PART I

Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci

and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at

https://www.pgdp.net.

THE WORKS OF HONORE De BALZAC

About Catherine de' Medici

Seraphita

AND OTHER STORIES

With Introductions by

GEORGE SAINTSBURY

UNIVERSITY EDITION

AVIL PUBLISHING COMPANY

PHILADELPHIA.

COPYRIGHTED 1901

BY

John D. Avil

_All Rights Reserved_

CONTENTS

PART I

PAGE

_INTRODUCTION_ ix

_ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI_:

(_Sur Catherine de Medicis_)

PREFACE 3

PART I. THE CALVINIST MARTYR 44

" II. THE RUGGIERI'S SECRET 233

" III. THE TWO DREAMS 308

_GAMBARA_ 327

(_Gambara_)

PART II

_INTRODUCTION_ ix

_SERAPHITA_:

(_Seraphita_)

I. SERAPHITUS 2

II. SERAPHITA 22

III. SERAPHITA--SERAPHITUS 40

IV. THE CLOUDS OF THE SANCTUARY 82

V. THE FAREWELL 112

VI. THE ROAD TO HEAVEN 123

VII. THE ASSUMPTION 134

_LOUIS LAMBERT_ 145

(_Louis Lambert_)

_THE EXILES_

(_Les Proscrits_)

ALMAE SORORI 259

_MAITRE CORNELIUS_ 293

(_Maitre Cornelius_)

_THE ELIXIR OF LIFE_ 359

(_L'Elixir de longue Vie_)

(Translators, CLARA BELL AND JAMES WARING)

ILLUSTRATIONS

PART I

QUADRANGLE OF THE COLLEGE OF VENDOME WHERE

BALZAC WAS EDUCATED _Frontispiece_

PAGE

"I AM CHAUDIEU!" 53

PLACED HIMSELF IN FRONT OF A LOOKING-GLASS 328

PART II

TOWER IN WHICH BALZAC PASSED MOST OF HIS TIME

AT COLLEGE 164

HE NOW SAW WITH A TERRIFIED SHUDDER THAT THERE

WAS A BRIGHT LIGHT ON THE STAIRS, AND PERCEIVED

CORNELIUS, IN HIS OLD DALMATIC, CARRYING

HIS LAMP 324

ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI

AND

GAMBARA

INTRODUCTION

This book (as to which it is important to remember the _Sur_ if injustice

is not to be done to the intentions of the author) has plenty of interest

of more kinds than one; but it is perhaps more interesting because of the

place it holds in Balzac's work than for itself. He had always considerable

hankerings after the historical novel: his early and lifelong devotion to

Scott would sufficiently account for that. More than one of the _Oeuvres

de Jeunesse_ attempts the form in a more or less conscious way: the

_Chouans_, the first successful book, definitely attempts it; but by far

the most ambitious attempt is to be found in the book before us. It is most

probable that it was of this, if of anything of his own, that Balzac was

thinking when, in 1846, he wrote disdainfully to Madame Hanska about Dumas,

and expressed himself towards _Les Trois Mousquetaires_ (which had whiled

him through a day of cold and inability to work) nearly as ungratefully as

Carlyle did towards Captain Marryat. And though it is, let it be repeated,

a mistake, and a rather unfair mistake, to give such a title to the book as

might induce readers to regard it as a single and definite novel, of which

Catherine is the heroine, though it is made up of three parts written at

very different times, it has a unity which the introduction shows to some

extent, and which a rejected preface given by M. de Lovenjoul shows still

better.

To understand this, we must remember that Balzac, though not exactly an

historical scholar, was a considerable student of history; and that,

although rather an amateur politician, he was a constant thinker and writer

on political subjects. We must add to these remembrances the fact of his

intense interest in all such matters as Alchemy, the Elixir of Life, and so

forth, to which the sixteenth century in general, and Catherine de' Medici

in particular, were known to be devoted. All these interests of his met in

the present book, the parts of which appeared in inverse order, and the

genesis of which is important enough to make it desirable to incorporate

some of the usual bibliographical matter in the substance of this preface.

The third and shortest, _Les Deux Reves_, a piece partly suggestive of the

famous _Prophecy of Cazotte_ and other legends of the Revolution (but with

more retrospective than prospective view), is dated as early as 1828

(before the turning-point), and was actually published in a periodical in

1830. _La Confidence des Ruggieri_, written in 1836 (and, as I have noted

in the general introduction, according to its author, in a single night)

followed, and _Le Martyr Calviniste_, which had several titles, and was

advertised as in preparation for a long time, did not come till 1841.

It is unnecessary to say that all are interesting. The personages, both

imaginary and historical, appear at times in a manner worthy of Balzac;

many separate scenes are excellent; and, to those who care to perceive

them, the various occupations of the author appear in the most interesting

manner. Politically, his object was, at least by his own account, to defend

the maxim that private and public morality are different; that the policy

of a state cannot be, and ought not to be, governed by the same

considerations of duty to its neighbors as those which ought to govern the

conduct of an individual. The very best men--those least liable to the

slightest imputation of corrupt morals and motives--have endorsed this

principle; though it has been screamed at by a few fanatics, a somewhat

larger number of persons who found their account in so doing, and a great

multitude of hasty, dense, or foolish folk. But it was something of a mark

of that amateurishness which spoilt Balzac's dealing with the subject to

choose the sixteenth century for his text. For every cool-headed student of

history and ethics will admit that it was precisely the abuse of this

principle at this time, and by persons of whom Catherine de' Medici, if not

the most blamable, has had the most blame put on her, that brought the

principle itself into discredit. Between the assertion that the strictest

morality of the Sermon on the Mount must obtain between nation and nation,

between governor and governed, and the maxim that in politics the end of

public safety justifies _any_ means whatever, there is a perfectly immense

gulf fixed.

If, however, we turn from this somewhat academic point, and do not dwell

very much on the occult and magical sides of the matter, interesting as

they are, we shall be brought at once face to face with the question, Is

the handling of this book the right and proper one for an historical novel?

Can we in virtue of it rank Balzac (this is the test which he would

himself, beyond all question, have accepted) a long way above Dumas and

near Scott?

I must say that I can see no possibility of answer except, "Certainly not."

For the historical novel depends almost more than any other division of the

kind upon interest of story. Interest of story is not, as has been several

times pointed out, at any time Balzac's main appeal, and he has succeeded

in it here less than in most other places. He has discussed too much; he

has brought in too many personages without sufficient interest of plot;

but, above all, he exhibits throughout an incapacity to handle his

materials in the peculiar way required. How long he was before he grasped

"the way to do it," even on his own special lines, is the commonplace and

refrain of all writing about him. Now, to this special kind he gave

comparatively little attention, and the result is that he mastered it less

than any other. In the best stories of Dumas (and the best number some

fifteen or twenty at least) the interest of narrative, of adventure, of

what will happen to the personages, takes you by the throat at once, and

never lets you go till the end. There is little or nothing of this sort

here. The three stories are excellently well-informed studies, very curious

and interesting in divers ways. The _Ruggieri_ is perhaps something more;

but it is, as its author no doubt honestly entitled it, much more an _Etude

Philosophique_ than an historical novelette. In short, this was not

Balzac's way. We need not be sorry--it is very rarely necessary to be

that--that he tried it; we may easily forgive him for not recognizing the

ease and certainty with which Dumas trod the path. But we should be most of

all thankful that he did not himself enter it frequently, or ever pursue it

far.

The most important part of the bibliography of the book has been given

above. The rest is a little complicated, and for its ins and outs reference

must be made to the usual authority. It should be enough to say that the

_Martyr_, under the title of _Les Lecamus_, first appeared in the _Siecle_

during the spring of 1841. Souverain published it as a book two years later

with the other two, as _Catherine de Medicis Expliquee_. The second part,

entitled, not _La Confidence_, but _Le Secret des Ruggieri_, had appeared

much earlier in the _Chronique de Paris_ during the winter of 1836-37, and

had been published as a book in the latter year; it was joined to

_Catherine de Medicis Expliquee_ as above. The third part, after appearing

in the _Monde_ as early as May 1830, also appeared in the _Deux Mondes_ for

December of the same year, then became one of the _Romans et Contes

Philosophiques_, then an _Etude Philosophique_, and in 1843 joined

_Catherine de Medicis Expliquee_. The whole was inserted in the _Comedie_

in 1846.

G. S.

* * * * *

_Gambara_ exhibits a curious and, it must be admitted, a somewhat

incoherent mixture of two of Balzac's chief outside interests--Italy and

music. In his helter-skelter ramblings, indulged in despite his enormous

literary labors, he took many a peep at Italy; and it is evident that for

him the country exercised a powerful fascination. In his eyes it was

ideal--ideal in its music, in its painting, and in those who fanned the

fires divine. His affection for Italy was, in fact, about as ardent and

untutored as that for the arts. The story of _Gambara_ is an illustration

of these two sentiments; it can best be understood when the author's

attitude is known.

There is a little about the forceful character of Andrea Marcosini that

reminds one of de Marsay. He has an inherent nobleness unknown to the

latter, but unfortunately made subservient to a banality which even the

genius of Balzac cannot efface. This marring clause of the Count and

Marianna is hardly to be excused on the ground of dramatic necessity, since

other themes of this nature are not cloyed by baser earth. The introductory

scene in the restaurant is good, and stands out brightly contrasted with

Gambara's music-ravings and the faint echo of Giardini's cookery conceits.

Each is but the quest of something unattained--a note more grandly uttered

in _La Peau de Chagrin_, or _La Recherche de l'Absolu_, or the wonderful

sketch, _Le Chef d'Oeuvre Inconnu_. But as a fresh embodiment of this

thought, _Gambara_ may be welcomed, for in such themes as these the

novelist is most distinctly in his element.

The first appearance of _Gambara_ was in the _Revue et Gazette Musicale de

Paris_ during July and August 1837, in four chapters and a conclusion. In

1839 it was included in a book with the _Cabinet des Antiques_. Ten years

later it was included as _Le Livre des Douleurs_ with _Seraphita_, _Les

Proscrits_, and _Massimilla Doni_. It took its place in the _Comedie_ in

1846.

ABOUT CATHERINE DE' MEDICI

_To Monsieur le Marquis de Pastoret, Member of the

Academie des Beaux-Arts._

When we consider the amazing number of volumes written to ascertain the

spot where Hannibal crossed the Alps, without our knowing to this day

whether it was, as Whitaker and Rivaz say, by Lyons, Geneva, the

Saint-Bernard, and the Valley of Aosta; or, as we are told by Letronne,

Follard, Saint-Simon, and Fortia d'Urban, by the Isere, Grenoble,

Saint-Bonnet, Mont Genevre, Fenestrella, and the Pass of Susa, or,

according to Larauza, by the Mont Cenis and Susa; or, as Strabo, Polybius

and de Luc tell us, by the Rhone, Vienne, Yenne, and the Mont du Chat; or,

as certain clever people opine, by Genoa, la Bochetta, and la Scrivia--the

view I hold, and which Napoleon had adopted--to say nothing of the vinegar

with which some learned men have dressed the Alpine rocks, can we wonder,

Monsieur le Marquis, to find modern history so much neglected that some

most important points remain obscure, and that the most odious calumnies

still weigh on names which ought to be revered?--And it may be noted

incidentally that by dint of explanations it has become problematical

whether Hannibal ever crossed the Alps at all. Father Menestrier believes

that the Scoras spoken of by Polybius was the Saome; Letronne, Larauza, and

Schweighauser believe it to be the Isere; Cochard, a learned man of Lyons,

identifies it with the Drome. But to any one who has eyes, are there not

striking geographical and linguistic affinities between Scoras and Scrivia,

to say nothing of the almost certain fact that the Carthaginian fleet lay

at la Spezzia or in the Gulf of Genoa?

I could understand all this patient research if the battle of Cannae could

be doubted; but since its consequences are well known, what is the use of

blackening so much paper with theories that are but the Arabesque of

hypothesis, so to speak; while the most important history of later times,

that of the Reformation, is so full of obscurities that the name remains

unknown of the man[A] who was making a boat move by steam at Barcelona at

the time when Luther and Calvin were inventing the revolt of mind?

We, I believe, after having made, each in his own way, the same

investigation as to the great and noble character of Catherine de' Medici,

have come to the same opinion. So I thought that my historical studies on

the subject might be suitably dedicated to a writer who has labored so long

on the history of the Reformation; and that I should thus do public homage,

precious perhaps for its rarity, to the character and fidelity of a man

true to the Monarchy.

PARIS, _January 1842_.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The inventor of this experiment was probably Salomon of Caux, not of

Caus. This great man was always unlucky; after his death even his name was

misspelt. Salomon, whose original portrait, at the age of forty-six, was

discovered by the author of the _Human Comedy_, was born at Caux, in

Normandy.

PREFACE

When men of learning are struck by a historical blunder, and try to correct

it, "Paradox!" is generally the cry; but to those who thoroughly examine

the history of modern times, it is evident that historians are privileged

liars, who lend their pen to popular beliefs, exactly as most of the

newspapers of the day express nothing but the opinions of their readers.

Historical independence of thought has been far less conspicuous among lay

writers than among the priesthood. The purest light thrown on history has

come from the Benedictines, one of the glories of France--so long, that is

to say, as the interests of the monastic orders are not in question. Since

the middle of the eighteenth century, some great and learned

controversialists have arisen who, struck by the need for rectifying

certain popular errors to which historians have lent credit, have published

some remarkable works. Thus Monsieur Launoy, nicknamed the Evicter of

Saints, made ruthless war on certain saints who have sneaked into the

Church Calendar. Thus the rivals of the Benedictines, the two little known

members of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, began their

_memoires_, their studious notes, full of patience, erudition, and logic,

on certain obscure passages of history. Thus Voltaire, with an unfortunate

bias, and sadly perverted passions, often brought the light of his

intellect to bear on historical prejudices. Diderot, with this end in view,

began a book--much too long--on a period of the history of Imperial Rome.

But for the French Revolution, criticism, as applied to history, might

perhaps have laid up the materials for a good and true history of France,

for which evidence had long been amassed by the great French Benedictines.

Louis XVI., a man of clear mind, himself translated the English work,

which so much agitated the last century, in which Walpole tried to explain

the career of Richard III.

How is it that persons so famous as kings and queens, so important as

generals of great armies, become objects of aversion or derision? Half the

world hesitates between the song on Marlborough and the history of England,

as they do between popular tradition and history as concerning Charles IX.

At all periods when great battles are fought between the masses and the

authorities, the populace creates an _ogresque_ figure--to coin a word for

the sake of its exactitude. Thus in our own time, but for the _Memorials of

Saint-Helena_, and the controversies of Royalists and Bonapartists, there

was scarcely a chance but that Napoleon would have been misunderstood.

Another Abbe de Pradt or two, a few more newspaper articles, and Napoleon

from an Emperor would have become an Ogre.

How is error propagated and accredited? The mystery is accomplished under

our eyes without our discerning the process. No one suspects how greatly

printing has helped to give body both to the envy which attends persons in

high places, and to the popular irony which sums up the converse view of

every great historical fact. For instance, every bad horse in France that

needs flogging is called after the Prince de Polignac; and so who knows

what opinion the future may hold as to the Prince de Polignac's _coup

d'Etat_? In consequence of a caprice of Shakespeare's--a stroke of revenge

perhaps, like that of Beaumarchais on Bergasse (Begearss)--Falstaff, in

England, is a type of the grotesque; his name raises a laugh, he is the

King of Buffoons. Now, instead of being enormously fat, ridiculously

amorous, vain, old, drunken, and a corrupter of youth, Falstaff was one of

the most important figures of his time, a Knight of the Garter, holding

high command. At the date of Henry V.'s accession, Falstaff was at most

four-and-thirty. This General, who distinguished himself at the battle of

Agincourt, where he took the Duc d'Alencon prisoner, in 1420 took the town

of Montereau, which was stoutly defended. Finally, under Henry VI., he beat

ten thousand Frenchmen with fifteen hundred men who were dropping with

fatigue and hunger. So much for valor!

If we turn to literature, Rabelais, among the French, a sober man who drank

nothing but water, is thought of as a lover of good cheer and a persistent

sot. Hundreds of absurd stories have been coined concerning the author of

one of the finest books in French literature, _Pantagruel_.

Aretino, Titian's friend, and the Voltaire of his day, is now credited with

a reputation, in complete antagonism with his works and character, which he

acquired by his over free wit, characteristic of the writings of an age

when gross jests were held in honor, and queens and cardinals indited tales

which are now considered licentious. Instances might be infinitely

multiplied.

In France, and at the most important period of our history, Catherine de'

Medici has suffered more from popular error than any other woman, unless it

be Brunehaut or Fredegonde; while Marie de' Medici, whose every action was

prejudicial to France, has escaped the disgrace that should cover her name.

Marie dissipated the treasure amassed by Henri IV.; she never purged

herself of the suspicion that she was cognizant of his murder; Epernon, who

had long known Ravaillac, and who did not parry his blow, was _intimate_

with the Queen; she compelled her son to banish her from France, where she

was fostering the rebellion of her other son, Gaston; and Richelieu's

triumph over her on the _Journee des Dupes_ was due solely to the

Cardinal's revealing to Louis XIII. certain documents secreted after the

death of Henri IV.

Catherine de' Medici, on the contrary, saved the throne of France, she

maintained the Royal authority under circumstances to which more than one

great prince would have succumbed. Face to face with such leaders of the

factions and ambitions of the houses of Guise and of Bourbon as the two

Cardinals de Lorraine and the two "Balafres," the two Princes de Conde,

Queen Jeanne d'Albret, Henri IV., the Connetable de Montmorency, Calvin,

the Colignys, and Theodore de Beze, she was forced to put forth the rarest

fine qualities, the most essential gifts of statesmanship, under the fire

of the Calvinist press. These, at any rate, are indisputable facts. And to

the student who digs deep into the history of the sixteenth century in

France, the figure of Catherine de' Medici stands out as that of a great

king.

When once calumnies are undermined by facts laboriously brought to light

from under the contradictions of pamphlets and false anecdotes, everything

is explained to the glory of this wonderful woman, who had none of the

weakness of her sex, who lived chaste in the midst of the gallantries of

the most licentious Court in Europe, and who, notwithstanding her lack of

money, erected noble buildings, as if to make good the losses caused by the

destructive Calvinists, who injured Art as deeply as they did the body

politic.

Hemmed in between a race of princes who proclaimed themselves the heirs of

Charlemagne, and a factious younger branch that was eager to bury the

Connetable de Bourbon's treason under the throne; obliged, too, to fight

down a heresy on the verge of devouring the Monarchy, without friends, and

aware of treachery in the chiefs of the Catholic party and of republicanism

in the Calvinists, Catherine used the most dangerous but the surest of

political weapons--Craft. She determined to deceive by turns the party that

was anxious to secure the downfall of the House of Valois, the Bourbons who

aimed at the Crown, and the Reformers--the Radicals of that day, who

dreamed of an impossible republic, like those of our own day, who, however,

have nothing to reform. Indeed, so long as she lived, the Valois sat on the

throne. The great de Thou understood the worth of this woman when he

exclaimed, on hearing of her death:

"It is not a woman, it is Royalty that dies in her!"

Catherine had, in fact, the sense of Royalty in the highest degree, and she

defended it with admirable courage and persistency. The reproaches flung

at her by Calvinist writers are indeed her glory; she earned them solely by

her triumphs. And how was she to triumph but by cunning? Here lies the

whole question.

As to violence--that method bears on one of the most hotly disputed points

of policy, which, in recent days, has been answered here, on the spot where

a big stone from Egypt has been placed to wipe out the memory of regicide,

and to stand as an emblem of the materialistic policy which now rules us;

it was answered at les Carmes and at the Abbaye; it was answered on the

steps of Saint Roch; it was answered in front of the Louvre in 1830, and

again by the people against the King, as it has since been answered once

more by la Fayette's "best of all republics" against the republican

rebellion, at Saint-Merri and the Rue Transnonnain.

Every power, whether legitimate or illegitimate, must defend itself when it

is attacked; but, strange to say, while the people is heroic when it

triumphs over the nobility, the authorities are murderers when they oppose

the people! And, finally, if after their appeal to force they succumb, they

are regarded as effete idiots. The present Government (1840) will try to

save itself, by two laws, from the same evil as attacked Charles X., and

which he tried to scotch by two decrees. Is not this a bitter mockery? May

those in power meet cunning with cunning? Ought they to kill those who try

to kill them?

The massacres of the Revolution are the reply to the massacre of

Saint-Bartholomew. The People, being King, did by the nobility and the King

as the King and the nobility did by the rebels in the sixteenth century.

And popular writers, who know full well that, under similar conditions, the

people would do the same again, are inexcusable when they blame Catherine

de' Medici and Charles IX.

