he spoke of him as a lawyer; but in his heart he was ambitious of
a place for this son as Councillor of the Parliament. He wanted to put
the Lecamus family on a level with those old and celebrated burgher
families from which came the Pasquiers, the Moles, the Mirons, the
Seguiers, Lamoignon, du Tillet, Lecoigneux, Lescalopier, Goix, Arnauld,
those famous sheriffs and grand-provosts of the merchants, among whom
the throne found such strong defenders.
Therefore, in order that Christophe might in due course of time maintain
his rank, he wished to marry him to the daughter of the richest jeweller
in the city, his friend Lallier, whose nephew was destined to present to
Henri IV. the keys of Paris. The strongest desire rooted in the heart
of the worthy burgher was to use half of his fortune and half of that of
the jeweller in the purchase of a large and beautiful seignorial estate,
which, in those days, was a long and very difficult affair. But his
shrewd mind knew the age in which he lived too well to be ignorant of
the great movements which were now in preparation. He saw clearly, and
he saw justly, and knew that the kingdom was about to be divided into
two camps. The useless executions in the Place de l’Estrapade, that
of the king’s tailor and the more recent one of the Councillor Anne
du Bourg, the actual connivance of the great lords, and that of the
favorite of Francois I. with the Reformers, were terrible indications.
The furrier resolved to remain, whatever happened, Catholic, royalist,
and parliamentarian; but it suited him, privately, that Christophe
should belong to the Reformation. He knew he was rich enough to ransom
his son if Christophe was too much compromised; and on the other hand
if France became Calvinist his son could save the family in the event of
one of those furious Parisian riots, the memory of which was ever-living
with the bourgeoisie,--riots they were destined to see renewed through
four reigns.
But these thoughts the old furrier, like Louis XI., did not even say to
himself; his wariness went so far as to deceive his wife and son. This
grave personage had long been the chief man of the richest and most
populous quarter of Paris, that of the centre, under the title of
_quartenier_,--the title and office which became so celebrated some
fifteen months later. Clothed in cloth like all the prudent burghers who
obeyed the sumptuary laws, Sieur Lecamus (he was tenacious of that title
which Charles V. granted to the burghers of Paris, permitting them
also to buy baronial estates and call their wives by the fine name of
_demoiselle_, but not by that of madame) wore neither gold chains nor
silk, but always a good doublet with large tarnished silver buttons,
cloth gaiters mounting to the knee, and leather shoes with clasps. His
shirt, of fine linen, showed, according to the fashion of the time, in
great puffs between his half-opened jacket and his breeches. Though his
large and handsome face received the full light of the lamp standing on
the table, Christophe had no conception of the thoughts which lay buried
beneath the rich and florid Dutch skin of the old man; but he understood
well enough the advantage he himself had expected to obtain from his
affection for pretty Babette Lallier. So Christophe, with the air of
a man who had come to a decision, smiled bitterly as he heard of the
invitation to his promised bride.
When the Burgundian cook and the apprentices had departed on their
several errands, old Lecamus looked at his wife with a glance which
showed the firmness and resolution of his character.
“You will not be satisfied till you have got that boy hanged with your
damned tongue,” he said, in a stern voice.
“I would rather see him hanged and saved than living and a Huguenot,”
she answered, gloomily. “To think that a child whom I carried nine
months in my womb should be a bad Catholic, and be doomed to hell for
all eternity!”
She began to weep.
“Old silly,” said the furrier; “let him live, if only to convert him.
You said, before the apprentices, a word which may set fire to our
house, and roast us all, like fleas in a straw bed.”
The mother crossed herself, and sat down silently.
“Now, then, you,” said the old man, with a judicial glance at his son,
“explain to me what you were doing on the river with--come closer, that
I may speak to you,” he added, grasping his son by the arm, and drawing
him to him--“with the Prince de Conde,” he whispered. Christophe
trembled. “Do you suppose the court furrier does not know every face
that frequents the palace? Think you I am ignorant of what is going on?
Monseigneur the Grand Master has been giving orders to send troops to
Amboise. Withdrawing troops from Paris to send them to Amboise when the
king is at Blois, and making them march through Chartres and Vendome,
instead of going by Orleans--isn’t the meaning of that clear enough?
There’ll be troubles. If the queens want their surcoats, they must
send for them. The Prince de Conde has perhaps made up his mind to kill
Messieurs de Guise; who, on their side, expect to rid themselves of him.
The prince will use the Huguenots to protect himself. Why should the son
of a furrier get himself into that fray? When you are married, and when
you are councillor to the Parliament, you will be as prudent as your
father. Before belonging to the new religion, the son of a furrier ought
to wait until the rest of the world belongs to it. I don’t condemn the
Reformers; it is not my business to do so; but the court is Catholic,
the two queens are Catholic, the Parliament is Catholic; we must supply
them with furs, and therefore we must be Catholic ourselves. You shall
not go out from here, Christophe; if you do, I will send you to your
godfather, President de Thou, who will keep you night and day blackening
paper, instead of blackening your soul in company with those damned
Genevese.”
“Father,” said Christophe, leaning upon the back of the old man’s chair,
“send me to Blois to carry that surcoat to Queen Mary and get our money
from the queen-mother. If you do not, I am lost; and you care for your
son.”
“Lost?” repeated the old man, without showing the least surprise. “If
you stay here you can’t be lost; I shall have my eye on you all the
time.”
“They will kill me here.”
“Why?”
“The most powerful among the Huguenots have cast their eyes on me
to serve them in a certain matter; if I fail to do what I have just
promised to do, they will kill me in open day, here in the street, as
they killed Minard. But if you send me to court on your affairs, perhaps
I can justify myself equally well to both sides. Either I shall succeed
without having run any danger at all, and shall then win a fine position
in the party; or, if the danger turns out very great, I shall be there
simply on your business.”
The father rose as if his chair was of red-hot iron.
“Wife,” he said, “leave us; and watch that we are left quite alone,
Christophe and I.”
When Mademoiselle Lecamus had left them the furrier took his son by a
button and led him to the corner of the room which made the angle of the
bridge.
