made to me; but that prudence directed us not to continue to make use of
the same expedients, for what was profitable at one time might not be so
at another.” She asked him why he made that observation. This question
afforded the opportunity he wished for, of relating a story he had
fabricated, purposely to ruin me with her.
He began with observing to her that I was grown very handsome, and that
M. de Guise wished to marry me; that his uncles, too, were very desirous
of such a match; and, if I should entertain a like passion for him, there
would be danger of my discovering to him all she said to me; that she
well knew the ambition of that house, and how ready they were, on all
occasions, to circumvent ours. It would, therefore, be proper that she
should not, for the future, communicate any matter of State to me, but,
by degrees, withdraw her confidence.
I discovered the evil effects proceeding from this pernicious advice on
the very same evening. I remarked an unwillingness on her part to speak
to me before my brother; and, as soon as she entered into discourse with
him, she commanded me to go to bed. This command she repeated two or
three times. I quitted her closet, and left them together in
conversation; but, as soon as he was gone, I returned and entreated her
to let me know if I had been so unhappy as to have done anything, through
ignorance, which had given her offence. She was at first inclined to
dissemble with me; but at length she said to me thus: “Daughter, your
brother is prudent and cautious; you ought not to be displeased with him
for what he does, and you must believe what I shall tell you is right and
proper.” She then related the conversation she had with my brother, as I
have just written it; and she then ordered me never to speak to her in my
brother’s presence.
These words were like so many daggers plunged into my breast. In my
disgrace, I experienced as much grief as I had before joy on being
received into her favour and confidence. I did not omit to say
everything to convince her of my entire ignorance of what my brother had
told her. I said it was a matter I had never heard mentioned before; and
that, had I known it, I should certainly have made her immediately
acquainted with it. All I said was to no purpose; my brother’s words had
made the first impression; they were constantly present in her mind, and
outweighed probability and truth. When I discovered this, I told her
that I felt less uneasiness at being deprived of my happiness than I did
joy when I had acquired it; for my brother had taken it from me, as he
had given it. He had given it without reason; he had taken it away
without cause. He had praised me for discretion and prudence when I did
not merit it, and he suspected my fidelity on grounds wholly imaginary
and fictitious. I concluded with assuring her that I should never forget
my brother’s behaviour on this occasion.
Hereupon she flew into a passion and commanded me not to make the least
show of resentment at his behaviour. From that hour she gradually
withdrew her favour from me. Her son became the god of her idolatry, at
the shrine of whose will she sacrificed everything.
The grief which I inwardly felt was very great and overpowered all my
faculties, until it wrought so far on my constitution as to contribute to
my receiving the infection which then prevailed in the army. A few days
after I fell sick of a raging fever, attended with purple spots, a malady
which carried off numbers, and, amongst the rest, the two principal
physicians belonging to the King and Queen, Chappelain and Castelan.
Indeed, few got over the disorder after being attacked with it.
In this extremity the Queen my mother, who partly guessed the cause of my
illness, omitted nothing that might serve to remove it; and, without fear
of consequences, visited me frequently. Her goodness contributed much to
my recovery; but my brother’s hypocrisy was sufficient to destroy all the
benefit I received from her attention, after having been guilty of so
treacherous a proceeding. After he had proved so ungrateful to me, he
came and sat at the foot of my bed from morning to night, and appeared as
anxiously attentive as if we had been the most perfect friends. My mouth
was shut up by the command I had received from the Queen our mother, so
that I only answered his dissembled concern with sighs, like Burrus in
the presence of Nero, when he was dying by the poison administered by the
hands of that tyrant. The sighs, however, which I vented in my brother’s
presence, might convince him that I attributed my sickness rather to his
ill offices than to the prevailing contagion.
God had mercy on me, and supported me through this dangerous illness.