"All power is a permanent conspiracy," said Casimir Perier, when teaching

what power ought to be. We admire the anti-social maxims published by

audacious writers; why, then, are social truths received in France with

such disfavor when they are boldly stated? This question alone

sufficiently accounts for historical mistakes. Apply the solution of this

problem to the devastating doctrines which flatter popular passion, and to

the conservative doctrines which would repress the ferocious or foolish

attempts of the populace, and you will see the reason why certain

personages are popular or unpopular. Laubardemont and Laffemas, like some

people now living, were devoted to the maintenance of the power they

believed in. Soldiers and judges, they obeyed a Royal authority. D'Orthez,

in our day, would be discharged from office for misinterpreting orders from

the Ministry, but Charles X. left him to govern his province. The power of

the masses is accountable to no one; the power of one is obliged to account

to its subjects, great and small alike.

Catherine, like Philip II. and the Duke of Alva, like the Guises and

Cardinal Granvelle, foresaw the future to which the Reformation was dooming

Europe. They saw monarchies, religion, and power all overthrown. Catherine,

from the Cabinet of the French kings, forthwith issued sentence of death on

that inquiring spirit which threatened modern society--a sentence which

Louis XIV. finally carried out. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes was a

measure that proved unfortunate, simply in consequence of the irritation

Louis XIV. had aroused in Europe. At any other time England, Holland, and

the German Empire would not have encouraged on their territory French

exiles and French rebels.

Why, in these days, refuse to recognize the greatness which the majestic

adversary of that most barren heresy derived from the struggle itself?

Calvinists have written strongly against Charles IX.'s stratagems; but

travel through France: as you see the ruins of so many fine churches

destroyed, and consider the vast breaches made by religious fanatics in the

social body; when you learn the revenges they took, while deploring the

mischief of individualism--the plague of France to-day, of which the germ

lay in the questions of liberty of conscience which they stirred up--you

will ask yourself on which side were the barbarians. There are always, as

Catherine says in the third part of this Study, "unluckily, in all ages,

hypocritical writers ready to bewail two hundred scoundrels killed in due

season." Caesar, who tried to incite the Senate to pity for Catiline's

party, would very likely have conquered Cicero if he had had newspapers and

an Opposition at his service.

Another consideration accounts for Catherine's historical and popular

disfavor. In France the Opposition has always been Protestant, because its

policy has never been anything but negative; it has inherited the theories

of the Lutherans, the Calvinists, and the Protestants on the terrible texts

of liberty, tolerance, progress, and philanthropy. The opponents of power

spent two centuries in establishing the very doubtful doctrine of freewill.

Two more were spent in working out the first corollary of freewill--liberty

of conscience. Our age is striving to prove the second--political liberty.

Standing between the fields already traversed and the fields as yet

untrodden, Catherine and the Church proclaimed the salutary principle of

modern communities, _Una fides, unus Dominus_, but asserting their right of

life and death over all innovators. Even if she had been conquered,

succeeding times have shown that Catherine was right. The outcome of

freewill, religious liberty, and political liberty (note, this does not

mean _civil_ liberty) is France as we now see it.

And what is France in 1840? A country exclusively absorbed in material

interests, devoid of patriotism, devoid of conscience; where authority is

powerless; where electoral rights, the fruit of freewill and political

liberty, raise none but mediocrities; where brute force is necessary to

oppose the violence of the populace; where discussion, brought to bear on

the smallest matter, checks every action of the body politic; and where

individualism--the odious result of the indefinite subdivision of property,

which destroys family cohesion--will devour everything, even the nation,

which sheer selfishness will some day lay open to invasion. Men will say,

"Why not the Tzar?" as they now say, "Why not the Duc d'Orleans?" We do

not care for many things even now; fifty years hence we shall care for

nothing.

Therefore, according to Catherine--and according to all who wish to see

Society soundly organized--man as a social unit, as a subject, has no

freewill, has no right to accept the dogma of liberty of conscience, or to

have political liberty. Still, as no community can subsist without some

guarantee given to the subject against the sovereign, the subject derives

from that certain liberties under restrictions. Liberty--no, but

liberties--yes; well defined and circumscribed liberties. This is in the

nature of things. For instance, it is beyond human power to fetter freedom

of thought; and no sovereign may ever tamper with money.

The great politicians who have failed in this long contest--it has gone on

for five centuries--have allowed their subjects wide liberties; but they

never recognize their liberty to publish anti-social opinions, nor the

unlimited freedom of the subject. To them the words _subject_ and _free_

are, politically speaking, a contradiction in terms; and, in the same way,

the statement that all citizens are equal is pure nonsense, and

contradicted by Nature every hour. To acknowledge the need for religion,

the need for authority, and at the same time to leave all men at liberty to

deny religion, to attack its services, to oppose the exercise of authority

by the public and published expression of opinion, is an impossibility such

as the Catholics of the sixteenth century would have nothing to say to.

Alas! the triumph of Calvinism will cost France more yet than it has ever

done; for the sects of to-day--religious, political, humanitarian, and

leveling--are the train of Calvinism; and when we see the blunders of those

in power, their contempt for intelligence, their devotion to those material

interests in which they seek support, and which are the most delusive of

all props, unless by the special aid of Providence the genius of

destruction must certainly win the day from the genius of conservatism. The

attacking forces, who have nothing to lose, and everything to win, are

thoroughly in agreement; whereas their wealthy opponents refuse to make

any sacrifice of money or of self-conceit to secure defenders.

Printing came to the aid of the resistance inaugurated by the Vaudois and

the Albigenses. As soon as human thought--no longer condensed, as it had

necessarily been in order to preserve the most communicable form--had

assumed a multitude of garbs and become the very people, instead of

remaining in some sense divinely axiomatic, there were two vast armies to

contend with--that of ideas and that of men. Royal power perished in the

struggle, and we, in France, at this day are looking on at its last

coalition with elements which make it difficult, not to say impossible.

Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action

is possible when discussion is permanently established. So we ought to

regard the woman as truly great who foresaw that future, and fought it so

bravely. The House of Bourbon was able to succeed to the House of Valois,

and owed it to Catherine de' Medici that it found that crown to wear. If

the second Balafre had been alive, it is very doubtful that the Bearnais,

strong as he was, could have seized the throne, seeing how dearly it was

sold by the Duc de Mayenne and the remnant of the Guise faction. The

necessary steps taken by Catherine, who had the deaths of Francois II. and

Charles IX. on her soul--both dying opportunely for her safety--are not, it

must be noted, what the Calvinist and modern writers blame her for! Though

there was no poisoning, as some serious authors have asserted, there were

other not less criminal plots. It is beyond question that she hindered Pare

from saving one, and murdered the other morally by inches.

But the swift death of Francois II. and the skilfully contrived end of

Charles IX. did no injury to Calvinist interests. The causes of these two

events concerned only the uppermost sphere, and were never suspected by

writers or by the lower orders at the time; they were guessed only by de

Thou, by l'Hopital, by men of the highest talents, or the chiefs of the two

parties who coveted and clung to the Crown, and who thought such means

indispensable.

Popular songs, strange to say, fell foul of Catherine's morality. The

anecdote is known of a soldier who was roasting a goose in the guardroom of

the Chateau of Tours while Catherine and Henri IV. were holding a

conference there, and who sang a ballad in which the Queen was insultingly

compared to the largest cannon in the hands of the Calvinists. Henri IV.

drew his sword to go out and kill the man; Catherine stopped him, and only

shouted out:

"It is Catherine who provides the goose!"

Though the executions at Amboise were attributed to Catherine, and the

Calvinists made that able woman responsible for all the inevitable

disasters of the struggle, she must be judged by posterity, like

Robespierre at a future date.

And Catherine was cruelly punished for her preference for the Duc d'Anjou,

which made her hold her two elder sons so cheap. Henri III. having ceased,

like all spoilt children, to care for his mother, rushed voluntarily into

such debauchery as made him, what the mother had made Charles IX., a

childless husband, a king without an heir. Unhappily, Catherine's youngest

son, the Duc d'Alencon, died--a natural death. The Queen-mother made every

effort to control her son's passions. History preserves the tradition of a

supper to nude women given in the banqueting-hall at Chenonceaux on his

return from Poland, but it did not cure Henri III. of his bad habits.

This great Queen's last words summed up her policy, which was indeed so

governed by good sense that we see the Cabinets of every country putting it

into practice in similar circumstances.

"Well cut, my son," said she, when Henri III. came to her, on her deathbed,

to announce that the enemy of the throne had been put to death. "Now you

must sew up again."

She thus expressed her opinion that the sovereign must make friends with

the House of Lorraine, and make it useful, as the only way to hinder the

effects of the Guises' hatred, by giving them a hope of circumventing the

King. But this indefatigable cunning of the Italian and the woman was

incompatible with Henri III.'s life of debauchery. When once the Great

Mother was dead, the Mother of Armies (_Mater castrorum_), the policy of

the Valois died too.

* * * * *

Before attempting to write this picture of manners in action, the author

patiently and minutely studied the principal reigns of French history, the

quarrels of the Burgundians and the Armagnacs, and those of the Guises and

the Valois, each in the forefront of a century. His purpose was to write a

picturesque history of France. Isabella of Bavaria, Catherine and Marie de'

Medici, each fills a conspicuous place, dominating from the fourteenth to

the seventeenth centuries, and leading up to Louis XIV.

Of these three queens, Catherine was the most interesting and the most

beautiful. Hers was a manly rule, not disgraced by the terrible amours of

Isabella, nor those, even more terrible though less known, of Marie de'

Medici. Isabella brought the English into France to oppose her son, was in

love with her brother-in-law, the Duc d'Orleans, and with Boisbourdon.

Marie de' Medici's account is still heavier. Neither of them had any

political genius.

In the course of these studies and comparisons, the author became convinced

of Catherine's greatness; by initiating himself into the peculiar

difficulties of her position, he discerned how unjust historians, biased by

Protestantism, had been to this queen; and the outcome was the three

sketches here presented, in which some erroneous opinions of her, of those

who were about her, and of the aspect of the times, are combated.

The work is placed among my Philosophical Studies, because it illustrates

the spirit of a period, and plainly shows the influence of opinions.

But before depicting the political arena on which Catherine comes into

collision with the two great obstacles in her career, it is necessary to

give a short account of her previous life from the point of view of an

impartial critic, so that the reader may form a general idea of this large

and royal life up to the time when the first part of this narrative opens.

Never at any period, in any country, or in any ruling family was there more

contempt felt for legitimacy than by the famous race of the Medici (in

French commonly written and pronounced Medicis). They held the same opinion

of monarchy as is now professed in Russia: The ruler on whom the crown

devolves is the real and legitimate monarch. Mirabeau was justified in

saying, "There has been but one mesalliance in my family--that with the

Medici;" for, notwithstanding the exertions of well-paid genealogists, it

is certain that the Medici, till the time of Averardo de' Medici,

gonfaloniere of Florence in 1314, were no more than Florentine merchants of

great wealth. The first personage of the family who filled a conspicuous

place in the history of the great Tuscan Republic was Salvestro de' Medici,

gonfaloniere in 1378. This Salvestro had two sons--Cosmo and Lorenzo de'

Medici.

From Cosmo descended Lorenzo the Magnificent, the Duc de Nemours, the Duke

of Urbino, Catherine's father, Pope Leo X., Pope Clement VII., and

Alessandro, not indeed Duke of Florence, as he is sometimes called, but

Duke _della citta di Penna_, a title created by Pope Clement VII. as a step

towards that of Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Lorenzo's descendants were Lorenzino--the Brutus of Florence--who killed

Duke Alessandro; Cosmo, the first Grand Duke, and all the rulers of

Florence till 1737, when the family became extinct.

But neither of the two branches--that of Cosmo or that of

Lorenzo--succeeded in a direct line, till the time when Marie de' Medici's

father subjugated Tuscany, and the Grand Dukes inherited in regular

succession. Thus Alessandro de' Medici, who assumed the title of Duke

_della citta di Penna_, and whom Lorenzino assassinated, was the son of the

Duke of Urbino, Catherine's father, by a Moorish slave. Hence Lorenzino,

the legitimate son of Lorenzo, had a double right to kill Alessandro, both

as a usurper in the family and as an oppressor of the city. Some historians

have indeed supposed that Alessandro was the son of Clement VII. The event

that led to the recognition of this bastard as head of the Republic was his

marriage with Margaret of Austria, the natural daughter of Charles V.

Francesco de' Medici, the husband of Bianca Capello, recognized as his son

a child of low birth bought by that notorious Venetian lady; and, strange

to say, Fernando, succeeding Francesco, upheld the hypothetical rights of

this boy. Indeed, this youth, known as Don Antonio de' Medici, was

recognized by the family during four ducal reigns; he won the affection of

all, did them important service, and was universally regretted.

Almost all the early Medici had natural children, whose lot was in every

case splendid. The Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, Pope Clement VII., was the

illegitimate son of Giuliano I. Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici was also a

bastard, and he was within an ace of being Pope and head of the family.

Certain inventors of anecdote have a story that the Duke of Urbino,

Catherine's father, told her: "_A figlia d'inganno non manca mai

figliuolanza_" (A clever woman can always have children, _a propos_ to some

natural defect in Henri, the second son of Francois I., to whom she was

betrothed). This Lorenzo de' Medici, Catherine's father, had married, for

the second time, in 1518, Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, and died in

1519, a few days after his wife, who died in giving birth to Catherine.

Catherine was thus fatherless and motherless as soon as she saw the light.

Hence the strange events of her childhood, chequered by the violent

struggles of the Florentines, in the attempt to recover their liberty,

against the Medici who were determined to govern Florence, but who were so

circumspect in their policy that Catherine's father took the title of Duke

of Urbino.

At his death, the legitimate head of the House of the Medici was Pope Leo

X., who appointed Giuliano's illegitimate son, Giulio de' Medici, then

Cardinal, Governor of Florence. Leo X. was Catherine's grand-uncle, and

this Cardinal Giulio, afterwards Clement VII., was her _left-handed_ uncle

only. This it was which made Brantome so wittily speak of that Pope as an

"uncle in Our Lady."

During the siege by the Medici to regain possession of Florence, the

Republican party, not satisfied with having shut up Catherine, then nine

years old, in a convent, after stripping her of all her possessions,

proposed to expose her to the fire of the artillery, between two

battlements--the suggestion of a certain Battista Cei. Bernardo Castiglione

went even further in a council held to determine on some conclusion to the

business; he advised that, rather than surrender Catherine to the Pope who

demanded it, she should be handed over to the tender mercies of the

soldiers. All revolutions of the populace are alike. Catherine's policy,

always in favor of royal authority, may have been fostered by such scenes,

which an Italian girl of nine could not fail to understand.

Alessandro's promotion, to which Clement VII., himself a bastard, largely

contributed, was no doubt owing partly to the fact of his being

illegitimate, and to Charles V.'s affection for his famous natural daughter

Margaret. Thus the Pope and the Emperor were moved by similar feelings. At

this period Venice was mistress of the commerce of the world; Rome governed

its morals; Italy was still supreme, by the poets, the generals, and the

statesmen who were her sons. At no other time has any one country had so

curious or so various a multitude of men of genius. There were so many,

that the smallest princelings were superior men. Italy was overflowing with

talent, daring, science, poetry, wealth, and gallantry, though rent by

constant internal wars, and at all times the arena on which conquerors met

to fight for her fairest provinces.

When men are so great, they are not afraid to confess their weakness;

hence, no doubt, this golden age for bastards. And it is but justice to

declare that these illegitimate sons of the Medici were ardent for the

glory and the advancement of the family, alike in possessions and in power.

And as soon as the Duke _della citta di Penna_, the Moorish slave's son,

was established as Tyrant of Florence, he took up the interest shown by

Pope Clement VII. for Lorenzo II.'s daughter, now eleven years of age.

As we study the march of events and of men in that strange sixteenth

century, we must never forget that the chief element of political conduct

was unremitting craft, destroying in every nature the upright conduct, the

_squareness_ which imagination looks for in eminent men. In this,

especially, lies Catherine's absolution. This observation, in fact,

disposes of all the mean and foolish accusations brought against her by the

writers of the reformed faith. It was indeed the golden age of this type of

policy, of which Machiavelli and Spinoza formulated the code, and Hobbes

and Montesquieu; for the Dialogue of "Sylla and Eucrates" expresses

Montesquieu's real mind, which he could not set forth in any other form in

consequence of his connection with the Encyclopedists. These principles are

to this day the unconfessed morality of every Cabinet where schemes of vast

dominion are worked out. In France we were severe on Napoleon when he

exerted this Italian genius which was in his blood, and its plots did not

always succeed; but Charles V., Catherine, Philip II., Giulio II., would

have done just as he did in the affairs of Spain.

At the time when Catherine was born, history, if related from the point of

view of honesty, would seem an impossible romance. Charles V., while forced

to uphold the Catholic Church against the attacks of Luther, who by

threatening the tiara threatened his throne, allowed Rome to be besieged,

and kept Pope Clement VII. in prison. This same Pope, who had no more

bitter foe than Charles V., cringed to him that he might place Alessandro

de' Medici at Florence, and the Emperor gave his daughter in marriage to

the bastard Duke. No sooner was he firmly settled there than Alessandro, in

concert with the Pope, attempted to injure Charles V. by an alliance,

through Catherine de' Medici, with Francis I., and both promised to assist

the French king to conquer Italy.

Lorenzino de' Medici became Alessandro's boon companion, and pandered to

him to get an opportunity of killing him; and Filippo Strozzi, one of the

loftiest spirits of that age, regarded this murder with such high esteem

that he vowed that each of his sons should marry one of the assassin's

daughters. The sons religiously fulfilled the father's pledge at a time

when each of them, under Catherine's protection, could have made a splendid

alliance; for one was Doria's rival, and the other Marshal of France.

Cosmo de' Medici, Alessandro's successor, avenged the death of the Tyrant

with great cruelty, and persistently for twelve years, during which his

hatred never flagged against the people who had, after all, placed him in

power. He was eighteen years of age when he succeeded to the government;

his first act was to annul the rights of Alessandro's legitimate sons, at

the time when he was avenging Alessandro! Charles V. confirmed the

dispossession of his grandson, and recognized Cosmo instead of Alessandro's

son.

Cosmo, raised to the throne by Cardinal Cibo, at once sent the prelate into

exile. Then Cardinal Cibo accused his creature, Cosmo, the first Grand

Duke, of having tried to poison Alessandro's son. The Grand Duke, as

jealous of his authority as Charles V. was of his, abdicated, like the

Emperor, in favor of his son Francesco, after ordering the death of Don

Garcias, his other son, in revenge for that of Cardinal Giovanni de'

Medici, whom Garcias had assassinated.

Cosmo I. and his son Francesco, who ought to have been devoted, soul and

body, to the Royal House of France, the only power able to lend them

support, were the humble servants of Charles V. and Philip II., and

consequently the secret, perfidious, and cowardly foes of Catherine de'

Medici, one of the glories of their race.

Such are the more important features--contradictory and illogical

indeed--the dishonest acts, the dark intrigues of the House of the Medici

alone. From this sketch some idea may be formed of the other princes of

Italy and Europe. Every envoy from Cosmo I. to the Court of France had

secret instructions to poison Strozzi, Queen Catherine's relation, when he

should find him there. Charles V. had three ambassadors from Francis I.

murdered.

* * * * *

It was early in October 1533 that the Duke _della citta di Penna_ left

Florence for Leghorn, accompanied by Catherine de' Medici, sole heiress of

Lorenzo II. The Duke and the Princess of Florence, for this was the title

borne by the girl, now fourteen years of age, left the city with a large

following of servants, officials, and secretaries, preceded by men-at-arms,

and escorted by a mounted guard. The young Princess as yet knew nothing of

her fate, excepting that the Pope and Duke Alessandro were to have an

interview at Leghorn; but her uncle, Filippo Strozzi, soon told her of the

future that lay before her.

Filippo Strozzi had married Clarissa de' Medici, whole sister to Lorenzo

de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, Catherine's father; but this union, arranged

quite as much with a view to converting one of the stoutest champions of

the popular cause to the support of Medici as to secure the recall of that

then exiled family, never shook the tenets of the rough soldier who was

persecuted by his party for having consented to it. In spite of some

superficial change of conduct, somewhat overruled by this alliance, he

remained faithful to the popular side, and declared against the Medici as

soon as he perceived their scheme of subjugating Florence. This great man

even refused the offer of a principality from Leo X. At that time Filippo

Strozzi was a victim to the policy of the Medici, so shifty in its means,

so unvarying in its aim.

After sharing the Pope's misfortunes and captivity, when, surprised by

Colonna, he took refuge in the castle of Saint-Angelo, he was given up by

Clement VII. as a hostage and carried to Naples. As soon as the Pope was

free, he fell upon his foes, and Strozzi was then near being killed; he was

forced to pay an enormous bribe to get out of the prison, where he was

closely guarded. As soon as he was at liberty, with the natural

trustfulness of an honest man, he was simple enough to appear before

Clement VII., who perhaps had flattered himself that he was rid of him. The

Pope had so much to be ashamed of that he received Strozzi very

ungraciously. Thus Strozzi had very early begun his apprenticeship to the

life of disaster, which is that of a man who is honest in politics, and

whose conscience will not lend itself to the caprices of opportunity, whose

actions are pleasing only to virtue, which is persecuted by all--by the

populace, because it withstands their blind passions; by authority, because

it resists its usurpations.