“Christophe,” he said, whispering in his ear as he had done when he
mentioned the name of the Prince of Conde, “be a Huguenot, if you have
that vice; but be so cautiously, in the depths of your soul, and not
in a way to be pointed at as a heretic throughout the quarter. What you
have just confessed to me shows that the leaders have confidence in you.
What are you going to do for them at court?”
“I cannot tell you that,” replied Christophe; “for I do not know
myself.”
“Hum! hum!” muttered the old man, looking at his son, “the scamp means
to hoodwink his father; he’ll go far. You are not going to court,” he
went on in a low tone, “to carry remittances to Messieurs de Guise or
to the little king our master, or to the little Queen Marie. All those
hearts are Catholic; but I would take my oath the Italian woman has some
spite against the Scotch girl and against the Lorrains. I know her. She
has a desperate desire to put her hand into the dough. The late king
was so afraid of her that he did as the jewellers do, he cut diamond
by diamond, he pitted one woman against another. That caused Queen
Catherine’s hatred to the poor Duchesse de Valentinois, from whom she
took the beautiful chateau of Chenonceaux. If it hadn’t been for the
Connetable, the duchess might have been strangled. Back, back, my son;
don’t put yourself in the hands of that Italian, who has no passion
except in her brain; and that’s a bad kind of woman! Yes, what they are
sending you to do at court may give you a very bad headache,” cried the
father, seeing that Christophe was about to reply. “My son, I have plans
for your future which you will not upset by making yourself useful to
Queen Catherine; but, heavens and earth! don’t risk your head. Messieurs
de Guise would cut it off as easily as the Burgundian cuts a turnip, and
then those persons who are now employing you will disown you utterly.”
“I know that, father,” said Christophe.
“What! are you really so strong, my son? You know it, and are willing to
risk all?”
“Yes, father.”
“By the powers above us!” cried the father, pressing his son in his
arms, “we can understand each other; you are worthy of your father. My
child, you’ll be the honor of the family, and I see that your old father
can speak plainly with you. But do not be more Huguenot than Messieurs
de Coligny. Never draw your sword; be a pen man; keep to your future
role of lawyer. Now, then, tell me nothing until after you have
succeeded. If I do not hear from you by the fourth day after you reach
Blois, that silence will tell me that you are in some danger. The old
man will go to save the young one. I have not sold furs for thirty-two
years without a good knowledge of the wrong side of court robes. I have
the means of making my way through many doors.”
Christophe opened his eyes very wide as he heard his father talking
thus; but he thought there might be some parental trap in it, and he
made no reply further than to say:--
“Well, make out the bill, and write a letter to the queen; I must start
at once, or the greatest misfortunes may happen.”
“Start? How?”
“I shall buy a horse. Write at once, in God’s name.”
“Hey! mother! give your son some money,” cried the furrier to his wife.
The mother returned, went to her chest, took out a purse of gold, and
gave it to Christophe, who kissed her with emotion.
“The bill was all ready,” said his father; “here it is. I will write the
letter at once.”
Christophe took the bill and put it in his pocket.
“But you will sup with us, at any rate,” said the old man. “In such a
crisis you ought to exchange rings with Lallier’s daughter.”
“Very well, I will go and fetch her,” said Christophe.
The young man was distrustful of his father’s stability in the matter.
The old man’s character was not yet fully known to him. He ran up to his
room, dressed himself, took a valise, came downstairs softly and laid it
on a counter in the shop, together with his rapier and cloak.
“What the devil are you doing?” asked his father, hearing him.
Christophe came up to the old man and kissed him on both cheeks.
“I don’t want any one to see my preparations for departure, and I have
put them on a counter in the shop,” he whispered.
“Here is the letter,” said his father.
Christophe took the paper and went out as if to fetch his young
neighbor.
A few moments after his departure the goodman Lallier and his daughter
arrived, preceded by a servant-woman, bearing three bottles of old wine.
“Well, where is Christophe?” said old Lecamus.
“Christophe!” exclaimed Babette. “We have not seen him.”
“Ha! ha! my son is a bold scamp! He tricks me as if I had no beard. My
dear crony, what think you he will turn out to be? We live in days when
the children have more sense than their fathers.”
“Why, the quarter has long been saying he is in some mischief,” said
Lallier.
“Excuse him on that point, crony,” said the furrier. “Youth is foolish;
it runs after new things; but Babette will keep him quiet; she is newer
than Calvin.”
Babette smiled; she loved Christophe, and was angry when anything was
said against him. She was one of those daughters of the old bourgeoisie
brought up under the eyes of a mother who never left her. Her bearing
was gentle and correct as her face; she always wore woollen stuffs of
gray, harmonious in tone; her chemisette, simply pleated, contrasted its
whiteness against the gown. Her cap of brown velvet was like an infant’s
coif, but it was trimmed with a ruche and lappets of tanned gauze, that
is, of a tan color, which came down on each side of her face. Though
fair and white as a true blonde, she seemed to be shrewd and roguish,
all the while trying to hide her roguishness under the air and manner of
a well-trained girl. While the two servant-women went and came, laying
the cloth and placing the jugs, the great pewter dishes, and the knives
and forks, the jeweller and his daughter, the furrier and his wife, sat
before the tall chimney-piece draped with lambrequins of red serge and
black fringes, and were talking of trifles. Babette asked once or
twice where Christophe could be, and the father and mother of the young
Huguenot gave evasive answers; but when the two families were seated at
table, and the two servants had retired to the kitchen, Lecamus said to
his future daughter-in-law:--
“Christophe has gone to court.”
“To Blois! Such a journey as that without bidding me good-bye!” she
said.
“The matter was pressing,” said the old mother.
“Crony,” said the furrier, resuming a suspended conversation. “We are
going to have troublous times in France. The Reformers are bestirring
themselves.”
“If they triumph, it will only be after a long war, during which
business will be at a standstill,” said Lallier, incapable of rising
higher than the commercial sphere.
“My father, who saw the wars between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs
told me that our family would never have come out safely if one of his
grandfathers--his mother’s father--had not been a Goix, one of those
famous butchers in the Market who stood by the Burgundians; whereas the
other, the Lecamus, was for the Armagnacs; they seemed ready to flay
each other alive before the world, but they were excellent friends in
the family. So, let us both try to save Christophe; perhaps the time may
come when he will save us.”
“You are a shrewd one,” said the jeweller.
“No,” replied Lecamus. “The burghers ought to think of themselves;
the populace and the nobility are both against them. The Parisian
bourgeoisie alarms everybody except the king, who knows it is his
friend.”
“You who are so wise and have seen so many things,” said Babette,
timidly, “explain to me what the Reformers really want.”
“Yes, tell us that, crony,” cried the jeweller. “I knew the late king’s
tailor, and I held him to be a man of simple life, without great talent;
he was something like you; a man to whom they’d give the sacrament
without confession; and behold! he plunged to the depths of this new
religion,--he! a man whose two ears were worth all of a hundred thousand
crowns apiece. He must have had secrets to reveal to induce the king and
the Duchesse de Valentinois to be present at his torture.”
“And terrible secrets, too!” said the furrier. “The Reformation,
my friends,” he continued in a low voice, “will give back to the
bourgeoisie the estates of the Church. When the ecclesiastical
privileges are suppressed the Reformers intend to ask that the _vilain_
shall be imposed on nobles as well as on burghers, and they mean to
insist that the king alone shall be above others--if indeed, they allow
the State to have a king.”
“Suppress the Throne!” ejaculated Lallier.
“Hey! crony,” said Lecamus, “in the Low Countries the burghers govern
themselves with burgomasters of their own, who elect their own temporary
head.”
“God bless me, crony; we ought to do these fine things and yet stay
Catholics,” cried the jeweller.
“We are too old, you and I, to see the triumph of the Parisian
bourgeoisie, but it will triumph, I tell you, in times to come as it did
of yore. Ha! the king must rest upon it in order to resist, and we have
always sold him our help dear. The last time, all the burghers were
ennobled, and he gave them permission to buy seignorial estates and take
titles from the land without special letters from the king. You and I,
grandsons of the Goix through our mothers, are not we as good as any
lord?”
These words were so alarming to the jeweller and the two women that
they were followed by a dead silence. The ferments of 1789 were already
tingling in the veins of Lecamus, who was not yet so old but what he
could live to see the bold burghers of the Ligue.
“Are you selling well in spite of these troubles?” said Lallier to
Mademoiselle Lecamus.
“Troubles always do harm,” she replied.
“That’s one reason why I am so set on making my son a lawyer,” said
Lecamus; “for squabbles and law go on forever.”
The conversation then turned to commonplace topics, to the great
satisfaction of the jeweller, who was not fond of either political
troubles or audacity of thought.
III. THE CHATEAU DE BLOIS
The banks of the Loire, from Blois to Angers, were the favorite resort
of the last two branches of the royal race which occupied the throne
before the house of Bourbon. That beautiful valley plain so well
deserves the honor bestowed upon it by kings that we must here repeat
what was said of it by one of our most eloquent writers:--
“There is one province in France which is never sufficiently
admired. Fragrant as Italy, flowery as the banks of the
Guadalquivir, beautiful especially in its own characteristics,
wholly French, having always been French,--unlike in that respect
to our northern provinces, which have degenerated by contact with
Germany, and to our southern provinces, which have lived in
concubinage with Moors, Spaniards, and all other nationalities
that adjoined them. This pure, chaste, brave, and loyal province
is Touraine. Historic France is there! Auvergne is Auvergne,
Languedoc is only Languedoc; but Touraine is France; the most
national river for Frenchmen is the Loire, which waters Touraine.
For this reason we ought not to be surprised at the great number
of historically noble buildings possessed by those departments
which have taken the name, or derivations of the name, of the
Loire. At every step we take in this land of enchantment we
discover a new picture, bordered, it may be, by a river, or a
tranquil lake reflecting in its liquid depths a castle with
towers, and woods and sparkling waterfalls. It is quite natural
that in a region chosen by Royalty for its sojourn, where the
court was long established, great families and fortunes and
distinguished men should have settled and built palaces as grand
as themselves.”
But is it not incomprehensible that Royalty did not follow the advice
indirectly given by Louis XI. to place the capital of the kingdom at
Tours? There, without great expense, the Loire might have been made
accessible for the merchant service, and also for vessels-of-war of
light draught. There, too, the seat of government would have been safe
from the dangers of invasion. Had this been done, the northern cities
would not have required such vast sums of money spent to fortify
them,--sums as vast as were those expended on the sumptuous glories of
Versailles. If Louis XIV. had listened to Vauban, who wished to build
his great palace at Mont Louis, between the Loire and the Cher, perhaps
the revolution of 1789 might never have taken place.
These beautiful shores still bear the marks of royal tenderness.
The chateaus of Chambord, Amboise, Blois, Chenonceaux, Chaumont,
Plessis-les-Tours, all those which the mistresses of kings, financiers,
and nobles built at Veretz, Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, Villandri, Valencay,
Chanteloup, Duretal, some of which have disappeared, though most of them
still remain, are admirable relics which remind us of the marvels of
a period that is little understood by the literary sect of the
Middle-agists.
Among all these chateaus, that of Blois, where the court was then
staying, is one on which the magnificence of the houses of Orleans and
of Valois has placed its brilliant sign-manual,--making it the most
interesting of all for historians, archaeologists, and Catholics. It was
at the time of which we write completely isolated. The town, enclosed
by massive walls supported by towers, lay below the fortress,--for the
chateau served, in fact, as fort and pleasure-house. Above the town,
with its blue-tiled, crowded roofs extending then, as now, from the
river to the crest of the hill which commands the right bank, lies a
triangular plateau, bounded to the west by a streamlet, which in these
days is of no importance, for it flows beneath the town; but in the
fifteenth century, so say historians, it formed quite a deep ravine, of
which there still remains a sunken road, almost an abyss, between the
suburbs of the town and the chateau.