The life of these great citizens is a martyrdom, through which they have

nothing to support them but the strong voice of conscience, and the sense

of social duty, which in all cases dictates their conduct.

There were many such men in the Republic of Florence, all as great as

Strozzi and as masterly as their adversaries on the Medici side, though

beaten by Florentine cunning. In the conspiracy of the Pazzi, what can be

finer than the attitude of the head of that house? His trade was immense,

and he settled all his accounts with Asia, the Levant, and Europe before

carrying out that great plot, to the end that his correspondents should not

be the losers if he should fail.

And the history of the rise of the Medici family in the fourteenth and

fifteenth centuries is one of the finest that remains unwritten, though men

of great genius have attempted it. It is not the history of a republic, or

of any particular community or phase of civilization; it is the history of

political man, and the eternal history of political developments, that of

usurpers and conquerors.

On his return to Florence, Filippo Strozzi restored the ancient form of

government, and banished Ippolito de' Medici, another bastard, as well as

Alessandro, with whom he was now acting. But he then was afraid of the

inconstancy of the populace; and as he dreaded Pope Clement's vengeance, he

went to take charge of a large commercial house he had at Lyons in

correspondence with his bankers at Venice and Rome, in France, and in

Spain. A strange fact! These men, who bore the burden of public affairs as

well as that of a perennial struggle with the Medici, to say nothing of

their squabbles with their own party, could also endure the cares of

commerce and speculation, of banking with all its complications, which the

vast multiplicity of coinages and frequent forgeries made far more

difficult then than now. The word banker is derived from the bench on which

they sat, and which served also to ring the gold and silver pieces on.

Strozzi found in his adored wife's death a pretext to offer to the

Republican party, whose police is always all the more terrible because

everybody is a voluntary spy in the name of Liberty, which justifies all

things.

Filippo's return to Florence happened just at the time when the city was

compelled to bow to Alessandro's yoke; but he had previously been to see

Pope Clement, with whom matters were so promising that his feelings towards

Strozzi had changed. In the moment of triumph the Medici so badly needed

such a man as Strozzi, were it only to lend a grace to Alessandro's

assumption of dignity, that Clement persuaded him to sit on the bastard's

council, which was about to take oppressive measures, and Filippo had

accepted a diploma as senator. But for the last two years and a half--like

Seneca and Burrhus with Nero--he had noted the beginnings of tyranny. He

found himself the object of distrust to the populace, and so little in

favor with the Medici, whom he opposed, that he foresaw a catastrophe. And

as soon as he heard from Alessandro of the negotiations for the marriage of

Catherine with a French Prince, which were perhaps to be concluded at

Leghorn, where the contracting powers had agreed to meet, he resolved to go

to France and follow the fortunes of his niece, who would need a guardian.

Alessandro, delighted to be quit of a man so difficult to manage in what

concerned Florence, applauded this decision, which spared him a murder, and

advised Strozzi to place himself at the head of Catherine's household.

In point of fact, to dazzle the French Court, the Medici had constituted a

brilliant suite for the young girl whom they quite incorrectly styled the

Princess of Florence, and who was also called the Duchess of Urbino. The

procession, at the head of it Duke Alessandro, Catherine, and Strozzi,

consisted of more than a thousand persons, exclusive of the escort and

serving-men; and when the last of them were still at the gate of Florence,

the foremost had already got beyond the first village outside the

town--where straw plait for hats is now made.

It was beginning to be generally known that Catherine was to marry a son of

Francis the First, but as yet it was no more than a rumor which found

confirmation in the country from this triumphant progress from Florence to

Leghorn. From the preparations required, Catherine suspected that her

marriage was in question, and her uncle revealed to her the abortive scheme

of her ambitious family, who had aspired to the hand of the Dauphin. Duke

Alessandro still hoped that the Duke of Albany might succeed in changing

the determination of the French King, who, though anxious to secure the aid

of the Medici in Italy, would only give them the Duc d'Orleans. This

narrowness lost Italy to France, and did not hinder Catherine from being

Queen.

This Duke of Albany, the son of Alexander Stuart, brother of James III. of

Scotland, had married Anne de la Tour de Boulogne, sister to Madeleine,

Catherine's mother; he was thus her maternal uncle. It was through her

mother that Catherine was so rich and connected with so many families; for,

strangely enough, Diane de Poitiers, her rival, was also her cousin. Jean

de Poitiers, Diane's father, was son of Jeanne de la Tour de Boulogne, the

Duchess of Urbino's aunt. Catherine was also related to Mary Stuart, her

daughter-in-law.

Catherine was now informed that her dower in money would amount to a

hundred thousand ducats. The ducat was a gold piece as large as one of our

old louis d'or, but only half as thick. Thus a hundred thousand ducats in

those days represented, in consequence of the high value of gold, six

millions of francs at the present time, the ducat being worth about twelve

francs. The importance of the banking-house of Strozzi, at Lyons, may be

imagined from this, as it was his factor there who paid over the twelve

hundred thousand livres in gold. The counties of Auvergne and Lauraguais

also formed part of Catherine's portion, and the Pope Clement VII. made her

a gift of a hundred thousand ducats more in jewels, precious stones, and

other wedding gifts, to which Duke Alessandro contributed.

On reaching Leghorn, Catherine, still so young, must have been flattered by

the extraordinary magnificence displayed by Pope Clement VII., her "uncle

in Our Lady," then the head of the House of Medici, to crush the Court of

France. He had arrived at the port in one of his galleys hung with crimson

satin trimmed with gold fringe, and covered with an awning of cloth of

gold. This barge, of which the decorations had cost nearly twenty thousand

ducats, contained several rooms for the use of Henri de France's future

bride, furnished with the choicest curiosities the Medici had been able to

collect. The oarsmen, magnificently dressed, and the seamen were under the

captaincy of a Prior of the Order of the Knights of Rhodes. The Pope's

household filled three more barges.

The Duke of Albany's galleys, moored by the side of the Pope's, formed,

with these, a considerable flotilla.

Duke Alessandro presented the officers of Catherine's household to the

Pope, with whom he held a secret conference, introducing to him, as seems

probable, Count Sebastian Montecuculi, who had just left the Emperor's

service--rather suddenly, it was said--and the two Generals, Antonio de

Leyva and Fernando Gonzaga. Was there a premeditated plan between these two

bastards to make the Duc d'Orleans the Dauphin? What was the reward

promised to Count Sebastian Montecuculi, who, before entering the service

of Charles V., had studied medicine? History is silent on these points. We

shall see indeed in what obscurity the subject is wrapped. It is so great

that some serious and conscientious historians have recently recognized

Montecuculi's innocence.

Catherine was now officially informed by the Pope himself of the alliance

proposed for her. The Duke of Albany had had great difficulty in keeping

the King of France to his promise of giving even his second son to

Catherine de' Medici; and Clement's impatience was so great, he was so much

afraid of seeing his schemes upset either by some intrigue on the part of

the Emperor, or by the haughtiness of France, where the great nobles cast

an evil eye on this union, that he embarked forthwith and made for

Marseilles. He arrived there at the end of October 1533.

In spite of his splendor, the House of the Medici was eclipsed by the

sovereign of France. To show to what a pitch these great bankers carried

their magnificence, the dozen pieces given by the Pope in the bride's

wedding purse consisted of gold medals of inestimable historical interest,

for they were at that time unique. But Francis I., who loved festivity and

display, distinguished himself on this occasion. The wedding feasts for

Henri de Valois and Catherine went on for thirty-four days. It is useless

to repeat here details which may be read in every history of Provence and

Marseilles as to this famous meeting between the Pope and the King of

France, which was the occasion of a jest of the Duke of Albany's as to the

duty of fasting; a retort recorded by Brantome which vastly amused the

Court, and shows the tone of manners at that time.

Though Henri de Valois was but three weeks older than Catherine, the Pope

insisted on the immediate consummation of the marriage between these two

children, so greatly did he dread the subterfuges of diplomacy and the

trickery commonly practised at that period. Clement, indeed, anxious for

proof, remained thirty-four days at Marseilles, in the hope, it is said, of

some visible evidence in his young relation, who at fourteen was

marriageable. And it was, no doubt, when questioning Catherine before his

departure, that he tried to console her by the famous speech ascribed to

Catherine's father: "_A figlia d'inganno, non manca mai la figliuolanza_."

The strangest conjectures have been given to the world as to the causes of

Catherine's barrenness during ten years. Few persons nowadays are aware

that various medical works contain suppositions as to this matter, so

grossly indecent that they could not be repeated.[B] This gives some clue

to the strange calumnies which still blacken this Queen, whose every action

was distorted to her injury. The reason lay simply with her husband. It is

sufficient evidence that at a time when no prince was shy of having natural

children, Diane de Poitiers, far more highly favored than his wife, had no

children; and nothing is commoner in surgical experience than such a

malformation as this Prince's, which gave rise to a jest of the ladies of

the Court, who would have made him Abbe de Saint-Victor, at a time when the

French language was as free as the Latin tongue. After the Prince was

operated on, Catherine had ten children.

The delay was a happy thing for France. If Henri II. had had children by

Diane de Poitiers, it would have caused serious political complications. At

the time of his treatment, the Duchesse de Valentinois was in the second

youth of womanhood. These facts alone show that the history of Catherine

de' Medici remains to be entirely re-written; and that, as Napoleon very

shrewdly remarked, the history of France should be in one volume only, or

in a thousand.

When we compare the conduct of Charles V. with that of the King of France

during the Pope's stay at Marseilles, it is greatly to the advantage of

Francis--as indeed in every instance. Here is a brief report of this

meeting as given by a contemporary:--

"His Holiness the Pope, having been conducted to the Palace prepared for

him, as I have said, outside the port, each one withdrew to his chamber

until the morrow, when his said Holiness prepared to make his entry. Which

was done with great sumptuousness and magnificence, he being set on a

throne borne on the shoulders of two men in his pontifical habit, saving

only the tiara, while before him went a white palfry bearing the Holy

Sacrament, the said palfrey being led by two men on foot in very fine

raiment holding a bridle of white silk. After him came all the cardinals in

their habit, riding their pontifical mules, and Madame the Duchess of

Urbino in great magnificence, with a goodly company of ladies and gentlemen

alike of France and of Italy. And the Pope, with all this company, being

come to the place prepared where they should lodge, each one withdrew; and

all this was ordered and done without any disorder or tumult. Now, while as

the Pope was making his entry, the King crossed the water in his frigate

and went to lodge there whence the Pope had come, to the end that on the

morrow he might come from thence to pay homage to the Holy Father, as

beseemed a most Christian King.

"The King being then ready, set forth to go to the Palace where the Pope

was, accompanied by the Princes of his blood, Monseigneur the Duc de

Vendosmois (father of the Vidame de Chartres), the Comte de Saint-Pol,

Monsieur de Montmorency, and Monsieur de la Roche-sur-Yon, the Duc de

Nemours (brother to the Duke of Savoy who died at that place), the Duke of

Albany, and many others, counts, barons, and nobles, the Duc de Montmorency

being at all times about the King's person. The King, being come to the

Palace, was received by the Pope and all the College of Cardinals assembled

in consistory, with much civility (_fort humainement_). This done, each one

went to the place appointed to him, and the King took with him many

cardinals to feast them, and among them Cardinal de' Medici, the Pope's

nephew, a very magnificent lord with a fine escort. On the morrow, those

deputed by his Holiness and by the King began to treat of those matters

whereon they had met to agree. First of all, they treated of the question

of faith, and a bull was read for the repression of heresy, and to hinder

things from coming to a greater combustion (_une plus grande combustion_)

than they are in already. Then was performed the marriage ceremony between

the Duc d'Orleans, the King's second son, and Catherine de' Medici, Duchess

of Urbino, his Holiness' niece, under conditions the same, or nearly the

same, as had been formerly proposed to the Duke of Albany. The said

marriage was concluded with great magnificence, and our Holy Father married

them.[C] This marriage being thus concluded, the Holy Father held a

consistory, wherein he created four cardinals to wait on the King, to wit:

Cardinal le Veneur, heretofore Bishop of Lisieux and High Almoner; Cardinal

de Boulogne, of the family of la Chambre, half-brother on his mother's side

to the Duke of Albany; Cardinal de Chatillon of the family of Coligny,

nephew to the Sire de Montmorency; and Cardinal de Givry."

When Strozzi paid down the marriage portion in the presence of the Court,

he observed some surprise on the part of the French nobles; they said

pretty loudly that it was a small price for such a mesalliance--what would

they say to-day? Cardinal Ippolito replied:

"Then you are not informed as to your King's secrets. His Holiness consents

to bestow on France three pearls of inestimable price--Genoa, Milan, and

Naples."

The Pope left Count Sebastian Montecuculi to present himself at the French

Court, where he made an offer of his services, complaining of Antonio de

Leyva and Fernando Gonzaga, for which reason he was accepted. Montecuculi

was not one of Catherine's household, which was composed entirely of French

ladies and gentlemen; for, by a law of the realm which the Pope was

rejoiced to see carried out, Catherine was naturalized by letters patent

before her marriage. Montecuculi was at first attached to the household of

the Queen, Charles V.'s sister. Then, not long after, he entered the

Dauphin's service in the capacity of cupbearer.

The Duchesse d'Orleans found herself entirely swamped at the Court of

Francis I. Her young husband was in love with Diane de Poitiers, who was

certainly her equal in point of birth, and a far greater lady. The daughter

of the Medici took rank below Queen Eleanor, Charles V.'s sister, and the

Duchesse d'Etampes, whose marriage to the head of the family of de Brosse

had given her one of the most powerful positions and highest titles in

France. Her aunt, the Duchess of Albany, the Queen of Navarre, the Duchesse

de Guise, the Duchesse de Vendome, the wife of the Connetable, and many

other women, by their birth and privileges as well as by their influence in

the most sumptuous Court ever held by a French King--not excepting Louis

XIV.--wholly eclipsed the daughter of the Florentine merchants, who was

indeed more illustrious and richer through the Tour de Boulogne family than

through her descent from the Medici.

Filippo Strozzi, a republican at heart, regarded his niece's position as so

critical and difficult, that he felt himself incapable of directing her in

the midst of conflicting interests, and deserted her at the end of a year,

being indeed recalled to Italy by the death of Clement VII. Catherine's

conduct, when we remember that she was but just fifteen, was a marvel of

prudence. She very adroitly attached herself to the King, her

father-in-law, leaving him as rarely as possible; she was with him on

horseback, in hunting, and in war.

Her adoration of Francis I. saved the House of Medici from all suspicion

when the Dauphin died poisoned. At that time Catherine and the Duc

d'Orleans were at the King's headquarters in Provence, for France had

already been invaded by Charles V., the King's brother-in-law. The whole

Court had remained on the scene of the wedding festivities, now the theatre

of the most barbarous war. Just as Charles V., compelled to retreat, had

fled, leaving the bones of his army in Provence, the Dauphin was returning

to Lyons by the Rhone. Stopping at Tournon for the night, to amuse himself,

he went through some athletic exercises, such as formed almost the sole

education he or his brother received, in consequence of their long

detention as hostages. The Prince being very hot--it was in the month of

August--was so rash as to ask for a glass of water, which was given to him,

iced, by Montecuculi. The Dauphin died almost instantaneously.

The King idolized his son. The Dauphin was indeed, as historians are

agreed, a very accomplished Prince. His father, in despair, gave the utmost

publicity to the proceedings against Montecuculi, and placed the matter in

the hands of the most learned judges of the day.

After heroically enduring the first tests of torture without confessing

anything, the Count made an avowal by which he fully implicated the Emperor

and his two generals, Antonio de Leyva and Fernando Gonzaga. This, however,

did not satisfy Francis I. Never was a case more solemnly thrashed out than

this. An eye-witness gives the following account of what the King did:--

"The King called all the Princes of the Blood, and all the Knights of his

Order, and many other high personages of the realm, to meet at Lyons; the

Pope's Legate and Nuncio, the cardinals who were of his Court, and the

ambassadors of England, Scotland, Portugal, Venice, Ferrara, and others;

together with all the princes and great nobles of foreign countries, both

of Italy and of Germany, who were at that time residing at his Court,

to-wit: The Duke of Wittemberg, in Allemaigne; the Dukes of Somma, of

Arianna, and of Atria; the Princes of Melphe [Malfi?] (who had desired to

marry Catherine), and of Stilliano, Neapolitan; the Marquis di Vigevo, of

the House of Trivulzio, Milanese; the Signor Giovanni Paolo di Ceri, Roman;

the Signor Cesare Fregose, Genoese; the Signor Annibale Gonzaga, Mantuan,

and many more. Who being assembled, he caused to be read in their presence,

from the beginning to the end, the trial of that wretched man who had

poisoned his late Highness the Dauphin, with all the interrogations,

confessions, confrontings, and other proceedings usual in criminal trials,

not choosing that the sentence should be carried out until all those

present had given their opinion on this monstrous and miserable matter."

Count Montecuculi's fidelity and devotion may seem extraordinary in our day

of universal indiscretion, when everybody, and even Ministers, talk over

the most trivial incidents in which they have put a finger; but in those

times princes could command devoted servants, or knew how to choose them.

There were monarchical Moreys then, because there was faith. Never look for

great things from self-interest: interests may change; but look for

anything from feeling, from religious faith, monarchical faith, patriotic

faith. These three beliefs alone can produce a Berthereau of Geneva, a

Sydney or a Strafford in England, assassins to murder Thomas a Becket, or a

Montecuculi; Jacques Coeur and Jeanne d'Arc, or Richelieu and Danton; a

Bonchamp, a Talmont, or a Clement, a Chabot.

Charles V. made use of the highest personages to carry out the murder of

three ambassadors from Francis I. A year later Lorenzino, Catherine's

cousin, assassinated Duke Alessandro after three years of dissimulation,

and in circumstances which gained him the surname of the Florentine Brutus.

The rank of the victim was so little a check on such undertakings that

neither Leo X. nor Clement VII. seems to have died a natural death.

Mariana, the historian of Philip II., almost jests in speaking of the death

of the Queen of Spain, a Princess of France, saying that "for the greater

glory of the Spanish throne God suffered the blindness of the doctors who

treated the Queen for dropsy." When King Henri II. allowed himself to utter

a scandal which deserved a sword-thrust, he could find la Chataignerie

willing to take it. At that time royal personages had their meals served to

them in padlocked boxes of which they had the key. Hence the _droit de

cadenas_, the _right of the padlock_, an honor which ceased to exist in the

reign of Louis XIV.

The Dauphin died of poison, the same perhaps as caused the death of MADAME,

under Louis XIV. Pope Clement had been dead two years; Duke Alessandro,

steeped in debauchery, seemed to have no interest in the Duc d'Orleans'

elevation. Catherine, now seventeen years old, was with her father-in-law,

whom she devotedly admired; Charles V. alone seemed to have an interest in

the Dauphin's death, because Francis I. intended his son to form an

alliance which would have extended the power of France. Thus the Count's

confession was very ingeniously based on the passions and policy of the

day. Charles V. had fled after seeing his troops overwhelmed in Provence,

and with them his good fortune, his reputation, and his hopes of

aggrandizement. And note, that even if an innocent man had confessed under

torture, the King afterwards gave him freedom of speech before an august

assembly, and in the presence of men with whom innocence had a fair chance

of a hearing. The King wanted the truth, and sought it in good faith.

In spite of her now brilliant prospects, Catherine's position at court was

unchanged by the Dauphin's death; her childlessness made a divorce seem

probable when her husband should become king. The Dauphin was now enslaved

by Diane de Poitiers, who had dared to be the rival of Madame d'Etampes.

Catherine was therefore doubly attentive and insinuating to her

father-in-law, understanding that he was her sole mainstay.

Thus the first ten years of Catherine's married life were spent in the

unceasing regrets caused by repeated disappointments when she hoped to have

a child, and the vexations of her rivalry with Diane. Imagine what the life

must be of a princess constantly spied on by a jealous mistress who was

favored by the Catholic party, and by the strong support the Senechale had

acquired through the marriage of her daughters--one to Robert de la Mark,

Duc de Bouillon, Prince de Sedan; the other to Claude de Lorraine, Duc

d'Aumale.

Swamped between the party of the Duchesse d'Etampes and that of the

Senechale (the title borne by Diane de Poitiers during the reign of Francis

I.), who divided the Court and political feeling between the two mortal

foes, Catherine tried to be the friend of both the Duchess and Diane de

Poitiers. She, who was to become so great a queen, played the part of a

subaltern. Thus she served her apprenticeship to the double-faced policy

which afterwards was the secret clue to her life. At a later date the queen

found herself between the Catholics and the Calvinists, as the woman had

been, for ten years, between Madame d'Etampes and Madame de Poitiers.