It was on this plateau, with a double exposure to the north and south,
that the counts of Blois built, in the architecture of the twelfth
century, a castle where the famous Thibault de Tircheur, Thibault
le Vieux, and others held a celebrated court. In those days of pure
fuedality, in which the king was merely _primus inter pares_ (to use
the fine expression of a king of Poland), the counts of Champagne, the
counts of Blois, those of Anjou, the simple barons of Normandie, the
dukes of Bretagne, lived with the splendor of sovereign princes and gave
kings to the proudest kingdoms. The Plantagenets of Anjou, the Lusignans
of Poitou, the Roberts of Normandie, maintained with a bold hand the
royal races, and sometimes simple knights like du Glaicquin refused the
purple, preferring the sword of a connetable.
When the Crown annexed the county of Blois to its domain, Louis XII.,
who had a liking for this residence (perhaps to escape Plessis of
sinister memory), built at the back of the first building another
building, facing east and west, which connected the chateau of the
counts of Blois with the rest of the old structures, of which nothing
now remains but the vast hall in which the States-general were held
under Henri III.
Before he became enamoured of Chambord, Francois I. wished to complete
the chateau of Blois by adding two other wings, which would have made
the structure a perfect square. But Chambord weaned him from Blois,
where he built only one wing, which in his time and that of his
grandchildren was the only inhabited part of the chateau. This third
building erected by Francois I. is more vast and far more decorated than
the Louvre, the chateau of Henri II. It is in the style of architecture
now called Renaissance, and presents the most fantastic features of that
style. Therefore, at a period when a strict and jealous architecture
ruled construction, when the Middle Ages were not even considered, at a
time when literature was not as clearly welded to art as it is now, La
Fontaine said of the chateau de Blois, in his hearty, good-humored way:
“The part that Francois I. built, if looked at from the outside, pleased
me better than all the rest; there I saw numbers of little galleries,
little windows, little balconies, little ornamentations without order or
regularity, and they make up a grand whole which I like.”
The chateau of Blois had, therefore, the merit of representing three
orders of architecture, three epochs, three systems, three dominions.
Perhaps there is no other royal residence that can compare with it
in that respect. This immense structure presents to the eye in one
enclosure, round one courtyard, a complete and perfect image of that
grand presentation of the manners and customs and life of nations which
is called Architecture. At the moment when Christophe was to visit the
court, that part of the adjacent land which in our day is covered by
a fourth palace, built seventy years later (by Gaston, the rebellious
brother of Louis XIII., then exiled to Blois), was an open space
containing pleasure-grounds and hanging gardens, picturesquely placed
among the battlements and unfinished turrets of Francois I.’s chateau.
These gardens communicated, by a bridge of a fine, bold construction
(which the old men of Blois may still remember to have seen demolished)
with a pleasure-ground on the other side of the chateau, which, by the
lay of the land, was on the same level. The nobles attached to the
Court of Anne de Bretagne, or those of that province who came to solicit
favors, or to confer with the queen as to the fate and condition
of Brittany, awaited in this pleasure-ground the opportunity for an
audience, either at the queen’s rising, or at her coming out to walk.
Consequently, history has given the name of “Perchoir aux Bretons” to
this piece of ground, which, in our day, is the fruit-garden of a worthy
bourgeois, and forms a projection into the place des Jesuites. The
latter place was included in the gardens of this beautiful royal
residence, which had, as we have said, its upper and its lower gardens.
Not far from the place des Jesuites may still be seen a pavilion built
by Catherine de’ Medici, where, according to the historians of Blois,
warm mineral baths were placed for her to use. This detail enables us
to trace the very irregular disposition of the gardens, which went up
or down according to the undulations of the ground, becoming extremely
intricate around the chateau,--a fact which helped to give it strength,
and caused, as we shall see, the discomfiture of the Duc de Guise.
The gardens were reached from the chateau through external and internal
galleries, the most important of which was called the “Galerie des
Cerfs” on account of its decoration. This gallery led to the magnificent
staircase which, no doubt, inspired the famous double staircase of
Chambord. It led, from floor to floor, to all the apartments of the
castle.
Though La Fontaine preferred the chateau of Francois I. to that of
Louis XII., perhaps the naivete of that of the good king will give
true artists more pleasure, while at the same time they admire the
magnificent structure of the knightly king. The elegance of the two
staircases which are placed at each end of the chateau of Louis XII.,
the delicate carving and sculpture, so original in design, which abound
everywhere, the remains of which, though time has done its worst, still
charm the antiquary, all, even to the semi-cloistral distribution of
the apartments, reveals a great simplicity of manners. Evidently,
the _court_ did not yet exist; it had not developed, as it did under
Francois I. and Catherine de’ Medici, to the great detriment of feudal
customs. As we admire the galleries, or most of them, the capitals
of the columns, and certain figurines of exquisite delicacy, it is
impossible not to imagine that Michel Columb, that great sculptor, the
Michel-Angelo of Brittany, passed that way for the pleasure of Queen
Anne, whom he afterwards immortalized on the tomb of her father, the
last duke of Brittany.
Whatever La Fontaine may choose to say about the “little galleries”
and the “little ornamentations,” nothing can be more grandiose than
the dwelling of the splendid Francois. Thanks to I know not what
indifference, to forgetfulness perhaps, the apartments occupied by
Catherine de’ Medici and her son Francois II. present to us to-day
the leading features of that time. The historian can there restore the
tragic scenes of the drama of the Reformation,--a drama in which the
dual struggle of the Guises and of the Bourbons against the Valois was a
series of most complicated acts, the plot of which was here unravelled.