She studied the contradictions of French policy. Francis upheld Calvin and

the Lutherans, to annoy Charles V. Then, after having covertly and

patiently fostered the Reformation in Germany, after tolerating Calvin's

presence at the Court of Navarre, he turned against it with undisguised

severity. So Catherine could see the Court and the women of the Court

playing with the fire of heresy; Diane at the head of the Catholic party

with the Guises, only because the Duchesse d'Etampes was on the side of

Calvin and the Protestants.

This was Catherine's political education; and in the King's private circle

she could study the mistakes made by the Medici. The Dauphin was

antagonistic to his father on every point; he was a bad son. He forgot the

hardest but the truest axiom of Royalty, namely, that the throne is a

responsible entity, and that a son who may oppose his father during his

lifetime must carry out his policy on succeeding to the throne. Spinoza,

who was as deep a politician as he was a great philosopher, says, in

treating of the case of a king who has succeeded to another by a revolution

or by treason: "If the new King hopes to secure his throne and protect his

life, he must display so much zeal in avenging his predecessor's death that

no one shall feel tempted to repeat such a crime. But to avenge him

worthily it is not enough that he should shed the blood of his subjects; he

must confirm the maxims of him whose place he fills, and walk in the same

ways of government."

It was the application of this principle which gave the Medici to Florence.

Cosmo I., Alessandro's successor, eleven years later instigated the murder,

at Venice, of the Florentine Brutus, and, as has been said, persecuted the

Strozzi without mercy. It was the neglect of this principle that overthrew

Louis XVI. That King was false to every principle of government when he

reinstated the Parlements suppressed by his grandfather. Louis XV. had been

clear-sighted; the Parlements, and especially that of Paris, were quite

half to blame for the disorders that necessitated the assembling of the

States-General. Louis XV.'s mistake was that when he threw down that

barrier between the throne and the people, he did not erect a stronger one,

that he did not substitute for the Parlements a strong constitutional rule

in the provinces. There lay the remedy for the evils of the Monarchy, the

voting power for taxation and the incidence of the taxes, with consent

gradually won to the reforms needed in the monarchical rule.

* * * * *

Henri II.'s first act was to give all his confidence to the Connetable de

Montmorency, whom his father had desired him to leave in banishment. The

Connetable de Montmorency, with Diane de Poitiers, to whom he was closely

attached, was master of the kingdom. Hence Catherine was even less powerful

and happy as Queen of France than she had been as the Dauphiness.

At first, from the year 1543, she had a child every year for ten years, and

was fully taken up by her maternal functions during that time, which

included the last years of Francis I.'s reign, and almost the whole of her

husband's. It is impossible not to detect in this constant child-bearing

the malicious influence of a rival who thus kept the legitimate wife out of

the way. This feminine and barbarous policy was no doubt one of Catherine's

grievances against Diane. Being thus kept out of the tide of affairs, this

clever woman spent her time in observing all the interests of the persons

at Court, and all the parties formed there. The Italians who had followed

her excited violent suspicions. After the execution of Montecuculi, the

Connetable de Montmorency, Diane, and most of the crafty politicians at

Court were racked with doubts of the Medici; but Francis I. always scouted

them. Still the Gondi, the Biraguas, the Strozzi, the Ruggieri, the

Sardini, in short, all who were classed as the Italians who had arrived in

Catherine's wake, were compelled to exercise every faculty of wit, policy,

and courage to enable them to remain at Court under the burden of disfavor

that weighed on them. During the supremacy of Diane de Poitiers,

Catherine's obligingness went so far that some clever folks have seen in it

an evidence of the profound dissimulation to which she was compelled by men

and circumstances, and by the conduct of Henri II. But it is going too far

to say that she never asserted her rights as a wife and a queen. Her ten

children (besides one miscarriage) were a sufficient explanation of the

King's conduct, who was thus set free to spend his time with Diane de

Poitiers. But the King certainly never fell short of what he owed to

himself; he gave the Queen an entry worthy of any that had previously taken

place, on the occasion of her coronation. The records of the _Parlement_

and of the Exchequer prove that these two important bodies went to meet

Catherine outside Paris, as far as Saint-Lazare. Here, indeed, is a passage

from du Tillet's narrative:--

"A scaffolding had been erected at Saint-Lazare, whereon was a throne

(which du Tillet calls a chair of state, _chaire de parement_). Catherine

seated herself on this, dressed in a surcoat, or sort of cape of ermine,

covered with jewels; beneath it a bodice, with a court train, and on her

head a crown of pearls and diamonds; she was supported by the Marechale de

la Mark, her lady of honor. Around her, standing, were the princes of the

Blood and other princes and noblemen richly dressed, with the Chancellor of

France in a robe of cloth of gold in a pattern on a ground of red

cramoisy.[D] In front of the Queen and on the same scaffolding were seated,

in two rows, twelve duchesses and countesses, dressed in surcoats of

ermine, stomachers, trains, and fillets, that is to say, coronets, whether

duchesses or countesses. There were the Duchesse d'Estouteville, de

Montpensier--the elder and the younger--the Princesse de la Roche-sur-Yon;

the Duchesses de Guise, de Nivernois, d'Aumale, de Valentinois (Diane de

Poitiers); Mademoiselle the legitimized bastard 'of France' (a title given

to the King's daughter Diane, who became Duchesse de Castro-Farnese, and

afterwards Duchesse de Montmorency-Damville), Madame la Connetable, and

Mademoiselle de Nemours, not to mention the other ladies who could find no

room. The four _capped_ Presidents (_a mortier_), with some other members

of the Court and the chief clerk, du Tillet, went up on to the platform and

did their service, and the First President Lizet, kneeling on one knee,

addressed the Queen. The Chancellor, likewise on one knee, made response.

She made her entrance into Paris at about three in the afternoon, riding in

an open litter, Madame Marguerite de France sitting opposite to her, and by

the side of the litter came the Cardinals d'Amboise, de Chatillon, de

Boulogne, and de Lenoncourt, in their rochets. She got out at the Church of

Notre-Dame, and was received by the clergy. After she had made her prayer,

she was carried along the Rue de la Calandre to the Palace, where the royal

supper was spread in the great hall. She sat there in the middle at a

marble table, under a canopy of velvet powdered with gold fleurs de lys."

It will here be fitting to controvert a popular error which some persons

have perpetuated, following Sauval in the mistake. It has been said that

Henri II. carried his oblivion of decency so far as to place his mistress'

initials even on the buildings which Catherine had advised him to undertake

or to carry on at such lavish expense. But the cipher, which is to be seen

at the Louvre, amply refutes those who have so little comprehension as to

lend credit to such nonsense, a gratuitous slur on the honor of our kings

and queens. The H for Henri and the two C's, face to face, for Catherine

seem indeed to make two D's for Diane; and this coincidence was no doubt

pleasing to the King. But it is not the less certain that the royal cipher

was officially constructed of the initials of the King and the Queen. And

this is so true, that the same cipher is still to be seen on the

corn-market in Paris which Catherine herself had built. It may also be

found in the crypt of Saint-Denis on Catherine's tomb, which she caused to

be constructed during her lifetime by the side of that of Henri II., and on

which she is represented from life by the sculptor to whom she sat.

On a solemn occasion, when he was setting out on an expedition to Germany,

Henri II. proclaimed Catherine Regent during his absence, as also in the

event of his death--on March 25, 1552. Catherine's bitterest enemy, the

author of the _Discours merveilleux sur les deportements de Catherine II._,

admits that she acquitted herself of these functions to the general

approbation, and that the King was satisfied with her administration. Henri

II. had men and money at the right moment. And after the disastrous day of

Saint-Quentin, Catherine obtained from the Parisians considerable sums,

which she forwarded to Compiegne, whither the King had come.

In politics Catherine made immense efforts to acquire some little

influence. She was clever enough to gain over to her interests the

Connetable de Montmorency, who was all-powerful under Henri II. The King's

terrible reply to Montmorency's insistency is well known. This answer was

the result of the good advice given by Catherine in the rare moments when

she was alone with the King, and could explain to him the policy of the

Florentines, which was to set the magnates of a kingdom by the ears and

build up the sovereign authority on the ruins--Louis XI.'s system,

subsequently carried out by Richelieu. Henri II., who saw only through the

eyes of Diane and the Connetable, was quite a feudal King, and on friendly

terms with the great Houses of the realm.

After an ineffectual effort in her favor made by the Connetable, probably

in the year 1556, Catherine paid great court to the Guises, and schemed to

detach them from Diane's party so as to set them in opposition to

Montmorency. But, unfortunately, Diane and the Connetable were as virulent

against the Protestants as the Guises were. Hence their antagonism lacked

the virus which religious feeling would have given it. Besides, Diane

boldly defied the Queen's plans by coquetting with the Guises and giving

her daughter to the Duc d'Aumale. She went so far that she has been accused

by some writers of granting more than smiles to the gallant Cardinal de

Lorraine.[E]

The signs of grief and the ostentatious regret displayed by Catherine on

the King's death cannot be regarded as genuine. The fact that Henri II. had

been so passionately and faithfully attached to Diane de Poitiers made it

incumbent on Catherine that she should play the part of a neglected wife

who idolized her husband; but, like every clever woman, she carried on her

dissimulation, and never ceased to speak with tender regret of Henri II.

Diane herself, it is well known, wore mourning all her life for her

husband, Monsieur de Breze. Her colors were black and white, and the King

was wearing them at the tournament when he was fatally wounded. Catherine,

in imitation no doubt of her rival, wore mourning for the King to the end

of her life.

On the King's death, the Duchesse de Valentinois was shamelessly deserted

and dishonored by the Connetable de Montmorency, a man in every respect

beneath his reputation. Diane sent to offer her estate and Chateau of

Chenonceaux to the Queen. Catherine then replied in the presence of

witnesses, "I can never forget that she was all the joy of my dear Henri; I

should be ashamed to accept, I will give her an estate in exchange. I would

propose that of Chaumont-on-the-Loire." The deed of exchange was, in fact,

signed at Blois in 1559. Diane, whose sons-in-law were the Duc d'Aumale and

the Duc de Bouillon, kept her whole fortune and died peacefully in 1566 at

the age of sixty-six. She was thus nineteen years older than Henri II.

These dates, copied from the epitaph on her tomb by an historian who

studied the question at the end of the last century, clear up many

historical difficulties; for many writers have said she was forty when her

father was sentenced in 1523, while others have said she was but sixteen.

She was, in fact, four-and-twenty.

After reading everything both for and against her conduct with Francis I.,

at a time when the House of Poitiers was in the greatest danger, we can

neither confirm nor deny anything. It is a passage of history that still

remains obscure. We can see by what happens in our own day how history is

falsified, as it were, in the making.

Catherine, who founded great hopes on her rival's age, several times made

an attempt to overthrow her. On one occasion she was very near the

accomplishment of her hopes. In 1554, Madame Diane, being ill, begged the

King to go to Saint-Germain pending her recovery. This sovereign coquette

would not be seen in the midst of the paraphernalia of doctors, nor bereft

of the adjuncts of dress. To receive the King on his return, Catherine

arranged a splendid _ballet_, in which five or six young ladies were to

address him in verse. She selected for the purpose Miss Fleming, related to

her uncle, the Duke of Albany, and one of the loveliest girls imaginable,

fair and golden-haired; then a young connection of her own, Clarissa

Strozzi, with magnificent black hair and rarely fine hands; Miss Lewiston,

maid of honor to Mary Stuart; Mary Stuart herself; Madame Elizabeth de

France, the unhappy Queen of Spain; and Madame Claude. Elizabeth was nine

years old, Claude eight, and Mary Stuart twelve. Obviously, the Queen aimed

at showing off Clarissa Strozzi and Miss Fleming without other rivals in

the King's eyes. The King succumbed: he fell in love with Miss Fleming, and

she bore him a son, Henri de Valois, Comte d'Angouleme, Grand Prior of

France.

But Diane's influence and position remained unshaken. Like Madame de

Pompadour later with Louis XV., the Duchesse de Valentinois was forgiving.

But to what sort of love are we to ascribe this scheme on Catherine's part?

Love of power or love of her husband? Women must decide.

A great deal is said in these days as to the license of the press; but it

is difficult to imagine to what a pitch it was carried when printing was a

new thing. Aretino, the Voltaire of his time, as is well known, made

monarchs tremble, and foremost of them all Charles V. But few people know

perhaps how far the audacity of pamphleteers could go. This Chateau of

Chenonceaux had been given to Diane, nay, she was entreated to accept it,

to induce her to overlook one of the most horrible publications ever hurled

at a woman, one which shows how violent was the animosity between her and

Madame d'Etampes. In 1537, when she was eight-and-thirty, a poet of

Champagne, named Jean Voute, published a collection of Latin verses, and

among them three epigrams aimed at her. We must conclude that the poet was

under high patronage from the fact that his volume is introduced by an

_eulogium_ written by Simon Macrin, the King's First Gentleman of the

Bedchamber. Here is the only passage quotable to-day from these epigrams,

which bear the title: _In Pictaviam, anum aulicam_. (Against _la Poitiers_,

an old woman of the Court.)

"Non trahit esca ficta praedam."

"A painted bait catches no game," says the poet, after telling her that she

paints her face and buys her teeth and hair; and he goes on: "Even if you

could buy the finest essence that makes a woman, you would not get what you

want of your lover, for you would need to be living, and you are dead."

This volume, printed by Simon de Colines, was dedicated "To a Bishop!"--To

Francois Bohier, the brother of the man who, to save his credit at Court

and atone for his crime, made an offering on the accession of Henri II. of

the chateau of Chenonceaux, built by his father, Thomas Bohier, Councillor

of State under four Kings: Louis XI., Charles VIII., Louis XII., and

Francis I. What were the pamphlets published against Madame de Pompadour

and Marie Antoinette in comparison with verses that might have been

written by Martial! Voute must have come to a bad end. Thus the estate and

chateau of Chenonceaux cost Diane nothing but the forgiveness of an

offence--a duty enjoined by the Gospel. Not being assessed by a jury, the

penalties inflicted on the Press were rather severer then than they are

now.

The widowed Queens of France were required to remain for forty days in the

King's bedchamber, seeing no light but that of the tapers; they might not

come out till after the funeral. This inviolable custom annoyed Catherine

greatly; she was afraid of cabals. She found a way to evade it. The

Cardinal de Lorraine coming out one morning--at such a time! at such a

juncture!--from the house of "the fair Roman," a famous courtesan of that

day, who lived in the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, was roughly handled by

a party of roisterers. "Whereat his Holiness was much amazed," says Henri

Estienne, "and gave it out that heretics were lying in wait for him."--And

on this account the Court moved from Paris to Saint-Germain. The Queen

would not leave the King her son behind, but took him with her.

The accession of Francis II., the moment when Catherine proposed to seize

the reins of power, was a disappointment that formed a cruel climax to the

twenty-six years of endurance she had already spent at the French Court.

The Guises, with incredible audacity, at once usurped the sovereign power.

The Duc de Guise was placed in command of the army, and the Connetable de

Montmorency was shelved. The Cardinal took the control of the finances and

the clergy.

Catherine's political career opened with one of those dramas which, though

it was less notorious than some others, was not the less horrible, and

initiated her no doubt into the agitating shocks of her life. Whether it

was that Catherine, after vainly trying the most violent remedies, had

thought she might bring the King back to her through jealousy; whether on

coming to her second youth she had felt it hard never to have known love,

she had shown a warm interest in a gentleman of royal blood, Francois de

Vendome, son of Louis de Vendome--the parent House of the Bourbons--the

Vidame de Chartres, the name by which he is known to history. Catherine's

covert hatred of Diane betrayed itself in many ways, which historians,

studying only political developments, have failed to note with due

attention. Catherine's attachment to the Vidame arose from an insult

offered by the young man to the favorite. Diane looked for the most

splendid matches for her daughters, who were indeed of the best blood in

the kingdom. Above all, she was ambitious of an alliance with the Royal

family. And her second daughter, who became the Duchesse d'Aumale, was

proposed in marriage to the Vidame, whom Francis I., with sage policy, kept

in poverty. For, in fact, when the Vidame de Chartres and the Prince de

Conde first came to Court, Francis I. gave them appointments! What? the

office of chamberlains in ordinary, with twelve hundred crowns a year, as

much as he bestowed on the humblest of his gentlemen. And yet, though Diane

offered him immense wealth, some high office under the Crown, and the

King's personal favor, the Vidame refused. And then this Bourbon, factious

as he was, married Jeanne, daughter of the Baron d'Estissac, by whom he had

no children.

This proud demeanor naturally commended the Vidame to Catherine, who

received him with marked favor, and made him her devoted friend. Historians

have compared the last Duc de Montmorency, who was beheaded at Toulouse,

with the Vidame de Chartres for his power of charming, his merits, and his

talents.

Henri II. was not jealous; he did not apparently think it possible that a

Queen of France could fail in her duty, or that a Medici could forget the

honor done her by a Valois. When the Queen was said to be flirting with the

Vidame de Chartres, she had been almost deserted by the King since the

birth of her last child. So this attempt came to nothing--as the King died

wearing the colors of Diane de Poitiers.

So, at the King's death, Catherine was on terms of gallant familiarity with

the Vidame, a state of things in no way out of harmony with the manners of

the time, when love was at once so chivalrous and so licentious that the

finest actions seemed as natural as the most blamable. But, as usual,

historians have blundered by regarding exceptional cases as the rule.

Henri II.'s four sons nullified every pretension of the Bourbons, who were

all miserably poor, and crushed under the scorn brought upon them by the

Connetable de Montmorency's treason, in spite of the reasons which had led

him to quit the country. The Vidame de Chartres, who was to the first

Prince de Conde what Richelieu was to Mazarin, a father in politics, a

model, and yet more a master in gallantry, hid the vast ambition of his

family under a semblance of levity. Being unable to contend with the

Guises, the Montmorencys, the Princes of Scotland, the Cardinals, and the

Bouillons, he aimed at distinction by his gracious manners, his elegance,

and his wit, which won him the favors of the most charming women, and the

heart of many he never thought about. He was a man privileged by nature,

whose fascinations were irresistible, and who owed to his love affairs the

means of keeping up his rank. The Bourbons would not have taken offence,

like Jarnac, at la Chataignerie's scandal; they were very ready to accept

lands and houses from their mistresses--witness the Prince de Conde, who

had the estate of Saint-Valery from Madame la Marechale de Saint-Andre.

During the first twenty days of mourning for Henri II., a sudden change

came over the Vidame's prospects. Courted by the Queen-mother, and courting

her as a man may court a queen, in the utmost secrecy, he seemed fated to

play an important part; and Catherine, in fact, resolved to make him

useful. The Prince received letters from her to the Prince de Conde, in

which she pointed out the necessity for a coalition against the Guises. The

Guises, informed of this intrigue, made their way into the Queen's chamber

to compel her to sign an order consigning the Vidame to the Bastille, and

Catherine found herself under the cruel necessity of submitting. The

Vidame died after a few months' captivity, on the day when he came out of

prison, a short time before the Amboise conspiracy.

This was the end of Catherine de' Medici's first and only love affair.

Protestant writers declared that the Queen had him poisoned to bury the

secret of her gallantries in the tomb.

Such was this woman's apprenticeship to the exercise of royal power.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] See _Bayle_. Art. _Fernel_.

[C] At that time in French, as in Italian, the words _marry_ and _espouse_

were used in a contrary sense to their present meaning. _Marier_ was the

fact of being married, _epouser_ was the priestly function.

[D] The old French word _cramoisi_ did not mean merely a crimson red, but

denoted a special excellence of the dye. (See Rabelais.)

[E] Some satirist of the time has left the following lines on Henri II. [in

which the pun on the words Sire and Cire (wax) would be lost in

translation]:--

"Sire, si vous laissez, comme Charles desire,

Comme Diane veut, par trop vous gouverner,

Fondre, petrir, mollir, refondre, retourner,

Sire, vous n'etes plus, vous n'etes plus que cire."

Charles was the Cardinal de Lorraine.

PART I

THE CALVINIST MARTYR

Few persons in these days know how artless were the dwellings of the

citizens of Paris in the sixteenth century, and how simple their lives.

This very simplicity of habits and thought perhaps was the cause of the

greatness of this primitive citizen class--for they were certainly great,

free and noble, more so perhaps than the citizens of our time. Their

history remains to be written; it requires and awaits a man of genius.

Inspired by an incident which, though little known, forms the basis of this

narrative, and is one of the most remarkable in the history of the citizen

class, this reflection will no doubt occur to every one who shall read it

to the end. Is it the first time in history that the conclusion has come

before the facts?

In 1560, the houses of the Rue de la Vieille-Pelleterie lay close to the

left bank of the Seine, between the Pont Notre-Dame and the Pont au Change.

The public way and the houses occupied the ground now given up to the

single path of the present quay. Each house, rising from the river, had a

way down to it by stone or wooden steps, defended by strong iron gates, or

doors of nail-studded timber. These houses, like those of Venice, had a

door to the land and one to the water. At the moment of writing this

sketch, only one house remains of this kind as a reminiscence of old Paris,

and that is doomed soon to disappear; it stands at the corner of the

Petit-Pont, the little bridge facing the guard-house of the Hotel-Dieu.

Of old each dwelling presented, on the river side, the peculiar

physiognomy stamped on it either by the trade and the habits of its owners,

or by the eccentricity of the constructions devised by them for utilizing

or defiling the Seine. The bridges being built, and almost all choked up by

more mills than were convenient for the requirements of navigation, the

Seine in Paris was divided into as many pools as there were bridges. Some

of these old Paris basins would have afforded delightful studies of color

for the painter. What a forest of timbers was built into the cross-beams

that supported the mills, with their immense sails and wheels! What curious

effects were to be found in the joists that shored up the houses from the

river. Genre painting as yet, unfortunately, was not, and engraving in its

infancy; so we have no record of the curious scenes which may still be

found, on a small scale, in some provincial towns where the rivers are

fringed with wooden houses, and where, as at Vendome, for instance, the

pools, overgrown with tall grasses, are divided by railings to separate the

various properties on each bank.

The name of this street, which has now vanished from the map, sufficiently

indicates the kind of business carried on there. At that time the merchants

engaged in any particular trade, far from dispersing themselves about the

city, gathered together for mutual protection. Being socially bound by the

guild which limited their increase, they were also united into a

brotherhood by the Church. This kept up prices. And then the masters were

not at the mercy of their workmen, and did not yield, as they do now, to

all their vagaries; on the contrary, they took charge of them, treated them

as their children, and taught them the finer mysteries of their craft. A

workman, to become a master, was required to produce a masterpiece--always

an offering to the patron saint of the guild. And will you venture to

assert that the absence of competition diminished their sense of

perfection, or hindered beauty of workmanship, when your admiration of the

work of the older craftsmen has created the new trade of dealers in

_bric-a-brac_?

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the fur trade was one of the most

flourishing industries. The difficulty of obtaining furs, which, coming

from the North, necessitated long and dangerous voyages, gave a high value

to skins and furriers' work. Then, as now, high prices led to demand, for

vanity knows no obstacles.

In France, and in other kingdoms, not only was the use of furs restricted

by law to the great nobility, as is proved by the part played by ermine in

ancient coats-of-arms; but certain rare furs, such as _vair_, which was

beyond doubt imperial sable, might be worn only by kings, dukes, and men of

high rank holding certain offices. _Vair_ (a name still used in heraldry,

_vair_ and _counter vair_) was sub-divided into _grand vair_ and _menu

vair_. The word has within the last hundred years fallen so completely into

disuse, that in hundreds of editions of Perrault's fairy tales,

Cinderella's famous slipper, probably of fur, _menu vair_, has become a

glass slipper, _pantoufle de verre_. Not long since a distinguished French

poet was obliged to restore and explain the original spelling of this word,

for the edification of his brethren of the press, when giving an account of

the "Cenerentola," in which a ring is substituted for the symbolical

slipper--an unmeaning change.

The laws against the use of fur were, of course, perpetually transgressed,

to the great advantage of the furriers. The high price of textiles and of

furs made a garment in those days a durable thing, in keeping with the

furniture, armor, and general details of the sturdy life of the time. A

nobleman or lady, every rich man as well as every citizen, possessed at

most two dresses for each season, and they lasted a lifetime or more. These

articles were bequeathed to their children. Indeed, the clauses relating to

weapons and raiment in marriage contracts, in these days unimportant by

reason of the small value of clothes that are constantly renewed, were at

that period of great interest. High prices had led to durability.

A lady's outfit represented a vast sum of money; it was included in her

fortune, and safely bestowed in those enormous chests which endanger the

ceilings of modern houses. The full dress of a lady in 1840 would have been

the _deshabille_ of a fine lady of 1540. The discovery of America, the

facility of transport, the destruction of social distinctions, which has

led to the effacement of visible distinctions, have all contributed to

reduce the furrier's craft to the low ebb at which it stands, almost to

nothing. The article sold by a furrier at the same price as of old--say

twenty livres--has fallen in value with the money: the livre or franc was

then worth twenty of our present money. The citizen's wife or the courtesan

who, in our day, trims her cloak with sable, does not know that in 1440 a

malignant constable of the watch would have taken her forthwith into

custody, and haled her before the judge at le Chatelet. The English ladies

who are so fond of ermine are unconscious of the fact that formerly none

but queens, duchesses, and the Chancellor of France were permitted to wear

this royal fur. There are at this day various ennobled families bearing the

name of Pelletier or Lepelletier, whose forebears were obviously wealthy

furriers; for most of our citizen names were originally surnames of that

kind.

* * * * *

This digression not only explains the long squabbles as to precedence which

the Drapers' Guild carried on for two centuries with the Mercers and the

Furriers, each insisting on marching first, as being the most important,

but also accounts for the consequence of one Master Lecamus, a furrier

honored with the patronage of the two Queens, Catherine de' Medici and Mary

Stuart, as well as that of the legal profession, who for twenty years had

been the Syndic of his Corporation, and who lived in this street. The house

occupied by Lecamus was one of the three forming the three corners of the

cross-roads at the end of the Pont au Change, where only the tower now

remains that formed the fourth corner. At the angle of this house, forming

the corner of the bridge and of the quay, now called the Quai aux Fleurs,

the architect had placed a niche for a Madonna, before whom tapers

constantly burned, with posies of real flowers in their season, and

artificial flowers in the winter.

On the side towards the Rue du Pont, as well as on that to the Rue de la

Vieille-Pelleterie, the house was supported on wooden pillars. All the

houses of the trading quarters were thus constructed, with an arcade

beneath, where foot passengers walked under cover on a floor hardened by

the mud they brought in, which made it a rather rough pavement. In all the

towns of France these arcades have been called _piliers_--in England

_rows_--a general term to which the name of a trade is commonly added, as

"Piliers des Halles," "Piliers de la Boucherie." These covered ways,

required by the changeable and rainy climate of Paris, gave the town a

highly characteristic feature, but they have entirely disappeared. Just as

there now remains one house only on the river-bank, so no more than about a

hundred feet are left of the old _Piliers_ in the market, the last that

have survived till now; and in a few days this remnant of the gloomy

labyrinth of old Paris will also be destroyed. The existence of these

relics of the Middle Ages is, no doubt, incompatible with the splendor of

modern Paris. And these remarks are not intended as a lament over those

fragments of the old city, but as a verification of this picture by the

last surviving examples now falling into dust, and to win forgiveness for

such descriptions, which will be precious in the future which is following

hard on the heels of this age.

The walls were of timber covered with slates. The spaces between the

timbers had been filled up with bricks, in a way that may still be seen in

some provincial towns, laid in a zigzag pattern known as _Point de

Hongrie_. The window-sills and lintels, also of wood, were handsomely

carved, as were the corner tabernacle above the Madonna, and the pillars in

front of the shop. Every window, every beam dividing the stories, was

graced with arabesques of fantastic figures and animals wreathed in scrolls

of foliage. On the street side, as on the river side, the house was crowned

with a high-pitched roof having a gable to the river and one to the

street. This roof, like that of a Swiss chalet, projected far enough to

cover a balcony on the second floor, with an ornamental balustrade; here

the mistress might walk under shelter and command a view of the street, or

of the pool shut in between two bridges and two rows of houses.

Houses by the river were at that time highly valued. The system of drainage

and water supply was not yet invented; the only main drain was one round

Paris, constructed by Aubriot, the first man of genius and determination

who--in the time of Charles V.--thought of sanitation for Paris. Houses

situated like this of the Sieur Lecamus found in the river a necessary

water-supply, and a natural outlet for rain water and waste. The vast works

of this kind under the direction of the Trade Provosts are only now

disappearing. None but octogenarians can still remember having seen the

pits which swallowed up the surface waters, in the Rue Montmartre, Rue du

Temple, etc. These hideous yawning culverts were in their day of

inestimable utility. Their place will probably be for ever marked by the

sudden rising of the roadway over what was their open channel--another

archaeological detail which, in a couple of centuries, the historian will

find inexplicable.

One day, in 1816, a little girl, who had been sent to an actress at the

Ambigu with some diamonds for the part of a queen, was caught in a storm,

and so irresistibly swept away by the waters to the opening of the drain in

the Rue du Temple, that she would have been drowned in it but for the help

of a passer-by, who was touched by her cries. But she had dropped the

jewels, which were found in a man-hole. This accident made a great

commotion, and gave weight to the demands for the closing of these gulfs

for swallowing water and little girls. These curious structures, five feet

high, had more or less movable gratings, which led to the flooding of

cellars when the stream produced by heavy rain was checked by the grating

being choked with rubbish, which the residents often forgot to remove.

The front of Master Lecamus' shop was a large window, but filled in with

small panes of leaded glass, which made the place very dark. The furs for

wealthy purchasers were carried to them for inspection. To those who came

to buy in the shop, the goods were displayed outside between the pillars,

which, during the day, were always more or less blocked by tables and

salesmen sitting on stools, as they could still be seen doing under the

arcade of the Halles some fifteen years since. From these outposts the

clerks, apprentices, and sewing girls could chat, question, and answer each

other, and hail the passer-by in a way which Walter Scott has depicted in

the _Fortunes of Nigel_. The signboard, representing an ermine, was hung

out as we still see those of village inns, swinging from a handsome arm of

pierced and gilt ironwork. Over the ermine were these words:

LECAMUS

Furrier

To Her Majesty the Queen and the King our

Sovereign Lord

On one side, and on the other:

"To Her Majesty the Queen Mother

And to the Gentlemen of the Parlement."

The words "To Her Majesty the Queen" had been lately added; the gilt

letters were new. This addition was a consequence of the recent changes

produced by Henri II.'s sudden and violent death, which overthrew many

fortunes at Court, and began that of the Guises.

The back shop looked over the river. In this room sat the worthy citizen

and his wife, Mademoiselle Lecamus. The wife of a man who was not noble had

not at any time any right to the title of Dame, or lady; but the wives of

the citizens of Paris were allowed to call themselves Demoiselle (as we

might say Mistress), as part of the privileges granted and confirmed to

their husbands by many kings to whom they had rendered great services.

Between this back room and the front shop was a spiral ladder or staircase

of wood, a sort of corkscrew leading up to the next story, where the furs

were stored, to the old couple's bedroom, and again to the attics, lighted

by dormer windows, where their children slept, the maid-servant, the

clerks, and the apprentices.

This herding of families, servants, and apprentices, and the small space

allotted to each in the dwelling, where the apprentices all slept in one

large room under the tiles, accounts for the enormous population at that

time crowded together in Paris on a tenth of the ground now occupied by the

city, and also for the many curious details of mediaeval life, and the

cunning love affairs, though these, _pace_ the grave historian, are nowhere

recorded but by the story writers, and without them would have been lost.

At this time a grand gentleman--such as the Admiral de Coligny, for

instance--had three rooms for himself in Paris, and his people lived in a

neighboring hostelry. There were not fifty mansions in all Paris, not fifty

palaces, that is to say, belonging to the sovereign princes or great

vassals, whose existence was far superior to that of the greatest German

rulers, such as the Duke of Bavaria or the Elector of Saxony.

The kitchen in the Lecamus' house was on the river side below the back

shop. It had a glass door opening on to an ironwork balcony, where the cook

could stand to draw up water in a pail and to wash the household linen.

Thus the back shop was at once the sitting-room, the dining-room, and the

counting-house. It was in this important room--always fitted with

richly-carved wood, and adorned by some chest or artistic article of

furniture--that the merchant spent most of his life; there he had jolly

suppers after his day's work; there were held secret debates on the

political interests of the citizens and the Royal family. The formidable

guilds of Paris could at that time arm a hundred thousand men. Their

resolutions were stoutly upheld by their serving-men, their clerks, their

apprentices, and their workmen. Their Provost was their commander-in-chief,

and they had, in the Hotel de Ville, a palace where they had a right to

assemble.

In that famous "citizens' parlor" (_parlouer aux bourgeois_) very solemn

decisions were taken. But for the continual sacrifices which had made war

unendurable to the Guilds, wearied out with losses and famine, Henri IV., a

rebel-made king, might never have entered Paris.

Every reader may now imagine for himself the characteristic appearance of

this corner of Paris where the bridge and the Quay now open out, where the

trees rise from the Quai aux Fleurs, and where nothing is left of the past

but the lofty and famous clock-tower whence the signal was tolled for the

Massacre of Saint-Bartholomew. Strange coincidence! One of the houses built

round the foot of that tower--at that time surrounded by wooden shops--the

house of the Lecamus, was to be the scene of one of the incidents that led

to that night of horrors, which proved, unfortunately, propitious rather

than fatal to Calvinism.

* * * * *

At the moment when this story begins, the audacity of the new religious

teaching was setting Paris by the ears. A Scotchman, named Stuart, had just

assassinated President Minard, that member of the Parlement to whom public

opinion attributed a principal share in the execution of Anne du Bourg, a

councillor burnt on the Place de Greve after the tailor of the late King,

who had been tortured in the presence of Henri II. and Diane de Poitiers.

Paris was so closely watched, that the archers on guard compelled every

passer-by to pray to the Virgin, in order to detect heretics, who yielded

unwillingly, or even refused to perform an act opposed to their

convictions.

The two archers on guard at the corner of the Lecamus' house had just gone

off duty; thus Christophe, the furrier's son, strongly suspected of

deserting the Catholic faith, had been able to go out without fear of being

compelled to adore the Virgin's image. At seven in the evening of an April

day, 1560, night was falling, and the apprentices, seeing only a few

persons walking along the arcades on each side of the street, were carrying

in the goods laid out for inspection preparatory to closing the house and

the shop. Christophe Lecamus, an ardent youth of two-and-twenty, was

standing in the door, apparently engaged in looking after the apprentices.

[Illustration: "I am Chaudieu!"]

"Monsieur," said one of these lads to Christophe, pointing out a man who

was pacing to and fro under the arcade with a doubtful expression, "that is

probably a spy or a thief, but whatever he is, such a lean wretch cannot be

an honest man. If he wanted to speak to us on business, he would come up

boldly instead of creeping up and down as he is doing.--And what a face!"

he went on, mimicking the stranger, "with his nose hidden in his cloak!

What a jaundiced eye, and what a starved complexion!"

As soon as the stranger thus described saw Christophe standing alone in the

doorway, he hastily crossed from the opposite arcade where he was walking,

came under the pillars of the Lecamus' house, and passing along by the shop

before the apprentices had come out again to close the shutters, he went up

to the young man.

"I am Chaudieu!" he said in a low voice.

On hearing the name of one of the most famous ministers, and one of the

most heroic actors in the terrible drama called the Reformation, Christophe

felt such a thrill as a faithful peasant would have felt on recognizing his

King under a disguise.

"Would you like to see some furs?" said Christophe, to deceive the

apprentices whom he heard behind him. "Though it is almost dark, I can show

you some myself."

He invited the minister to enter, but the man replied that he would rather

speak to him out of doors. Christophe fetched his cap and followed the

Calvinist.

Chaudieu, though banished by an edict, as secret plenipotentiary of

Theodore de Beze and Calvin--who directed the Reformation in France from

Geneva--went and came, defying the risk of the horrible death inflicted by

the Parlement, in concert with the Church and the Monarch, on a leading

reformer, the famous Anne du Bourg. This man, whose brother was a captain

in the army, and one of Admiral Coligny's best warriors, was the arm used

by Calvin to stir up France at the beginning of the twenty-two years of

religious wars which were on the eve of an outbreak. This preacher of the

reformed faith was one of those secret wheels which may best explain the

immense spread of the Reformation.

Chaudieu led Christophe down to the edge of the water by an underground

passage like that of the Arche Marion, filled in some ten years since. This

tunnel between the house of Lecamus and that next it ran under the Rue de

la Vieille-Pelleterie, and was known as le Pont aux Fourreurs. It was used

by the dyers of the Cite as a way down to the river to wash their thread,

silk, and materials. A little boat lay there, held and rowed by one man. In

the bows sat a stranger, a small man, and very simply dressed. In an

instant the boat was in the middle of the river, and the boatman steered it

under one of the wooden arches of the Pont au Change, where he quickly

secured it to an iron ring. No one had said a word.

"Here we may talk in safety, there are neither spies nor traitors," said

Chaudieu to the two others. "Are you filled with the spirit of

self-sacrifice that should animate a martyr? Are you ready to suffer all

things for our holy Cause? Do you fear the torments endured by the late

King's tailor, and the Councillor du Bourg, which of a truth await us all?"

He spoke to Christophe, looking at him with a radiant face.

"I will testify to the Gospel," replied Christophe simply, looking up at

the windows of the back shop.

The familiar lamp standing on a table, where his father was no doubt

balancing his books, reminded him by its mild beam of the peaceful life and

family joys he was renouncing. It was a brief but complete vision. The

young man's fancy took in the homely harmony of the whole scene--the

places where he had spent his happy childhood, where Babette Lallier

lived, his future wife, where everything promised him a calm and busy life;

he saw the past, he saw the future, and he sacrificed it all. At any rate,

he staked it.

Such were men in those days.

"We need say no more," cried the impetuous boatman. "We know him for one of

the saints. If the Scotchman had not dealt the blow, he would have killed

the infamous Minard."

"Yes," said Lecamus, "my life is in the hands of the brethren, and I devote

it with joy for the success of the Reformation. I have thought of it all

seriously. I know what we are doing for the joy of the nations. In two

words, the Papacy makes for celibacy, the Reformation makes for the family.

It is time to purge France of its monks, to restore their possessions to

the Crown, which will sell them sooner or later to the middle classes. Let

us show that we can die for our children, and to make our families free and

happy!"

The young enthusiast's face, with Chaudieu's, the boatman's, and that of

the stranger seated in the bows, formed a picture that deserves to be

described, all the more so because such a description entails the whole

history of that epoch, if it be true that it is given to some men to sum up

in themselves the spirit of their age.

Religious reform, attempted in Germany by Luther, in Scotland by John Knox,

and in France by Calvin, found partisans chiefly among those of the lower

classes who had begun to think. The great nobles encouraged the movement

only to serve other interests quite foreign to the religious question.

These parties were joined by adventurers, by gentlemen who had lost all, by

youngsters to whom every form of excitement was acceptable. But among the

artisans and men employed in trade, faith was genuine, and founded on

intelligent interests. The poorer nations at once gave their adherence to a

religion which brought the property of the Church back to the State, which

suppressed the convents, and deprived the dignitaries of the Church of

their enormous revenues. Everybody in trade calculated the profits from

this religious transaction, and devoted themselves to it body, soul, and

purse; and among the youth of the French citizen class, the new preaching

met that noble disposition for self-sacrifice of every kind which animates

the young to whom egoism is unknown.

Eminent men, penetrating minds, such as are always to be found among the

masses, foresaw the Republic in the Reformation, and hoped to establish

throughout Europe a form of government like that of the United Netherlands,

which at last triumphed over the greatest power of the time--Spain, ruled

by Philip II., and represented in the Low Countries by the Duke of Alva.

Jean Hotoman was at that time planning the famous book in which this scheme

is set forth, which diffused through France the leaven of these ideas,

stirred up once more by the League, subdued by Richelieu, and afterwards by

Louis XIV., to reappear with the Economists and the Encyclopedists under

Louis XV., and burst into life under Louis XVI.; ideas which were always

approved by the younger branches, by the House of Orleans in 1789, as by

the House of Bourbon in 1589.

The questioning spirit is the rebellious spirit. A rebellion is always

either a cloak to hide a prince, or the swaddling wrapper of a new rule.

The House of Bourbon, a younger branch than the Valois, was busy at the

bottom of the Reformation. At the moment when the little boat lay moored

under the arch of the Pont au Change, the question was further complicated

by the ambition of the Guises, the rivals of the Bourbons. Indeed, the

Crown as represented by Catherine de' Medici could, for thirty years, hold

its own in the strife by setting these two factions against each other;

whereas later, instead of being clutched at by many hands, the Crown stood

face to face with the people without a barrier between; for Richelieu and

Louis XIV. had broken down the nobility, and Louis XV. had overthrown the

Parlements. Now a king alone face to face with a nation, as Louis XVI. was,

must inevitably succumb.

Christophe Lecamus was very typical of the ardent and devoted sons of the

people. His pale complexion had that warm burnt hue which is seen in some

fair people; his hair was of a coppery yellow; his eyes were bluish-gray,

and sparkled brightly. In them alone was his noble soul visible, for his

clumsy features did not disguise the somewhat triangular shape of a plain

face by lending it the look of dignity which a man of rank can assume, and

his forehead was low, and characteristic only of great energy. His vitality

seemed to be seated no lower down than his chest, which was somewhat

hollow. Sinewy, rather than muscular, Christophe was of tough texture, lean

but wiry. His sharp nose showed homely cunning, and his countenance

revealed intelligence of the kind that acts wisely on one point of a

circle, but has not the power of commanding the whole circumference. His

eyes, set under brows that projected like a penthouse, and faintly outlined

with light down, were surrounded with broad light-blue circles, with a

sheeny white patch at the root of the nose, almost always a sign of great

excitability. Christophe was of the people--the race that fights and allows

itself to be deceived; intelligent enough to understand and to serve an

idea, too noble to take advantage of it, too magnanimous to sell himself.