The chateau of Francois I. completely crushes the artless habitation of
Louis XII. by its imposing masses. On the side of the gardens, that is,
toward the modern place des Jesuites, the castle presents an elevation
nearly double that which it shows on the side of the courtyard. The
ground-floor on this side forms the second floor on the side of the
gardens, where are placed the celebrated galleries. Thus the first floor
above the ground-floor toward the courtyard (where Queen Catherine was
lodged) is the third floor on the garden side, and the king’s apartments
were four storeys above the garden, which at the time of which we write
was separated from the base of the castle by a deep moat. The chateau,
already colossal as viewed from the courtyard, appears gigantic when
seen from below, as La Fontaine saw it. He mentions particularly that
he did not enter either the courtyard or the apartments, and it is to
be remarked that from the place des Jesuites all the details seem
small. The balconies on which the courtiers promenaded; the galleries,
marvellously executed; the sculptured windows, whose embrasures are so
deep as to form boudoirs--for which indeed they served--resemble at that
great height the fantastic decorations which scene-painters give to a
fairy palace at the opera.
But in the courtyard, although the three storeys above the ground-floor
rise as high as the clock-tower of the Tuileries, the infinite delicacy
of the architecture reveals itself to the rapture of our astonished
eyes. This wing of the great building, in which the two queens,
Catherine de’ Medici and Mary Stuart, held their sumptuous court, is
divided in the centre by a hexagon tower, in the empty well of which
winds up a spiral staircase,--a Moorish caprice, designed by giants,
made by dwarfs, which gives to this wonderful facade the effect of a
dream. The baluster of this staircase forms a spiral connecting itself
by a square landing to five of the six sides of the tower, requiring
at each landing transversal corbels which are decorated with arabesque
carvings without and within. This bewildering creation of ingenious
and delicate details, of marvels which give speech to stones, can be
compared only to the deeply worked and crowded carving of the Chinese
ivories. Stone is made to look like lace-work. The flowers, the figures
of men and animals clinging to the structure of the stairway, are
multiplied, step by step, until they crown the tower with a key-stone
on which the chisels of the art of the sixteenth century have contended
against the naive cutters of images who fifty years earlier had carved
the key-stones of Louis XII.’s two stairways.
However dazzled we may be by these recurring forms of indefatigable
labor, we cannot fail to see that money was lacking to Francois I. for
Blois, as it was to Louis XIV. for Versailles. More than one figurine
lifts its delicate head from a block of rough stone behind it; more than
one fantastic flower is merely indicated by chiselled touches on the
abandoned stone, though dampness has since laid its blossoms of mouldy
greenery upon it. On the facade, side by side with the tracery of one
window, another window presents its masses of jagged stone carved only
by the hand of time. Here, to the least artistic and the least trained
eye, is a ravishing contrast between this frontage, where marvels
throng, and the interior frontage of the chateau of Louis XII., which
is composed of a ground-floor of arcades of fairy lightness supported
by tiny columns resting at their base on a graceful platform, and of
two storeys above it, the windows of which are carved with delightful
sobriety. Beneath the arcade is a gallery, the walls of which are
painted in fresco, the ceiling also being painted; traces can still be
found of this magnificence, derived from Italy, and testifying to
the expeditions of our kings, to which the principality of Milan then
belonged.
Opposite to Francois I.’s wing was the chapel of the counts of Blois,
the facade of which is almost in harmony with the architecture of the
later dwelling of Louis XII. No words can picture the majestic
solidity of these three distinct masses of building. In spite of their
nonconformity of style, Royalty, powerful and firm, demonstrating its
dangers by the greatness of its precautions, was a bond, uniting these
three edifices, so different in character, two of which rested against
the vast hall of the States-general, towering high like a church.
Certainly, neither the simplicity nor the strength of the burgher
existence (which were depicted at the beginning of this history) in
which Art was always represented, were lacking to this royal habitation.
Blois was the fruitful and brilliant example to which the Bourgeoisie
and Feudality, Wealth and Nobility, gave such splendid replies in the
towns and in the rural regions. Imagination could not desire any other
sort of dwelling for the prince who reigned over France in the sixteenth
century. The richness of seignorial garments, the luxury of female
adornment, must have harmonized delightfully with the lace-work of these
stones so wonderfully manipulated. From floor to floor, as the king
of France went up the marvellous staircase of his chateau of Blois, he
could see the broad expanse of the beautiful Loire, which brought him
news of all his kingdom as it lay on either side of the great river,
two halves of a State facing each other, and semi-rivals. If, instead of
building Chambord in a barren, gloomy plain two leagues away, Francois
I. had placed it where, seventy years later, Gaston built his palace,
Versailles would never have existed, and Blois would have become,
necessarily, the capital of France.
Four Valois and Catherine de’ Medici lavished their wealth on the
wing built by Francois I. at Blois. Who can look at those massive
partition-walls, the spinal column of the castle, in which are sunken
deep alcoves, secret staircases, cabinets, while they themselves enclose
halls as vast as that great council-room, the guardroom, and the royal
chambers, in which, in our day, a regiment of infantry is comfortably
lodged--who can look at all this and not be aware of the prodigalities
of Crown and court? Even if a visitor does not at once understand how
the splendor within must have corresponded with the splendor without,
the remaining vestiges of Catherine de’ Medici’s cabinet, where
Christophe was about to be introduced, would bear sufficient testimony
to the elegances of Art which peopled these apartments with animated
designs in which salamanders sparkled among the wreaths, and the
palette of the sixteenth century illumined the darkest corners with its
brilliant coloring. In this cabinet an observer will still find traces
of that taste for gilding which Catherine brought with her from Italy;
for the princesses of her house loved, in the words of the author
already quoted, to veneer the castles of France with the gold earned by
their ancestors in commerce, and to hang out their wealth on the walls
of their apartments.
The queen-mother occupied on the first upper floor of the apartments of
Queen Claude of France, wife of Francois I., in which may still be seen,
delicately carved, the double C accompanied by figures, purely white, of
swans and lilies, signifying _candidior candidis_--more white than
the whitest--the motto of the queen whose name began, like that of
Catherine, with a C, and which applied as well to the daughter of Louis
XII. as to the mother of the last Valois; for no suspicion, in spite
of the violence of Calvinist calumny, has tarnished the fidelity of
Catherine de’ Medici to Henri II.
The queen-mother, still charged with the care of two young children (him
who was afterward Duc d’Alencon, and Marguerite, the wife of Henri IV.,
the sister whom Charles IX. called Margot), had need of the whole of the
first upper floor.
The king, Francois II., and the queen, Mary Stuart, occupied, on the
second floor, the royal apartments which had formerly been those of
Francois I. and were, subsequently, those of Henri III. This floor, like
that taken by the queen-mother, is divided in two parts throughout its
whole length by the famous partition-wall, which is more than four feet
thick, against which rests the enormous walls which separate the
rooms from each other. Thus, on both floors, the apartments are in
two distinct halves. One half, to the south, looking to the courtyard,
served for public receptions and for the transaction of business;
whereas the private apartments were placed, partly to escape the heat,
to the north, overlooking the gardens, on which side is the splendid
facade with its balconies and galleries looking out upon the open
country of the Vendomois, and down upon the “Perchoir des Bretons” and
the moat, the only side of which La Fontaine speaks.
The chateau of Francois I. was, in those days, terminated by an enormous
unfinished tower which was intended to mark the colossal angle of the
building when the succeeding wing was built. Later, Gaston took down one
side of it, in order to build his palace on to it; but he never finished
the work, and the tower remained in ruins. This royal stronghold served
as a prison or dungeon, according to popular tradition.
As we wander to-day through the halls of this matchless chateau, so
precious to art and to history, what poet would not be haunted by
regrets, and grieved for France, at seeing the arabesques of Catherine’s
boudoir _whitewashed_ and almost obliterated, by order of the
quartermaster of the barracks (this royal residence is now a barrack) at
the time of an outbreak of cholera. The panels of Catherine’s boudoir, a
room of which we are about to speak, is the last remaining relic of
the rich decorations accumulated by five artistic kings. Making our way
through the labyrinth of chambers, halls, stairways, towers, we may
say to ourselves with solemn certitude: “Here Mary Stuart cajoled
her husband on behalf of the Guises.” “There, the Guises insulted
Catherine.” “Later, at that very spot the second Balafre fell beneath
the daggers of the avengers of the Crown.” “A century earlier, from this
very window, Louis XII. made signs to his friend Cardinal d’Amboise
to come to him.” “Here, on this balcony, d’Epernon, the accomplice of
Ravaillac, met Marie de’ Medici, who knew, it was said, of the proposed
regicide, and allowed it to be committed.”
In the chapel, where the marriage of Henri IV. and Marguerite de Valois
took place, the sole remaining fragment of the chateau of the counts of
Blois, a regiment now makes it shoes. This wonderful structure, in
which so many styles may still be seen, so many great deeds have been
performed, is in a state of dilapidation which disgraces France. What
grief for those who love the great historic monuments of our country
to know that soon those eloquent stones will be lost to sight
and knowledge, like others at the corner of the rue de la
Vieille-Pelleterie; possibly, they will exist nowhere but in these
pages.
It is necessary to remark that, in order to watch the royal court more
closely, the Guises, although they had a house of their own in the town,
which still exists, had obtained permission to occupy the upper floor
above the apartments of Louis XII., the same lodgings afterwards
occupied by the Duchesse de Nemours under the roof.
The young king, Francois II., and his bride Mary Stuart, in love with
each other like the girl and boy of sixteen which they were, had been
abruptly transferred, in the depth of winter, from the chateau de
Saint-Germain, which the Duc de Guise thought liable to attack, to
the fortress which the chateau of Blois then was, being isolated and
protected on three sides by precipices, and admirably defended as to its
entrance. The Guises, uncles of Mary Stuart, had powerful reasons for
not residing in Paris and for keeping the king and court in a castle
the whole exterior surroundings of which could easily be watched and
defended. A struggle was now beginning around the throne, between the
house of Lorraine and the house of Valois, which was destined to end in
this very chateau, twenty-eight years later, namely in 1588, when
Henri III., under the very eyes of his mother, at that moment deeply
humiliated by the Lorrains, heard fall upon the floor of his own
cabinet, the head of the boldest of all the Guises, the second Balafre,
son of that first Balafre by whom Catherine de’ Medici was now being
tricked, watched, threatened, and virtually imprisoned.
IV. THE QUEEN-MOTHER
This noble chateau of Blois was to Catherine de’ Medici the narrowest
of prisons. On the death of her husband, who had always held her in
subjection, she expected to reign; but, on the contrary, she found
herself crushed under the thraldom of strangers, whose polished manners
were really far more brutal than those of jailers. No action of hers
could be done secretly. The women who attended her either had lovers
among the Guises or were watched by Argus eyes. These were times when
passions notably exhibited the strange effects produced in all ages
by the strong antagonism of two powerful conflicting interests in the
State. Gallantry, which served Catherine so well, was also an auxiliary
of the Guises. The Prince de Conde, the first leader of the Reformation,
was a lover of the Marechale de Saint-Andre, whose husband was the tool
of the Grand Master. The cardinal, convinced by the affair of the Vidame
de Chartres, that Catherine was more unconquered than invulnerable as to
love, was paying court to her. The play of all these passions strangely
complicated those of politics,--making, as it were, a double game of
chess, in which both parties had to watch the head and heart of their
opponent, in order to know, when a crisis came, whether the one would
betray the other.
Though she was constantly in presence of the Cardinal de Lorraine or of
Duc Francois de Guise, who both distrusted her, the closest and ablest
enemy of Catherine de’ Medici was her daughter-in-law, Queen Mary, a
fair little creature, malicious as a waiting-maid, proud as a Stuart
wearing three crowns, learned as an old pedant, giddy as a school-girl,
as much in love with her husband as a courtesan is with her lover,
devoted to her uncles whom she admired, and delighted to see the king
share (at her instigation) the regard she had for them. A mother-in-law
is always a person whom the daughter-in-law is inclined not to like;
especially when she wears the crown and wishes to retain it, which
Catherine had imprudently made but too well known. Her former position,
when Diane de Poitiers had ruled Henri II., was more tolerable than
this; then at least she received the external honors that were due to a
queen, and the homage of the court. But now the duke and the cardinal,
who had none but their own minions about them, seemed to take pleasure
in abasing her. Catherine, hemmed in on all sides by their courtiers,
received, not only day by day but from hour to hour, terrible blows to
her pride and her self-love; for the Guises were determined to treat her
on the same system of repression which the late king, her husband, had
so long pursued.