By the side of old Lecamus' only son, Chaudieu, the ardent minister, lean

from watchfulness, with brown hair, a yellow skin, a contumacious brow, an

eloquent mouth, fiery hazel eyes, and a short rounded chin, symbolized that

Christian zeal which gave the Reformation so many fanatical and earnest

preachers, whose spirit and boldness fired whole communities. This

aide-de-camp of Calvin and Theodore de Beze contrasted well with the

furrier's son. He represented the living cause of which Christophe was the

effect. You could not have conceived of the active firebrand of the popular

machine under any other aspect.

The boatman, an impetuous creature, tanned by the open air, the dews of

night, and the heats of the day, with firmly set lips, quick motions, a

hungry, tawny eye like a vulture's, and crisp black hair, was the

characteristic adventurer who risks his all in an undertaking as a gambler

stakes his whole fortune on a card. Everything in the man spoke of terrible

passions and a daring that would flinch at nothing. His quivering muscles

were as able to keep silence as to speak. His look was assertive rather

than noble. His nose, upturned but narrow, scented battle. He seemed active

and adroit. In any age you would have known him for a party leader. He

might have been Pizarro, Hernando Cortez, or Morgan the Destroyer if there

had been no Reformation--a doer of violent deeds.

The stranger who sat on a seat, wrapped in his cloak, evidently belonged to

the highest social rank. The fineness of his linen, the cut, material, and

perfume of his raiment, the make and texture of his gloves, showed a man of

the Court, as his attitude, his haughtiness, his cool demeanor, and his

flashing eye revealed a man of war. His appearance was at first somewhat

alarming, and inspired respect. We respect a man who respects himself.

Though short and hunchbacked, his manner made good all the defects of his

figure. The ice once broken, he had the cheerfulness of decisiveness and an

indescribable spirit of energy which made him attractive. He had the blue

eyes and the hooked nose of the House of Navarre, and the Spanish look of

the marked physiognomy that was characteristic of the Bourbon kings.

With three words the scene became of the greatest interest.

"Well, then," said Chaudieu, as Christophe Lecamus made his profession of

faith, "this boatman is la Renaudie; and this is Monseigneur the Prince de

Conde," he added, turning to the hunchback.

Thus the four men were representative of the faith of the people, the

intellect of eloquence, the arm of the soldier, and Royalty cast into the

shade.

"You will hear what we require of you," the minister went on, after

allowing a pause for the young man's astonishment. "To the end that you may

make no mistakes, we are compelled to initiate you into the most important

secrets of the Reformation."

The Prince and la Renaudie assented by a gesture, when the minister ceased

speaking, to allow the Prince to say something if he should wish it. Like

all men of rank engaged in conspiracies, who make it a principle not to

appear before some critical moment, the Prince kept silence. Not from

cowardice: at such junctures he was the soul of the scheme, shrank from no

danger, and risked his head; but with a sort of royal dignity, he left the

explanation of the enterprise to the preacher, and was content to study the

new instrument he was compelled to make use of.

"My son," said Chaudieu in Huguenot phraseology, "we are about to fight the

first battle against the Roman whore. In a few days our soldiers must

perish at the stake, or the Guises must be dead. So, ere long, the King and

the two Queens will be in our power. This is the first appeal to arms by

our religion in France, and France will not lay them down till she has

conquered--it is of the nation that I speak, and not of the kingdom. Most

of the nobles of the kingdom see what the Cardinal de Lorraine and the Duke

his brother are driving at. Under pretence of defending the Catholic faith,

the House of Lorraine claims the Crown of France as its inheritance. It

leans on the Church, and has made it a formidable ally; the monks are its

supporters, its acolytes and spies. It asserts itself as a protector of the

throne it hopes to usurp, of the Valois whom it hopes to destroy.

"We have decided to rise up in arms, and it is because the liberties of the

people are threatened as well as the interests of the nobility. We must

stifle in its infancy a faction as atrocious as that of the Bourguignons,

who of old put Paris and France to fire and sword. A Louis XI. was needed

to end the quarrel between the Burgundians and the Crown, but now a Prince

of Conde will prevent the Lorraines from going too far. This is not a civil

war; it is a duel between the Guises and the Reformation--a duel to the

death! We will see their heads low, or they shall crush ours!"

"Well spoken!" said the Prince.

"In these circumstances, Christophe," la Renaudie put in, "we must neglect

no means of strengthening our party--for there is a party on the side of

the Reformation, the party of offended rights, of the nobles who are

sacrificed to the Guises, of the old army leaders so shamefully tricked at

Fontainebleau, whence the Cardinal banished them by erecting gibbets to

hang those who should ask the King for the price of their outfit and

arrears of pay."

"Yes, my son," said Chaudieu, seeing some signs of terror in Christophe,

"that is what requires us to triumph by fighting instead of triumphing by

conviction, and martyrdom. The Queen-mother is ready to enter into our

views; not that she is prepared to abjure the Catholic faith--she has not

got so far as that, but she may perhaps be driven to it by our success. Be

that as it may, humiliated and desperate as she is at seeing the power she

had hoped to wield at the King's death in the grasp of the Guises, and

alarmed by the influence exerted by the young Queen Marie, who is their

niece and partisan, Queen Catherine will be inclined to lend her support to

the princes and nobles who are about to strike a blow for her deliverance.

At this moment, though apparently devoted to the Guises, she hates them,

longs for their ruin, and will make use of us to oppose them; but

Monseigneur can make use of her to oppose all the others. The Queen-mother

will consent to all we propose. We have the Connetable on our

side--Monseigneur has just seen him at Chantilly, but he will not stir

without orders from his superiors. Being Monseigneur's uncle, he will not

leave us in the lurch, and our generous Prince will not hesitate to rush

into danger to enlist Anne de Montmorency.

"Everything is ready; and we have cast our eyes on you to communicate to

Queen Catherine our treaty of alliance, our schemes for edicts, and the

basis of the new rule. The Court is at Blois. Many of our friends are

there; but those are our future chiefs--and, like Monseigneur," and he

bowed to the Prince, "they must never be suspected; we must sacrifice

ourselves for them. The Queen-mother and our friends are under such close

espionage, that it is impossible to communicate with them through any one

who is known, or of any consequence. Such a person would at once be

suspected, and would never be admitted to speak with Madame Catherine. God

should indeed give us at this moment the shepherd David with his sling to

attack Goliath de Guise. Your father--a good Catholic, more's the pity--is

furrier to the two Queens; he always has some garment or trimming in hand

for them; persuade him to send you to the Court. You will arouse no

suspicions, and will not compromise Queen Catherine. Any one of our leaders

might lose his head for an imprudence which should give rise to a suspicion

of the Queen-mother's connivance with us. But where a man of importance,

once caught out, gives a clue to suspicions, a nobody like you escapes

scot-free.--You see! The Guises have so many spies, that nowhere but in the

middle of the river can we talk without fear. So you, my son, are like a

man on guard, doomed to die at his post. Understand, if you are taken, you

are abandoned by us all. If need be, we shall cast opprobrium and disgrace

on you. If we shall be forced to it, we should declare that you were a

creature of the Guises whom they sent to play a part to implicate us. So

what we ask of you is entire self-sacrifice.

"If you perish," said the Prince de Conde, "I pledge my word as a gentleman

that your family shall be a sacred trust to the House of Navarre; I will

bear it in my heart and serve it in every way."

"That word, my Lord, is enough," replied Christophe, forgetting that this

leader of faction was a Gascon. "We live in times when every man, prince or

citizen, must do his duty."

"That is a true Huguenot! If all our men were like him," said la Renaudie,

laying his hand on Christophe's shoulder, "we should have won by

to-morrow."

"Young man," said the Prince, "I meant to show you that while Chaudieu

preaches and the gentleman bears arms, the prince fights. Thus, in so

fierce a game every stake has its value."

"Listen," said la Renaudie; "I will not give you the papers till we reach

Beaugency, for we must run no risks on the road. You will find me on the

quay there; my face, voice, and clothes will be so different, that you may

not recognize me. But I will say to you, 'Are you a _Guepin_?' and you must

reply, 'At your service.'--As to the manner of proceeding, I will tell you.

You will find a horse at _la Pinte fleurie_, near Saint-Germain

l'Auxerrois. Ask there for Jean le Breton, who will take you to the stable

and mount you on a nag of mine known to cover thirty leagues in eight

hours. Leave Paris by the Bussy Gate. Breton has a pass for me; take it for

yourself and be off, riding round outside the towns. You should reach

Orleans by daybreak."

"And the horse?" asked Lecamus.

"He will hold out till you get to Orleans," replied la Renaudie. "Leave him

outside the suburb of Bannier, for the gates are well guarded; we must not

arouse suspicion. You, my friend, must play your part well. You must make

up any story that may seem to you best to enable you to go to the third

house on your left on entering Orleans; it is that of one Tourillon, a

glover. Knock three raps on the door and call out, 'In the service of

Messieurs de Guise!' The man affects to be a fanatical _Guisard_; we four

only know that he is on our side. He will find you a boatman, such another

as himself of course, but devoted to our cause. Go down to the river at

once, get into a boat painted green with a white border. You ought to be at

Beaugency by noonday to-morrow. There I will put you in the way of getting

a boat to carry you down to Blois without running any danger. Our enemies

the Guises do not command the Loire, only the river-ports.

"You may thus see the Queen in the course of to-morrow or of the next day."

"Your words are graven here," said Christophe, touching his forehead.

Chaudieu embraced his son with religious fervency; he was proud of him.

"The Lord protect you!" he said, pointing to the sunset which crimsoned the

old roofs covered with shingles, and shot fiery gleams among the forest of

beams round which the waters foamed.

"You are of the stock of old Jacques Bonhomme," said la Renaudie to

Christophe, wringing his hand.

"We shall meet again, _Monsieur_," said the Prince, with a gesture of

infinite graciousness, almost of friendliness.

With a stroke of the oar, la Renaudie carried the young conspirator back to

the steps leading up to the house, and the boat vanished at once under the

arches of the Pont au Change.

Christophe shook the iron gate that closed the entrance from the river-side

and called out; Mademoiselle Lecamus heard him, opened one of the windows

of the back-shop, and asked how he came there. Christophe replied that he

was half-frozen, and that she must first let him in.

"Young master," said la Bourguignonne, "you went out by the street door and

come in by the river-gate? Your father will be in a pretty rage."

Christophe, bewildered by the secret conference which had brought him into

contact with the Prince de Conde, la Renaudie, and Chaudieu, and even more

agitated by the expected turmoil of an imminent civil war, made no reply;

he hurried up from the kitchen to the back-shop. There, on seeing him, his

mother, who was a bigoted old Catholic, could not contain herself.

"I will wager," she broke out, "that the three men you were talking to were

ref----"

"Silence, wife," said the prudent old man, whose white head was bent over a

book. "Now, my lazy oafs," he went on to three boys who had long since

finished supper, "what are you waiting for to take you to bed? It is eight

o'clock. You must be up by five in the morning. And first you have the

President de Thou's robes and cap to carry home. Go all three together, and

carry sticks and rapiers. If you meet any more ne'er-do-weels of your own

kidney, at any rate there will be three of you."

"And are we to carry the ermine surcoat ordered by the young Queen, which

is to be delivered at the Hotel de Soissons, from whence there is an

express to Blois and to the Queen-mother?" asked one of the lads.

"No," said the Syndic; "Queen Catherine's account amounts to three thousand

crowns, and I must get the money. I think I will go to Blois myself."

"I should not think of allowing you, at your age, father, and in such times

as these, to expose yourself on the high-roads. I am two-and-twenty; you

may send me on this errand," said Christophe, with an eye on a box which he

had no doubt contained the surcoat.

"Are you glued to the bench?" cried the old man to the apprentices, who

hastily took up their rapiers and capes, and Monsieur de Thou's fur gown.

This illustrious man was to be received on the morrow by the Parlement as

their President; he had just signed the death-warrant of the Councillor du

Bourg, and was fated, before the year was out, to sit in judgment on the

Prince de Conde.

"La Bourguignonne," said the old man, "go and ask my neighbor Lallier if he

will sup with us this evening, furnishing the wine; we will give the

meal.--And, above all, tell him to bring his daughter."

* * * * *

The Syndic of the Guild of Furriers was a handsome old man of sixty, with

white hair and a broad high forehead. As furrier to the Court for forty

years past, he had witnessed all the revolutions in the reign of Francis

I., and had retained his royal patent in spite of feminine rivalries. He

had seen the arrival at Court of Catherine de' Medici, then but just

fifteen; he had seen her succumb to the Duchesse d'Etampes, her

father-in-law's mistress, and to the Duchesse de Valentinois, mistress to

the late King, her husband. But through all these changes the furrier had

got into no difficulties, though the Court purveyors often fell into

disgrace with the ladies they served. His prudence was as great as his

wealth. He maintained an attitude of excessive humility. Pride had never

caught him in its snares. The man was so modest, so meek, so obliging, so

poor--at Court and in the presence of queens, princesses, and

favorites--that his servility had saved his shop-sign.

Such a line of policy betrayed, of course, a cunning and clear-sighted man.

Humble as he was to the outer world, at home he was a despot. He was the

unquestioned master in his own house. He was highly respected by his fellow

merchants and derived immense consideration from his long tenure of the

first place in business. Indeed, he was gladly helpful to others; and among

the services he had done, the most important perhaps was the support he had

long afforded to the most famous surgeon of the sixteenth century--Ambroise

Pare, who owed it to Lecamus that he could pursue his studies. In all the

disputes that arose between the merchants of the guild, Lecamus was for

conciliatory measures. Thus general esteem had confirmed his supremacy

among his equals, while his assumed character had preserved him the favor

of the Court.

Having, for political reasons, manoeuvred in his parish for the glory of

his trade, he did what was needful to keep himself in a sufficient odor of

sanctity with the priest of the Church of Saint-Pierre aux Boeufs, who

regarded him as one of the men most devoted in all Paris to the Catholic

faith. Consequently, when the States-General were convoked, Lecamus was

unanimously elected to represent the third estate by the influence of the

priests, which was at that time enormous in Paris.

This old man was one of those deep and silent ambitious men who for fifty

years are submissive to everybody in turn, creeping up from place to place,

no one knowing how, till they are seen peacefully seated in a position

which no one, not even the boldest, would have dared to admit was the goal

of his ambition at the beginning of his life--so long was the climb, so

many gulfs were there to leap, into which he might fall! Lecamus, who had

hidden away a large fortune, would run no risks, and was planning a

splendid future for his son. Instead of that personal ambition which often

sacrifices the future to the present, he had family ambition, a feeling

that seems lost in these days, smothered by the stupid regulation of

inheritance by law. Lecamus foresaw himself President of the Paris

Parlement in the person of his grandson.

Christophe, the godson of the great historian de Thou, had received an

excellent education, but it had led him to scepticism and inquiry, which

indeed were increasing apace among the students and Faculties of the

University. Christophe was at present studying for the bar, the first step

to a judgeship. The old furrier pretended to be undecided as to his son's

career; sometimes he would make Christophe his successor, and sometimes he

would have him a pleader; but in his heart he longed to see this son in the

seat of a Councillor of the Parlement. The furrier longed to place the

house of Lecamus on a par with the old and honored families of Paris

citizens which had produced a Pasquier, a Mole, a Miron, a Seguier,

Lamoignon, du Tillet, Lecoigneux, Lescalopier, the Goix, the Arnaulds,--all

the famous sheriffs and high-provosts of corporations who had rallied to

defend the throne.

To the end that Christophe might in that day do credit to his rank, he

wanted him to marry the daughter of the richest goldsmith in the Cite, his

neighbor Lallier, whose nephew, at a later day, presented the keys of Paris

to Henry IV. The most deeply rooted purpose in the good man's heart was to

spend half his own fortune and half of Lallier's in the purchase of a

lordly estate, a long and difficult matter in those days.

But he was too deep a schemer, and knew the times too well, to overlook the

great movements that were being hatched; he saw plainly, and saw truly,

when he looked forward to the division of the kingdom into two camps. The

useless executions on the Place de l'Estrapade, that of Henri II.'s tailor,

and that, still more recent, of the Councillor Anne du Bourg, besides the

connivance of the reigning favorite in the time of Francis I., and of many

nobles now, at the progress of reform, all were alarming indications. The

furrier was determined, come what might, to remain faithful to the Church,

the Monarchy, and the Parlement, but he was secretly well content that his

son should join the Reformation. He knew that he had wealth enough to

ransom Christophe if the lad should ever compromise himself seriously; and

then, if France should turn Calvinist, his son could save the family in any

furious outbreaks in the capital such as the citizens could vividly

remember, and as would recur again and again through four reigns.

Like Louis XI., the old furrier never confessed these thoughts even to

himself; his cunning completely deceived his wife and his son. For many a

day this solemn personage had been the recognized head of the most populous

quarter of Paris--the heart of the city--bearing the title of _Quartenier_,

which became notorious fifteen years later. Clothed in cloth, like every

prudent citizen who obeyed the sumptuary laws, Master Lecamus--the Sieur

Lecamus, a title he held in virtue of an edict of Charles V. permitting the

citizens of Paris to purchase _Seigneuries_, and their wives to assume the

fine title of _demoiselle_ or mistress--wore no gold chain, no silk; only a

stout doublet with large buttons of blackened silver, wrinkled hose drawn

up above his knee, and leather shoes with buckles. His shirt, of fine

linen, was pulled out, in the fashion of the time, into full puffs through

his half-buttoned waistcoat and slashed trunks.

Though the full light of the lamp fell on the old man's broad and handsome

head, Christophe had no inkling of the thoughts hidden behind that rich

Dutch-looking complexion; still he understood that his old father meant to

take some advantage of his affection for pretty Babette Lallier. And

Christophe, as a man who had laid his own schemes, smiled sadly when he

heard the invitation sent to his fair mistress.

As soon as la Bourguignonne and the apprentices were gone, old Lecamus

looked at his wife with an expression that fully showed his firm and

resolute temper.

"You will never rest till you have got the boy hanged with your damned

tongue!" said he in stern tones.

"I would rather see him hanged, but saved, than alive and a Huguenot," was

the gloomy reply. "To think that the child I bore within me for nine months

should not be a good Catholic, but hanker after the heresies of Colas--that

he must spend all eternity in hell----" and she began to cry.

"You old fool!" said the furrier, "then give him a chance of life, if only

to convert him! Why, you said a thing, before the apprentices, which might

set our house on fire, and roast us all in it like fleas in straw."

The mother crossed herself, but said nothing.

"As for you," said the good man, with a scrutinizing look at his son, "tell

me what you were doing out there on the water with----Come close to me

while I speak to you," he added, seizing his son by the arm, and drawing

him close to him while he whispered in the lad's ear--"with the Prince de

Conde." Christophe started. "Do you suppose that the Court furrier does not

know all their faces? And do you fancy that I am not aware of what is going

on? Monseigneur the Grand Master has ordered out troops to Amboise. And

when troops are removed from Paris to Amboise while the Court is at Blois,

when they are marched by way of Chartres and Vendome instead of by Orleans,

the meaning is pretty clear, heh? Trouble is brewing.

"If the Queens want their surcoats, they will send for them. The Prince de

Conde may be intending to kill Messieurs de Guise, who on their part mean

to get rid of him perhaps. Of what use can a furrier's son be in such a

broil? When you are married, when you are a pleader in the Parlement, you

will be as cautious as your father. A furrier's son has no business to be

of the new religion till all the rest of the world is. I say nothing

against the Reformers; it is no business of mine; but the Court is

Catholic, the two Queens are Catholics, the Parlement is Catholic; we serve

them with furs, and we must be Catholic.

"You do not stir from here, Christophe, or I will place you with your

godfather the President de Thou, who will keep you at it, blackening paper

night and day, instead of leaving you to blacken your soul in the

hell-broth of these damned Genevese."

"Father," said Christophe, leaning on the back of the old man's chair,

"send me off to Blois with Queen Marie's surcoat, and to ask for the money,

or I am a lost man. And you love me----"

"Lost!" echoed his father, without any sign of surprise. "If you stay here,

you will not be lost. I shall know where to find you."

"I shall be killed."

"Why?"

"The most zealous Huguenots have cast their eyes on me to serve them in a

certain matter, and if I fail to do what I have just promised, they will

kill me in the street, in the face of day, here, as Minard was killed. But

if you send me to the Court on business of your own, I shall probably be

able to justify my action to both parties. Either I shall succeed for them

without running any risk, and so gain a good position in the party; or, if

the danger is too great, I can do your business only."

The old man started to his feet as if his seat were of red-hot iron.

"Wife," said he, "leave us, and see that no one intrudes on Christophe and

me."

When Mistress Lecamus had left the room, the furrier took his son by a

button and led him to the corner of the room which formed the angle towards

the bridge.

"Christophe," said he, quite into his son's ear, as he had just now spoken

of the Prince de Conde, "be a Huguenot if that is your pet vice, but with

prudence, in your secret heart, and not in such a way as to be pointed at

by every one in the neighborhood. What you have just now told me shows me

what confidence the leaders have in you.--What are you to do at the Court?"

"I cannot tell you," said Christophe; "I do not quite know that myself

yet."

"H'm, h'm," said the old man, looking at the lad, "the young rascal wants

to hoodwink his father. He will go far!--Well, well," he went on, in an

undertone, "you are not going to Blois to make overtures to the Guises, nor

to the little King our Sovereign, nor to little Queen Mary. All these are

Catholics; but I could swear that the Italian Queen owes the Scotch woman

and the Lorraines some grudge: I know her. She has been dying to put a

finger in the pie. The late King was so much afraid of her that, like the

jewelers, he used diamond to cut diamond, one woman against another. Hence

Queen Catherine's hatred of the poor Duchesse de Valentinois, from whom she

took the fine Chateau of Chenonceaux. But for Monsieur le Connetable, the

Duchess would have had her neck wrung at least----

"Hands off, my boy! Do not trust yourself within reach of the Italian

woman, whose only passions are in her head; a bad sort that.--Ay, the

business you are sent to the Court to do will give you a bad headache, I

fear," cried the father, seeing that Christophe was about to speak. "My

boy, I have two schemes for your future life; you will not spoil them by

being of service to Queen Catherine. But, for God's sake, keep your head on

your shoulders! And the Guises would cut it off as la Bourguignonne cuts

off a turnip, for the people who are employing you would throw you over at

once."

"I know that, father," said Christophe.

"And you are so bold as that! You know it, and you will risk it?"

"Yes, father."

"Why, the Devil's in it!" cried the old man, hugging his son, "we may

understand each other; you are your father's son.--My boy, you will be a

credit to the family, and your old father may be plain with you, I

see.--But do not be more of a Huguenot than the Messieurs de Coligny; and

do not draw your sword. You are to be a man of the pen; stick to your part

as a sucking lawyer.--Well, tell me no more till you have succeeded. If I

hear nothing of you for four days after you reach Blois, that silence will

tell me that you are in danger. Then the old man will follow to save the

young one. I have not sold furs for thirty years without knowing the seamy

side of a Court robe. I can find means of opening doors."

Christophe stared with amazement at hearing his father speak thus; but he

feared some parental snare, and held his tongue.

Then he said:

"Very well, make up the account; write a letter to the Queen. I must be off

this moment, or dreadful things will happen."

"Be off? But how?"

"I will buy a horse.--Write, for God's sake!"

"Here! Mother! Give your boy some money," the furrier called out to his

wife.

She came in, flew to her chest, and gave a purse to Christophe, who

excitedly kissed her.

"The account was ready," said his father; "here it is. I will write the

letter."

Christophe took the bill and put it in his pocket.

"But at any rate you will sup with us," said the goodman. "In this

extremity you and the Lallier girl must exchange rings."

"Well, I will go to fetch her," cried Christophe.

The young man feared some indecision in his father, whose character he did

not thoroughly appreciate; he went up to his room, dressed, took out a

small trunk, stole downstairs, and placed it with his cloak and rapier

under a counter in the shop.

"What the devil are you about?" asked his father, hearing him there.

"I do not want any one to see my preparations for leaving; I have put

everything under the counter," he whispered in reply.

"And here is the letter," said his father.

Christophe took the paper, and went out as if to fetch their neighbor.

A few moments after Christophe had gone out, old Lallier and his daughter

came in, preceded by a woman-servant carrying three bottles of old wine.

"Well, and where is Christophe?" asked the furrier and his wife.

"Christophe?" said Babette; "we have not seen him."

"A pretty rogue is my son!" cried Lecamus. "He tricks me as if I had no

beard. Why, old gossip, what will come to us? We live in times when the

children are all too clever for their fathers!"

"But he has long been regarded by all the neighbors as a mad follower of

Colas," said Lallier.

"Defend him stoutly on that score," said the furrier to the goldsmith.

"Youth is foolish, and runs after anything new; but Babette will keep him

quiet, she is even newer than Calvin."

Babette smiled. She truly loved Christophe, was affronted by everything

that was ever said against him. She was a girl of the good old middle-class

type, brought up under her mother's eye, for she had never left her; her

demeanor was as gentle and precise as her features; she was dressed in

stuff of harmonious tones of gray; her ruff, plainly pleated, was a

contrast by its whiteness to her sober gown; on her head was a black velvet

cap, like a child's hood in shape, but trimmed, on each side of her face,

with frills and ends of tan-colored gauze. Though she was fair-haired, with

a white skin, she seemed cunning and crafty, though trying to hide her

wiliness under the expression of a simple and honest girl.

As long as the two women remained in the room, coming to and fro to lay the

cloth, and place the jugs, the large pewter dishes, and the knives and

forks, the goldsmith and his daughter, the furrier and his wife, sat in

front of the high chimney-place, hung with red serge and black fringes,

talking of nothing. It was in vain that Babette asked where Christophe

could be; the young Huguenot's father and mother made ambiguous replies;

but as soon as the party had sat down to their meal, and the two maids

were in the kitchen, Lecamus said to his future daughter-in-law:

"Christophe is gone to the Court."

"To Blois! What a journey to take without saying good-bye to me!" said

Babette.

"He was in a great hurry," said his old mother.

"Old friend," said the furrier to Lallier, taking up the thread of the

conversation, "we are going to see hot work in France; the Reformers are

astir."

"If they win the day, it will only be after long fighting, which will be

very bad for trade," said Lallier, incapable of looking higher than the

commercial point of view.

"My father, who had seen the end of the wars between the Bourguignons and

the Armagnacs, told me that our family would never have lived through them

if one of his grandfathers--his mother's father--had not been one of the

Goix, the famous butchers at the Halle, who were attached to the

Bourguignons, while the other, a Lecamus, was on the side of the Armagnacs;

they pretended to be ready to flay each other before the outer world, but

at home they were very good friends. So we will try to save Christophe.

Perhaps a time may come when he will save us."

"You are a cunning dog, neighbor," said the goldsmith.

"No," replied Lecamus. "The citizen class must take care of itself, the

populace and the nobility alike owe it a grudge. Everybody is afraid of the

middle class in Paris excepting the King, who knows us to be his friends."

"You who know so much, and who have seen so much," said Babette timidly,

"pray tell me what it is that the Reformers want."

"Ay, tell us that, neighbor!" cried the goldsmith. "I knew the late King's

tailor, and I always took him to be a simple soul, with no great genius; he

was much such another as you are, they would have given him the Host

without requiring him to confess, and all the time he was up to his eyes in

this new religion.--He! a man whose ears were worth many hundred thousand

crowns. He must have known some secrets worth hearing for the King and

Madame de Valentinois to be present when he was tortured."

"Ay! and terrible secrets too," said the furrier. "The Reformation, my

friends," he went on, in a low voice, "will give the Church lands back to

the citizen class. When ecclesiastical privileges are annulled, the

Reformers mean to claim equality of taxation for the nobles and the middle

class, and to have only the King above all alike--if indeed they have a

king at all."

"What, do away with the Throne?" cried Lallier.

"Well, neighbor," said Lecamus, "in the Low Countries the citizens govern

themselves by provosts over them, who elect a temporary chief."

"God bless me! Neighbor, we might do all these fine things, and still be

Catholics," said the goldsmith.

"We are too old to see the triumph of the middle class in Paris, but it

will triumph, neighbor, all in good time! Why, the King is bound to rely on

us to hold his own, and we have always been well paid for our support. And

the last time all the citizens were ennobled, and they had leave to buy

manors, and take the names of their estates without any special letters

patent from the King. You and I, for instance, grandsons of the Goix in the

female line, are we not as good as many a nobleman?"

This speech was so alarming to the goldsmith and the two women, that it was

followed by a long silence. The leaven of 1789 was already germinating in

the blood of Lecamus, who was not yet so old but that he lived to see the

daring of his class under the Ligue.

"Is business pretty firm in spite of all this turmoil?" Lallier asked the

furrier's wife.

"It always upsets trade a little," said she.

"Yes, and so I have a great mind to make a lawyer of my son," added

Lecamus. "People are always going to law."

The conversation then dwelt on the commonplace, to the goldsmith's great

satisfaction, for he did not like political disturbances or over-boldness

of thought.

The banks of the Loire, from Blois as far as Angers, were always greatly

favored by the two last branches of the Royal Family who occupied the

throne before the advent of the Bourbons. This beautiful valley so well

deserves the preference of kings, that one of our most elegant writers

describes it as follows:--"There is a province in France which is never

sufficiently admired. As fragrant as Italy, as flowery as the banks of the

Guadalquivir, beautiful besides with its own peculiar beauty. Wholly

French, it has always been French, unlike our Northern provinces, debased

by Teutonic influence, or our Southern provinces, which have been the

concubines of the Moors, of the Spaniards, of every nation that has coveted

them--this pure, chaste, brave, and loyal tract is Touraine! There is the

seat of historic France. Auvergne is Auvergne, Languedoc is Languedoc and

nothing more; but Touraine is France, and the truly national river to us is

the Loire which waters Touraine. We need not, therefore, be surprised to

find such a quantity of monuments in the departments which have taken their

names from that of the Loire and its derivations. At every step in that

land of enchantment we come upon a picture of which the foreground is the

river, or some calm reach, in whose liquid depths are mirrored a chateau,

with its turrets, its woods, and its dancing springs. It was only natural

that large fortunes should centre round spots where Royalty preferred to

live, and where it so long held its Court, and that distinguished birth and

merit should crowd thither and build palaces on a par with Royalty itself."

Is it not strange, indeed, that our sovereigns should never have taken the

advice indirectly given them by Louis XI., and have made Tours the capital

of the kingdom? Without any very great expenditure, the Loire might have

been navigable so far for trading vessels and light ships of war. There the

seat of Government would have been safe from surprise and high-handed

invasion. There the strongholds of the north would not have needed such

sums for their fortifications, which alone have cost as much money as all

the splendors of Versailles. If Louis XIV. had listened to Vauban's

advice, and had his palace built at Mont-Louis, between the Loire and the

Cher, perhaps the Revolution of 1789 would never have taken place.

So these fair banks bear, at various spots, clear marks of royal favor. The

chateaux of Chambord, Blois, Amboise, Chenonceaux, Chaumont,

Plessis-les-Tours, all the residences built by kings' mistresses, by

financiers, and noblemen, at Veretz, Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, Villandri,

Valencay, Chanteloup, and Duretal, some of which have disappeared, though

most are still standing, are splendid buildings, full of the wonders of the

period that has been so little appreciated by the literary sect of

Mediaevalists.

Of all these chateaux, that of Blois, where the Court was then residing, is

the one on which the magnificence of the Houses of Orleans and of Valois

has most splendidly set its stamp; and it is the most curious to

historians, archaeologists, and Catholics. At that time it stood quite

alone. The town, enclosed in strong walls with towers, lay below the

stronghold, for at that time the chateau served both as a citadel and as a

country residence. Overlooking the town, of which the houses, then as now,

climb the hill on the right bank of the river, their blue slate roofs in

close array, there is a triangular plateau, divided by a stream, now

unimportant since it runs underground, but in the fifteenth century, as

historians tell us, flowing at the bottom of a rather steep ravine, part of

which remains as a deep hollow way, almost a precipice, between the suburb

and the chateau.

It was on this plateau, with a slope to the north and south, that the

Comtes de Blois built themselves a "castel" in the architecture of the

twelfth century, where the notorious Thibault le Tricheur, Thibault le

Vieux, and many more held a court that became famous. In those days of pure

feudal rule, when the King was no more than _inter pares primus_ (the first

among equals), as a King of Poland finely expressed it, the Counts of

Champagne, of Blois, and of Anjou, the mere Barons of Normandy, and the

Dukes of Brittany lived in the style of sovereigns and gave kings to the

proudest kingdoms. The Plantagenets of Anjou, the Lusignans of Poitou, the

Roberts and Williams of Normandy, by their audacious courage mingled their

blood with royal races, and sometimes a simple knight, like du Glaicquin

(or du Guesclin), refused royal purple and preferred the Constable's sword.

When the Crown had secured Blois as a royal demesne, Louis XII., who took a

fancy to the place, perhaps to get away from Plessis and its sinister

associations, built on to the chateau, at an angle, so as to face east and

west, a wing connecting the residence of the Counts of Blois with the older

structure, of which nothing now remains but the immense hall where the

States-General sat under Henri III. Francis I., before he fell in love with

Chambord, intended to finish the chateau by building on the other two sides

of a square; but he abandoned Blois for Chambord, and erected only one

wing, which in his time and in that of his grandsons practically

constituted the chateau.

This third building of Francis I.'s is much more extensive and more highly

decorated than the Louvre _de Henri II._, as it is called. It is one of the

most fantastic efforts of the architecture of the Renaissance. Indeed, at a

time when a more reserved style of building prevailed, and no one cared for

the Middle Ages, a time when literature was not so intimately allied with

art as it now is, la Fontaine wrote of the Chateau of Blois in his

characteristically artless language: "Looking at it from outside, the part

done by order of Francis I. pleased me more than all the rest; there are a

number of little windows, little balconies, little colonnades, little

ornaments, not regularly ordered, which make up something great which I

found very pleasing."

Thus the Chateau of Blois had the attraction of representing three

different kinds of architecture--three periods, three systems, three

dynasties. And there is not, perhaps, any other royal residence which in

this respect can compare with it. The vast building shows, in one

enclosure, in one courtyard, a complete picture of that great product of

national life and manners which Architecture always is.

At the time when Christophe was bound for the Court, that portion of the

precincts on which a fourth palace now stands--the wing added seventy years

later, during his exile, by Gaston, Louis XIII.'s rebellious brother--was

laid out in pastures and terraced gardens, picturesquely scattered among

the foundation stones and unfinished towers begun by Francis I. These

gardens were joined by a bold flying bridge--which some old inhabitants

still alive saw destroyed--to a garden on the other side of the chateau,

which by the slope of the ground lay on the same level. The gentlemen

attached to Queen Anne de Bretagne, or those who approached her with

petitions from her native province, to discuss, or to inform her of the

state of affairs there, were wont to await her pleasure here, her _lever_,

or the hour of her walking out. Hence history has handed down to us as the

name of this pleasaunce _Le Perchoir aux Bretons_ (the Breton's Perch); it

now is an orchard belonging to some private citizen, projecting beyond the

Place des Jesuites. That square also was then included in the domain of

this noble residence which had its upper and its lower gardens. At some

distance from the Place des Jesuites, a summer-house may still be seen

built by Catherine de' Medici, as local historians tell us, to accommodate

her hot baths. This statement enables us to trace the very irregular

arrangement of the gardens which went up and down hill, following the

undulations of the soil; the land about the chateau is indeed very uneven,

a fact which added to its strength, and, as we shall see, caused the

difficulties of the Duc de Guise.

The gardens were reached by corridors and terraces; the chief corridor was

known as the Galerie des Cerfs (or stags), on account of its decorations.

This passage led to a magnificent staircase, which undoubtedly suggested

the famous double staircase at Chambord, and which led to the apartments on

each floor.

Though la Fontaine preferred the chateau of Francis I. to that of Louis

XII., the simplicity of the _Pere du Peuple_ may perhaps charm the genuine

artist, much as he may admire the splendor of the more chivalrous king. The

elegance of the two staircases which lie at the two extremities of Louis

XII.'s building, the quantity of fine and original carving, of which,

though time has damaged them, the remains are still the delight of

antiquaries; everything, to the almost cloister-like arrangement of the

rooms, points to very simple habits. As yet the Court was evidently

nonexistent, or had not attained such development as Francis I. and

Catherine de' Medici subsequently gave it, to the great detriment of feudal

manners. As we admire the brackets, the capitals of some of the columns,

and some little figures of exquisite delicacy, it is impossible not to

fancy that Michel Colomb, the great sculptor, the Michael Angelo of

Brittany, must have passed that way to do his Queen Anne a pleasure, before

immortalizing her on her father's tomb--the last Duke of Brittany.

Whatever la Fontaine may say, nothing can be more stately than the

residence of Francis, the magnificent King. Thanks to I know not what

coarse indifference, perhaps to utter forgetfulness, the rooms occupied by

Catherine de' Medici and her son Francis II. still remain almost in their

original state. The historian may reanimate them with the tragical scenes

of the Reformation, of which the struggle of the Guises and the Bourbons

against the House of Valois formed a complicated drama played out on this

spot.

The buildings of Francis I. quite crush the simpler residence of Louis XII.

by sheer mass. From the side of the lower gardens, that is to say, from the

modern Place des Jesuites, the chateau is twice as lofty as from the side

towards the inner court. The ground floor, in which are the famous

corridors, is the second floor in the garden front. Thus the first floor,

where Queen Catherine resided, is in fact the third, and the royal

apartments are on the fourth above the lower garden, which at that time was

divided from the foundations by a very deep moat. Thus the chateau,

imposing as it is from the court, seems quite gigantic when seen from the

Place as la Fontaine saw it, for he owns that he never had been into the

court or the rooms. From the Place des Jesuites every detail looks small.

The balconies you can walk along, the colonnades of exquisite workmanship,

the sculptured windows--their recesses within, as large as small rooms, and

used, in fact, at that time as boudoirs--have a general effect resembling

the painted fancies of operatic scenery when the artist represents a fairy

palace. But once inside the court, the infinite delicacy of this

architectural ornamentation is displayed, to the joy of the amazed

spectator, though the stories above the ground floor are, even there, as

high as the Pavillon de l'Horloge at the Tuileries.

This part of the building, where Catherine and Mary Stuart held magnificent

court, had in the middle of the facade a hexagonal hollow tower, up which

winds a staircase in stone, an arabesque device invented by giants and

executed by dwarfs to give this front the effect of a dream. The balustrade

of the stairs rises in a spiral of rectangular panels composing the five

walls of the tower, and forming at regular intervals a transverse cornice,

enriched outside and in with florid carvings in stone. This bewildering

creation, full of delicate and ingenious details and marvels of

workmanship, by which these stones speak to us, can only be compared to the

overcharged and deeply cut ivory carvings that come from China, or are made

at Dieppe. In short, the stone is like lace. Flowers and figures of men and

animals creep down the ribs, multiply at every step, and crown the vault

with a pendant, in which the chisels of sixteenth century sculptors have

outdone the artless stone-carvers who, fifty years before, had made the

pendants for two staircases in Louis XII.'s building. Though we may be

dazzled as we note these varied forms repeated with infinite prolixity, we

nevertheless perceive that Francis I. lacked money for Blois, just as Louis

XIV. did for Versailles. In more than one instance a graceful head looks

out from a block of stone almost in the rough. More than one fanciful boss

is but sketched with a few strokes of the chisel, and then abandoned to the

damp, which has overgrown it with green mould. On the facade, by the side

of one window carved like lace, another shows us the massive frame eaten

into by time, which has carved it after a manner of its own.

The least artistic, the least experienced eye finds here a delightful

contrast between this front, rippling with marvels of design, and the inner

front of Louis XII.'s chateau, consisting on the ground floor of arches of

the airiest lightness, upheld by slender columns, resting on elegant

balustrades, and two stories above with windows wrought with charming

severity. Under the arches runs a gallery, of which the walls were painted

in fresco; the vaulting too must have been painted, for some traces are

still visible of that magnificence, imitated from Italian architecture--a

reminiscence of our Kings' journeys thither when the Milanese belonged to

them.

Opposite the residence of Francis I. there was at that time the chapel of

the Counts of Blois, its facade almost harmonizing with the architecture of

Louis XII.'s building. No figure of speech can give an adequate idea of the

solid dignity of these three masses of building. In spite of the varieties

of style, a certain imposing royalty, showing the extent of its fear by the

magnitude of its defences, held the three buildings together, different as

they were; two of them flanking the immense hall of the States-General, as

vast and lofty as a church.

And certainly neither the simplicity nor the solidity of those citizen

lives which were described at the beginning of this narrative--lives in

which Art was always represented--was lacking to this royal residence.

Blois was the fertile and brilliant example which found a living response

from citizens and nobles, from money and rank, alike in towns and in the

country. You could not have wished that the home of the King who ruled

Paris as it was in the sixteenth century should be other than this. The

splendid raiment of the upper classes, the luxury of feminine attire, must

have seemed singularly suited to the elaborate dress of the curiously

wrought stones.

From floor to floor, as he mounted the wonderful stairs of his castle of

Blois, the King of France could see further and further over the beautiful

Loire, which brought him news of all his realm, which it parts into two

confronted and almost rival halves. If, instead of placing Chambord in a

dead and gloomy plain two leagues away, Francis I. had built a Chambord to

complete Blois on the site of the gardens, where Gaston subsequently

erected his palace, Versailles would never have existed, and Blois would

inevitably have become the capital of France.