The thirty-six years of anguish which were now about to desolate France
may, perhaps, be said to have begun by the scene in which the son of the
furrier of the two queens was sent on the perilous errand which makes
him the chief figure of our present Study. The danger into which this
zealous Reformer was about to fall became imminent the very morning on
which he started from the port of Beaugency for the chateau de Blois,
bearing precious documents which compromised the highest heads of the
nobility, placed in his hands by that wily partisan, the indefatigable
La Renaudie, who met him, as agreed upon, at Beaugency, having reached
that port before him.
While the tow-boat, in which Christophe now embarked floated, impelled
by a light east wind, down the river Loire the famous Cardinal de
Lorraine, and his brother the second Duc de Guise, one of the greatest
warriors of those days, were contemplating, like eagles perched on a
rocky summit, their present situation, and looking prudently about them
before striking the great blow by which they intended to kill the Reform
in France at Amboise,--an attempt renewed twelve years later in Paris,
August 24, 1572, on the feast of Saint-Bartholomew.
During the night three _seigneurs_, who each played a great part in
the twelve years’ drama which followed this double plot now laid by the
Guises and also by the Reformers, had arrived at Blois from different
directions, each riding at full speed, and leaving their horses
half-dead at the postern-gate of the chateau, which was guarded by
captains and soldiers absolutely devoted to the Duc de Guise, the idol
of all warriors.
One word about that great man,--a word that must tell, in the first
instance, whence his fortunes took their rise.
His mother was Antoinette de Bourbon, great-aunt of Henri IV. Of what
avail is consanguinity? He was, at this moment, aiming at the head of
his cousin the Prince de Conde. His niece was Mary Stuart. His wife
was Anne, daughter of the Duke of Ferrara. The Grand Connetable de
Montmorency called the Duc de Guise “Monseigneur” as he would the
king,--ending his letter with “Your very humble servant.” Guise, Grand
Master of the king’s household, replied “Monsieur le connetable,” and
signed, as he did for the Parliament, “Your very good friend.”
As for the cardinal, called the transalpine pope, and his Holiness, by
Estienne, he had the whole monastic Church of France on his side, and
treated the Holy Father as an equal. Vain of his eloquence, and one
of the greatest theologians of his time, he kept incessant watch over
France and Italy by means of three religious orders who were absolutely
devoted to him, toiling day and night in his service and serving him as
spies and counsellors.
These few words will explain to what heights of power the duke and
the cardinal had attained. In spite of their wealth and the
enormous revenues of their several offices, they were so personally
disinterested, so eagerly carried away on the current of their
statesmanship, and so generous at heart, that they were always in debt,
doubtless after the manner of Caesar. When Henri III. caused the death
of the second Balafre, whose life was a menace to him, the house of
Guise was necessarily ruined. The costs of endeavoring to seize the
crown during a whole century will explain the lowered position of this
great house during the reigns of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., when
the sudden death of MADAME told all Europe the infamous part which a
Chevalier de Lorraine had debased himself to play.
Calling themselves the heirs of the dispossessed Carolovingians, the
duke and cardinal acted with the utmost insolence towards Catherine de’
Medici, the mother-in-law of their niece. The Duchesse de Guise spared
her no mortification. This duchesse was a d’Este, and Catherine was
a Medici, the daughter of upstart Florentine merchants, whom the
sovereigns of Europe had never yet admitted into their royal fraternity.
Francois I. himself has always considered his son’s marriage with a
Medici as a mesalliance, and only consented to it under the expectation
that his second son would never be dauphin. Hence his fury when his
eldest son was poisoned by the Florentine Montecuculi. The d’Estes
refused to recognize the Medici as Italian princes. Those former
merchants were in fact trying to solve the impossible problem of
maintaining a throne in the midst of republican institutions. The title
of grand-duke was only granted very tardily by Philip the Second, king
of Spain, to reward those Medici who bought it by betraying France their
benefactress, and servilely attaching themselves to the court of Spain,
which was at the very time covertly counteracting them in Italy.
“Flatter none but your enemies,” the famous saying of Catherine de’
Medici, seems to have been the political rule of life with that family
of merchant princes, in which great men were never lacking until their
destinies became great, when they fell, before their time, into that
degeneracy in which royal races and noble families are wont to end.
For three generations there had been a great Lorrain warrior and a great
Lorrain churchman; and, what is more singular, the churchmen all bore a
strong resemblance in the face to Ximenes, as did Cardinal Richelieu
in after days. These five great cardinals all had sly, mean, and yet
terrible faces; while the warriors, on the other hand, were of that type
of Basque mountaineer which we see in Henri IV. The two Balafres, father
and son, wounded and scarred in the same manner, lost something of this
type, but not the grace and affability by which, as much as by their
bravery, they won the hearts of the soldiery.
It is not useless to relate how the present Grand Master received his
wound; for it was healed by the heroic measures of a personage of our
drama,--by Ambroise Pare, the man we have already mentioned as under
obligations to Lecamus, syndic of the guild of furriers. At the siege of
Calais the duke had his face pierced through and through by a lance, the
point of which, after entering the cheek just below the right eye, went
through to the neck, below the left eye, and remained, broken off,
in the face. The duke lay dying in his tent in the midst of universal
distress, and he would have died had it not been for the devotion and
prompt courage of Ambroise Pare. “The duke is not dead, gentlemen,”
he said to the weeping attendants, “but he soon will die if I dare not
treat him as I would a dead man; and I shall risk doing so, no matter
what it may cost me in the end. See!” And with that he put his left foot
on the duke’s breast, took the broken wooden end of the lance in his
fingers, shook and loosened it by degrees in the wound, and finally
succeeded in drawing out the iron head, as if he were handling a thing
and not a man. Though he saved the prince by this heroic treatment, he
could not prevent the horrible scar which gave the great soldier his
nickname,--Le Balafre, the Scarred. This name descended to the son, and
for a similar reason.