Four Valois and Catherine de' Medici lavished their wealth on the Chateau

of Blois, but any one can guess how prodigal the sovereigns were, only from

seeing the thick dividing wall, the spinal column of the building, with

deep alcoves cut into its substance, secret stairs and closets contrived

within it, surrounding such vast rooms as the council hall, the guardroom,

and the royal apartments, in which a company of infantry now finds ample

quarters. Even if the visitor should fail to understand at a first glance

that the marvels of the interior are worthy of those of the exterior, the

remains of Catherine de' Medici's room--into which Christophe was presently

admitted--are sufficient evidence of the elegant art which peopled these

rooms with lively fancies, with salamanders sparkling among flowers, with

all the most brilliant hues of the palette of the sixteenth century

decorating the darkest staircase. In that room the observer may still see

the traces of that love of gilding which Catherine had brought from Italy,

for the princesses of her country loved (as the author above quoted

delightfully expresses it) to overlay the chateaux of France with the gold

gained in trade by their ancestors, and to stamp the walls of royal rooms

with the sign of their wealth.

The Queen-mother occupied the rooms on the first floor that had formerly

been those of Queen Claude de France, Francis I.'s wife; and the delicate

sculpture is still to be seen of double C's, with a device in pure white of

swans and lilies, signifying _Candidior candidis_, the whitest of the

white, the badge of that Queen whose name, like Catherine's, began with C,

and equally appropriate to Louis XII.'s daughter and to the mother of the

Valois; for notwithstanding the violence of Calvinist slander, no doubt was

ever thrown on Catherine de' Medici's enduring fidelity to Henri II.

The Queen-mother, with two young children still on her hands--a boy,

afterwards the Duc d'Alencon, and Marguerite, who became the wife of Henri

IV., and whom Charles IX. called Margot--needed the whole of this first

floor.

King Francis II. and his Queen Mary Stuart had the royal apartments on the

second floor that Francis I. had occupied, and which were also those of

Henri III. The royal apartments, and those of the Queen-mother, are divided

from end to end of the chateau into two parts by the famous party wall,

four feet thick, which supports the thrust of the immensely thick walls of

the rooms. Thus on the lower as well as on the upper floor the rooms are in

two distinct suites. That half which, facing the south, is lighted from the

court, held the rooms for state receptions and public business; while, to

escape the heat, the private rooms had a north aspect, where there is a

splendid frontage with arcades and balconies, and a view over the county of

the Vendomois, the _Perchoir aux Bretons_, and the moats of the town--the

only town mentioned by the great fable writer, the admirable la Fontaine.

Francis I.'s chateau at that time ended at an enormous tower, only begun,

but intended to mark the vast angle the palace would have formed in turning

a flank; Gaston subsequently demolished part of its walls to attach his

palace to the tower; but he never finished the work, and the tower remains

a ruin. This royal keep was used as a prison, or, according to popular

tradition, as _oubliettes_. What poet would not feel deep regret or weep

for France as he wanders now through the hall of this magnificent chateau,

and sees the exquisite arabesques of Catherine de' Medici's room,

whitewashed and almost smothered by order of the governor of the barracks

at the time of the cholera--for this royal residence is now a barrack.

The paneling of Catherine de' Medici's closet, of which more particular

mention will presently be made, is the last relic of the rich furnishing

collected by five artistic kings.

As we make our way through this labyrinth of rooms, halls, staircases, and

turrets, we can say with horrible certainty, "Here Mary Stuart cajoled her

husband in favor of the Guises. There those Guises insulted Catherine.

Later, on this very spot, the younger _Balafre_ fell under the swords of

the avengers of the Crown. A century earlier Louis XII. signaled from that

window to invite the advance of his friend the Cardinal d'Amboise. From

this balcony d'Epernon, Ravaillac's accomplice, welcomed Queen Marie de'

Medici, who, it is said, knew of the intended regicide and left things to

take their course!"

In the chapel where Henri IV. and Marguerite de Valois were betrothed--the

last remnant of the old chateau of the Counts of Blois--the regimental

boots are made. This wonderful structure, where so many styles are

combined, where such great events have been accomplished, is in a state of

ruin which is a disgrace to France. How grievous it is to those who love

the memorial buildings of old France, to feel that ere long these eloquent

stones will have gone the way of the house at the corner of the Rue de la

Vieille-Pelleterie: they will survive, perhaps, only in these pages.

* * * * *

It is necessary to observe that, in order to keep a keener eye on the

Court, the Guises, though they had a mansion in the town, which is still to

be seen, had obtained permission to reside above the rooms of Louis XII. in

the apartments since used by the Duchesse de Nemours, in the upper story on

the second floor.

Francis II. and his young Queen, Mary Stuart, in love like two children of

sixteen, as they were, had been suddenly transferred, one cold winter's

day, from Saint-Germain, which the Duc de Guise thought too open to

surprise, to the stronghold, as it then was, of Blois, isolated on three

sides by precipitous slopes, while its gates were strictly guarded. The

Guises, the Queen's uncles, had the strongest reasons for not living in

Paris, and for detaining the Court in a place which could be easily guarded

and defended.

A struggle for the throne was being carried on, which was not ended till

twenty-eight years later, in 1588, when, in this same chateau of Blois,

Henri III., bitterly humiliated by the House of Lorraine, under his

mother's very eyes, planned the death of the boldest of the Guises, the

second Balafre (or scarred), son of the first Balafre, by whom Catherine

de' Medici was tricked, imprisoned, spied on, and threatened.

Indeed, the fine Chateau of Blois was to Catherine the strictest prison. On

the death of her husband, who had always kept her in leading-strings, she

had hoped to rule; but, on the contrary, she found herself a slave to

strangers, whose politeness was infinitely more cruel than the brutality of

jailers. She could do nothing that was not known. Those of her ladies who

were attached to her either had lovers devoted to the Guises, or Argus eyes

watching over them. Indeed, at that time the conflict of passions had the

capricious vagaries which they always derive from the powerful antagonism

of two hostile interests in the State. Love-making, which served Catherine

well, was also an instrument in the hands of the Guises. Thus the Prince de

Conde, the leader of the Reformed party, was attached to the Marechale de

Saint-Andre, whose husband was the Grand Master's tool. The Cardinal, who

had learned from the affair of the Vidame de Chartres that Catherine was

unconquered rather than unconquerable, was paying court to her. Thus the

play of passions brought strange complications into that of politics,

making a double game of chess, as it were, in which it was necessary to

read both the heart and brain of a man, and to judge, on occasion, whether

one would not belie the other.

Though she lived constantly under the eye of the Cardinal de Lorraine or of

his brother, the Duc Francois de Guise, who both distrusted her,

Catherine's most immediate and shrewdest enemy was her daughter-in-law,

Queen Mary, a little fair girl as mischievous as a waiting-maid, as proud

as a Stuart might be who wore three crowns, as learned as an ancient

scholar, as tricky as a school-girl, as much in love with her husband as a

courtesan of her lover, devoted to her uncles, whom she admired, and

delighted to find that King Francis, by her persuasion, shared her high

opinion of them. A mother-in-law is always a person disliked by her

daughter-in-law, especially when she has won the crown and would like to

keep it--as Catherine had imprudently too plainly shown. Her former

position, when Diane de Poitiers ruled King Henri II., had been more

endurable; at least she had enjoyed the homage due to a Queen, and the

respect of the Court; whereas, now, the Duke and the Cardinal, having none

about them but their own creatures, seemed to take pleasure in humiliating

her. Catherine, a prisoner among courtiers, was the object, not every day,

but every hour, of blows offensive to her dignity; for the Guises persisted

in carrying on the same system as the late King had employed to thwart her.

The six-and-thirty years of disaster which devastated France may be said to

have begun with the scene in which the most perilous part had been allotted

to the son of the Queen's furrier--a part which makes him the leading

figure in this narrative. The danger into which this zealous reformer was

falling became evident in the course of the morning when he set out from

the river-port of Beaugency, carrying precious documents which compromised

the loftiest heads of the nobility, and embarked for Blois in company with

a crafty partisan, the indefatigable la Renaudie, who had arrived on the

quay before him.

While the barque conveying Christophe was being wafted down the Loire

before a light easterly breeze, the famous Cardinal de Lorraine, and the

second Duc de Guise, one of the greatest war captains of the time, were

considering their position, like two eagles on a rocky peak, and looking

cautiously round before striking the first great blow by which they tried

to kill the Reformation in France. This was to be struck at Amboise, and it

was repeated in Paris twelve years later, on the 24th August 1572.

In the course of the previous night, three gentlemen, who played an

important part in the twelve years' drama that arose from this double plot

by the Guises on one hand and the Reformers on the other, had arrived at

the chateau at a furious gallop, leaving their horses half dead at the

postern gate, held by captains and men who were wholly devoted to the Duc

de Guise, the idol of the soldiery.

A word must be said as to this great man, and first of all a word to

explain his present position.

His mother was Antoinette de Bourbon, great-aunt of Henri IV. But of what

account are alliances! At this moment he aimed at nothing less than his

cousin de Conde's head. Mary Stuart was his niece. His wife was Anne,

daughter of the Duke of Ferrara. The Grand Connetable Anne de Montmorency

addressed the Duc de Guise as "Monseigneur," as he wrote to the King, and

signed himself "Your very humble servant." Guise, the Grand Master of the

King's household, wrote, in reply, "Monsieur le Connetable," and signed, as

in writing to the Parlement, "Your faithful friend."

As for the Cardinal, nicknamed the Transalpine Pope, and spoken of by

Estienne as "His Holiness," the whole Monastic Church of France was on his

side, and he treated with the Pope as his equal. He was vain of his

eloquence, and one of the ablest theologians of his time, while he kept

watch over France and Italy by the instrumentality of three religious

Orders entirely devoted to him, who were on foot for him day and night,

serving him as spies and reporters.

These few words are enough to show to what a height of power the Cardinal

and the Duke had risen. In spite of their wealth and the revenues of their

officers, they were so entirely disinterested, or so much carried away by

the tide of politics, and so generous too, that both were in debt--no doubt

after the manner of Caesar. Hence, when Henri III. had seen his threatening

foe murdered, the second Balafre, the House of Guise was inevitably ruined.

Their vast outlay for above a century, in hope of seizing the Crown,

accounts for the decay of this great House under Louis XIII. and Louis

XIV., when the sudden end of MADAME revealed to all Europe how low a

Chevalier de Lorraine had fallen.

So the Cardinal and the Duke, proclaiming themselves the heirs of the

deposed Carlovingian kings, behaved very insolently to Catherine de'

Medici, their niece's mother-in-law. The Duchesse de Guise spared Catherine

no mortification; she was an Este, and Catherine de' Medici was the

daughter of self-made Florentine merchants, whom the sovereigns of Europe

had not yet admitted to their royal fraternity. Francis I. had regarded his

son's marriage with a Medici as a mesalliance, and had only allowed it in

the belief that this son would never be the Dauphin. Hence his fury when

the Dauphin died, poisoned by the Florentine Montecuculi.

The Estes refused to recognize the Medici as Italian princes. These

time-honored merchants were, in fact, struggling with the impossible

problem of maintaining a throne in the midst of Republican institutions.

The title of Grand Duke was not bestowed on the Medici till much later by

Philip II., King of Spain; and they earned it by treason to France, their

benefactress, and by a servile attachment to the Court of Spain, which was

covertly thwarting them in Italy.

"Flatter none but your enemies!" This great axiom, uttered by Catherine,

would seem to have ruled all the policy of this merchant race, which never

lacked great men till its destinies had grown great, and which broke down a

little too soon under the degeneracy which is always the end of royal

dynasties and great families.

For three generations there was a prelate and a warrior of the House of

Lorraine; but, which is perhaps not less remarkable, the Churchman had

always shown--as did the present Cardinal--a singular likeness to Cardinal

Ximenes, whom the Cardinal de Richelieu also resembled. These five prelates

all had faces that were at once mean and terrifying; while the warrior's

face was of that Basque and mountain type which reappears in the features

of Henri IV. In both the father and the son it was seamed by a scar, which

did not destroy the grace and affability that bewitched their soldiers as

much as their bravery.

The way and the occasion of the Grand Master's being wounded is not without

interest here, for it was healed by the daring of one of the personages of

this drama, Ambroise Pare, who was under obligation to the Syndic of the

furriers. At the siege of Calais the Duke's head was pierced by a lance

which, entering below the right eye, went through to the neck below the

left ear, the end broke off and remained in the wound. The Duke was lying

in his tent in the midst of the general woe, and would have died but for

the bold promptitude and devotion of Ambroise Pare.

"The Duke is not dead, gentlemen," said Pare, turning to the bystanders,

who were dissolved in tears. "But he soon will be," he added, "unless I

treat him as if he were, and I will try it at the risk of the worst that

can befall me.... You see!"

He set his left foot on the Duke's breast, took the stump of the lance with

his nails, loosened it by degrees, and at last drew the spear-head out of

the wound, as if it had been from some senseless object instead of a man's

head. Though he cured the Prince he had handled so boldly, he could not

hinder him from bearing to his grave the terrible scar from which he had

his name. His son also had the same nickname for a similar reason.

Having gained entire mastery over the King, who was ruled by his wife, as a

result of the passionate and mutual affection which the Guises knew how to

turn to account, the two great Princes of Lorraine reigned over France, and

had not an enemy at Court but Catherine de' Medici. And no great

politician ever played a closer game. The respective attitudes of Henri

II.'s ambitious widow, and of the no less ambitious House of Lorraine, was

symbolized, as it were, by the positions they held on the terrace of the

chateau on the very morning when Christophe was about to arrive there. The

Queen-mother, feigning extreme affection for the Guises, had asked to be

informed as to the news brought by the three gentlemen who had arrived from

different parts of the kingdom; but she had been mortified by a polite

dismissal from the Cardinal. She was walking at the further end of the

pleasaunce above the Loire, where she was having an observatory erected for

her astrologer, Ruggieri; the building may still be seen, and from it a

wide view is to be had over the beautiful valley. The two Guises were on

the opposite side overlooking the Vendomois, the upper part of the town,

the Perchoir aux Bretons, and the postern gate of the chateau.

Catherine had deceived the brothers, tricking them by an assumption of

dissatisfaction; for she was really very glad to be able to speak with one

of the gentlemen who had come in hot haste, and who was in her secret

confidence; who boldly played a double game, but who was, to be sure, well

paid for it. This gentleman was Chiverni, who affected to be the mere tool

of the Cardinal de Lorraine, but who was in reality in Catherine's service.

Catherine had two other devoted allies in the two Gondis, creatures of her

own; but they, as Florentines, were too open to the suspicions of the

Guises to be sent into the country; she kept them at the Court, where their

every word and action was closely watched, but where they, on their side,

watched the Guises and reported to Catherine. These two Italians kept a

third adherent to the Queen-mother's faction, Biraguc, a clever Piedmontese

who, like Chiverni, pretended to have abandoned Catherine to attach himself

to the Guises, and who encouraged them in their undertakings while spying

for Catherine.

Chiverni had arrived from Ecouen and Paris. The last to ride in was

Saint-Andre, Marshal of France, who rose to be such an important personage

that the Guises adopted him as the third of the triumvirate they formed

against Catherine in the following year. But earlier than either of these,

Vieilleville, the builder of the Chateau of Duretal, who had also by his

devotion to the Guises earned the rank of Marshal, had secretly come and

more secretly gone, without any one knowing what the mission might be that

the Grand Master had given him. Saint-Andre, it was known, had been

instructed to take military measures to entice all the reformers who were

under arms to Amboise, as the result of a council held by the Cardinal de

Lorraine, the Due de Guise, Birague, Chiverni, Vieilleville, and

Saint-Andre. As the heads of the House of Lorraine thus employed Birague,

it is to be supposed that they trusted to their strength, for they knew

that he was attached to the Queen-mother; but it is possible that they kept

him about them with a view to discovering their rival's secret designs, as

she allowed him to attend them. In those strange times the double part

played by some political intriguers was known to both the parties who

employed them; they were like cards in the hands of players, and the

craftiest won the game.

All through this sitting the brothers had been impenetrably guarded.

Catherine's conversation with her friends will, however, fully explain the

purpose of this meeting, convened by the Guises in the open air, at break

of day, in the terraced garden, as though every one feared to speak within

the walls full of ears of the Chateau of Blois.

The Queen-mother, who had been walking about all the morning with the two

Gondis, under pretence of examining the observatory that was being built,

but, in fact, anxiously watching the hostile party, was presently joined by

Chiverni. She was standing at the angle of the terrace opposite the Church

of Saint-Nicholas, and there feared no listeners. The wall is as high as

the church-towers, and the Guises always hold council at the other corner

of the terrace, below the dungeon then begun, walking to and from the

Perchoir des Bretons and the arcade by the bridge which joined the gardens

to the Perchoir. There was nobody at the bottom of the ravine.

Chiverni took the Queen's hand to kiss it, and slipped into her fingers a

tiny letter without being seen by the Italians. Catherine quickly turned

away, walked to the corner of the parapet, and read as follows:--

"You are powerful enough to keep the balance true

between the great ones, and to make them contend as to

which shall serve you best; you have your house full of

kings, and need not fear either Lorraines or Bourbons

so long as you set them against each other; for both

sides aim at snatching the crown from your children. Be

your advisers' mistress, and not their slave; keep up

each side by the other; otherwise the kingdom will go

from bad to worse, and great wars may ensue.

L'HOPITAL."

The Queen placed this letter in the bosom of her stomacher, reminding

herself to burn it as soon as she should be alone.

"When did you see him?" she asked Chiverni.

"On returning from seeing the Connetable at Melun; he was going though with

the Duchesse de Berri, whom he was most anxious to convey in safety to

Savoy, so as to return here and enlighten the Chancellor Olivier, who is,

in fact, the dupe of the Lorraines. Monsieur de l'Hopital is resolved to

adhere to your cause, seeing the aims that Messieurs de Guise have in view.

And he will hasten back as fast as possible to give you his vote in the

Council."

"Is he sincere?" said Catherine. "For you know that when the Lorraines

admitted him to the Council, it was to enable them to rule."

"L'Hopital is a Frenchman of too good a stock not to be honest," said

Chiverni; "besides, that letter is a sufficient pledge."

"And what answer does the Connetable send to these gentlemen?"

"He says the King is his master, and he awaits his orders. On this reply,

the Cardinal, to prevent any resistance, will propose to appoint his

brother Lieutenant-General of the realm."

"So soon!" cried Catherine in dismay. "Well, and did Monsieur de l'Hopital

give you any further message for me?"

"He told me, madame, that you alone can stand between the throne and

Messieurs de Guise."

"But does he suppose that I will use the Huguenots as a means of defence?"

"Oh, madame," cried Chiverni, surprised by her perspicacity, "we never

thought of placing you in such a difficult position."

"Did he know what a position I am in?" asked the Queen calmly.

"Pretty nearly. He thinks you made a dupe's bargain when, on the death of

the late King, you accepted for your share the fragments saved from the

ruin of Madame Diane. Messieurs de Guise thought they had paid their debt

to the Queen by gratifying the woman."

"Yes," said Catherine, looking at the two Gondis, "I made a great mistake

there."

"A mistake the gods might make!" replied Charles de Gondi.

"Gentlemen," said the Queen, "if I openly take up the cause of the

Reformers, I shall be the slave of a party."

"Madame," said Chiverni eagerly, "I entirely agree with you. You must make

use of them, but not let them make use of you."

"Although, for the moment, your strength lies there," said Charles de

Gondi, "we must not deceive ourselves; success and failure are equally

dangerous!"

"I know it," said the Queen. "One false move will be a pretext eagerly

seized by the Guises to sweep me off the board!"

"A Pope's niece, the mother of four Valois, the Queen of France, the widow

of the most ardent persecutor of the Huguenots, an Italian and a Catholic,

the aunt of Leo X.,--can you form an alliance with the Reformation?" asked

Charles de Gondi.

"On the other hand," Albert replied, "is not seconding the Guises

consenting to usurpation? You have to deal with a race that looks to the

struggle between the Church and the Reformation to give them a crown for

the taking. You may avail yourself of Huguenot help without abjuring the

Faith."

"Remember, madame, that your family, which ought to be wholly devoted to

the King of France, is at this moment in the service of the King of Spain,"

said Chiverni. "And it would go over to the Reformation to-morrow if the

Reformation could make the Duke of Florence King!"

"I am very well inclined to give the Huguenots a helping hand for a time,"

said Catherine, "were it only to be revenged on that soldier, that priest,

and that woman!"

And with an Italian glance, her eye turned on the Duke and the Cardinal,

and then to the upper rooms of the chateau where her son lived and Mary

Stuart. "Those three snatched the reins of government from my hands," she

went on, "when I had waited for them long enough while that old woman held

them in my place."