Absolutely masters of Francois II., whom his wife ruled through their
mutual and excessive passion, these two great Lorrain princes, the duke
and the cardinal, were masters of France, and had no other enemy at
court than Catherine de’ Medici. No great statesmen ever played a closer
or more watchful game.
The mutual position of the ambitious widow of Henri II. and the
ambitious house of Lorraine was pictured, as it were, to the eye by a
scene which took place on the terrace of the chateau de Blois very early
in the morning of the day on which Christophe Lecamus was destined to
arrive there. The queen-mother, who feigned an extreme attachment to
the Guises, had asked to be informed of the news brought by the three
_seigneurs_ coming from three different parts of the kingdom; but she
had the mortification of being courteously dismissed by the cardinal.
She then walked to the parterres which overhung the Loire, where she
was building, under the superintendence of her astrologer, Ruggieri, an
observatory, which is still standing, and from which the eye may range
over the whole landscape of that delightful valley. The two Lorrain
princes were at the other end of the terrace, facing the Vendomois,
which overlooks the upper part of the town, the perch of the Bretons,
and the postern gate of the chateau.
Catherine had deceived the two brothers by pretending to a slight
displeasure; for she was in reality very well pleased to have an
opportunity to speak to one of the three young men who had arrived in
such haste. This was a young nobleman named Chiverni, apparently a tool
of the cardinal, in reality a devoted servant of Catherine. Catherine
also counted among her devoted servants two Florentine nobles, the
Gondi; but they were so suspected by the Guises that she dared not send
them on any errand away from the court, where she kept them, watched,
it is true, in all their words and actions, but where at least they
were able to watch and study the Guises and counsel Catherine. These
two Florentines maintained in the interests of the queen-mother another
Italian, Birago,--a clever Piedmontese, who pretended, with Chiverni,
to have abandoned their mistress, and gone over to the Guises, who
encouraged their enterprises and employed them to watch Catherine.
Chiverni had come from Paris and Ecouen. The last to arrive was
Saint-Andre, who was marshal of France and became so important that
the Guises, whose creature he was, made him the third person in the
triumvirate they formed the following year against Catherine. The other
_seigneur_ who had arrived during the night was Vieilleville, also a
creature of the Guises and a marshal of France, who was returning from
a secret mission known only to the Grand Master, who had entrusted it
to him. As for Saint-Andre, he was in charge of military measures taken
with the object of driving all Reformers under arms into Amboise; a
scheme which now formed the subject of a council held by the duke and
cardinal, Birago, Chiverni, Vieilleville, and Saint-Andre. As the two
Lorrains employed Birago, it is to be supposed that they relied upon
their own powers; for they knew of his attachment to the queen-mother.
At this singular epoch the double part played by many of the political
men of the day was well known to both parties; they were like cards in
the hands of gamblers,--the cleverest player won the game. During this
council the two brothers maintained the most impenetrable reserve. A
conversation which now took place between Catherine and certain of her
friends will explain the object of this council, held by the Guises in
the open air, in the hanging gardens, at break of day, as if they feared
to speak within the walls of the chateau de Blois.
The queen-mother, under pretence of examining the observatory then in
process of construction, walked in that direction accompanied by the two
Gondis, glancing with a suspicious and inquisitive eye at the group of
enemies who were still standing at the farther end of the terrace, and
from whom Chiverni now detached himself to join the queen-mother. She
was then at the corner of the terrace which looks down upon the Church
of Saint-Nicholas; there, at least, there could be no danger of the
slightest overhearing. The wall of the terrace is on a level with the
towers of the church, and the Guises invariably held their council
at the farther corner of the same terrace at the base of the great
unfinished keep or dungeon,--going and returning between the Perchoir
des Bretons and the gallery by the bridge which joined them to the
gardens. No one was within sight. Chiverni raised the hand of the
queen-mother to kiss it, and as he did so he slipped a little note from
his hand to hers, without being observed by the two Italians. Catherine
turned to the angle of the parapet and read as follows:--
You are powerful enough to hold the balance between the leaders
and to force them into a struggle as to who shall serve you; your
house is full of kings, and you have nothing to fear from the
Lorrains or the Bourbons provided you pit them one against the
other, for both are striving to snatch the crown from your
children. Be the mistress and not the servant of your counsellors;
support them, in turn, one against the other, or the kingdom will
go from bad to worse, and mighty wars may come of it.
L’Hopital.
The queen put the letter in the hollow of her corset, resolving to burn
it as soon as she was alone.
“When did you see him?” she asked Chiverni.
“On my way back from visiting the Connetable, at Melun, where I met
him with the Duchesse de Berry, whom he was most impatient to convey to
Savoie, that he might return here and open the eyes of the chancellor
Olivier, who is now completely duped by the Lorrains. As soon as
Monsieur l’Hopital saw the true object of the Guises he determined to
support your interests. That is why he is so anxious to get here and
give you his vote at the councils.”
“Is he sincere?” asked Catherine. “You know very well that if the
Lorrains have put him in the council it is that he may help them to
reign.”
“L’Hopital is a Frenchman who comes of too good a stock not to be honest
and sincere,” said Chiverni; “Besides, his note is a sufficiently strong
pledge.”
“What answer did the Connetable send to the Guises?”
“He replied that he was the servant of the king and would await
his orders. On receiving that answer the cardinal, to suppress all
resistance, determined to propose the appointment of his brother as
lieutenant-general of the kingdom.”
“Have they got as far as that?” exclaimed Catherine, alarmed. “Well, did
Monsieur l’Hopital send me no other message?”
“He told me to say to you, madame, that you alone could stand between
the Crown and the Guises.”
“Does he think that I ought to use the Huguenots as a weapon?”
“Ah! madame,” cried Chiverni, surprised at such astuteness, “we never
dreamed of casting you into such difficulties.”
“Does he know the position I am in?” asked the queen, calmly.
“Very nearly. He thinks you were duped after the death of the king into
accepting that castle on Madame Diane’s overthrow. The Guises consider
themselves released toward the queen by having satisfied the woman.”