After I had kept my bed a fortnight, the army changed its quarters, and I
was conveyed away with it in a litter. At the end of each day’s march, I
found King Charles at the door of my quarters, ready, with the rest of
the good gentlemen belonging to the Court, to carry my litter up to my
bedside. In this manner I came to Angers from St. Jean d’Angely, sick in
body, but more sick in mind. Here, to my misfortune, M. de Guise and his
uncles had arrived before me. This was a circumstance which gave my good
brother great pleasure, as it afforded a colourable appearance to his
story. I soon discovered the advantage my brother would make of it to
increase my already too great mortification; for he came daily to see me,
and as constantly brought M. de Guise into my chamber with him. He
pretended the sincerest regard for De Guise, and, to make him believe it,
would take frequent opportunities of embracing him, crying out at the
same time, “would to God you were my brother!” This he often put in
practice before me, which M. de Guise seemed not to comprehend; but I,
who knew his malicious designs, lost all patience, yet did not dare to
reproach him with his hypocrisy.
As soon as I was recovered, a treaty was set on foot for a marriage
betwixt the King of Portugal and me, an ambassador having been sent for
that purpose. The Queen my mother commanded me to prepare to give the
ambassador an audience; which I did accordingly. My brother had made her
believe that I was averse to this marriage; accordingly, she took me to
task upon it, and questioned me on the subject, expecting she should find
some cause to be angry with me. I told her my will had always been
guided by her own, and that whatever she thought right for me to do, I
should do it. She answered me, angrily, according as she had been
wrought upon, that I did not speak the sentiments of my heart, for she
well knew that the Cardinal de Lorraine had persuaded me into a promise
of having his nephew. I begged her to forward this match with the King
of Portugal, and I would convince her of my obedience to her commands.
Every day some new matter was reported to incense her against me. All
these were machinations worked up by the mind of Le Guast. In short, I
was constantly receiving some fresh mortification, so that I hardly
passed a day in quiet. On one side, the King of Spain was using his
utmost endeavours to break off the match with Portugal, and M. de Guise,
continuing at Court, furnished grounds for persecuting me on the other.
Still, not a single person of the Guises ever mentioned a word to me on
the subject; and it was well known that, for more than a twelvemonth, M.
de Guise had been paying his addresses to the Princesse de Porcian; but
the slow progress made in bringing this match to a conclusion was said to
be owing to his designs upon me.
As soon as I made this discovery I resolved to write to my sister, Madame
de Lorraine, who had a great influence in the House of Porcian, begging
her to use her endeavours to withdraw M. de Guise from Court, and make
him conclude his match with the Princess, laying open to her the plot
which had been concerted to ruin the Guises and me. She readily saw
through it, came immediately to Court, and concluded the match, which
delivered me from the aspersions cast on my character, and convinced the
Queen my mother that what I had told her was the real truth. This at the
same time stopped the mouths of my enemies and gave me some repose.
At length the King of Spain, unwilling that the King of Portugal should
marry out of his family, broke off the treaty which had been entered upon
for my marriage with him.
LETTER IV.
Death of the Queen of Navarre--Marguerite’s Marriage with Her Son, the
King of Navarre, Afterwards Henri IV. of France.--The Preparations for
That Solemnisation Described.--The Circumstances Which Led to the
Massacre of the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew’s Day.
Some short time after this a marriage was projected betwixt the Prince of
Navarre, now our renowned King Henri IV., and me.
The Queen my mother, as she sat at table, discoursed for a long time upon
the subject with M. de Meru, the House of Montmorency having first
proposed the match. After the Queen had risen from table, he told me she
had commanded him to mention it to me. I replied that it was quite
unnecessary, as I had no will but her own; however, I should wish she
would be pleased to remember that I was a Catholic, and that I should
dislike to marry any one of a contrary persuasion.
Soon after this the Queen sent for me to attend her in her closet. She
there informed me that the Montmorencys had proposed this match to her,
and that she was desirous to learn my sentiments upon it.
I answered that my choice was governed by her pleasure, and that I only
begged her not to forget that I was a good Catholic.
This treaty was in negotiation for some time after this conversation, and
was not finally settled until the arrival of the Queen of Navarre, his
mother, at Court, where she died soon after.
Whilst the Queen of Navarre lay on her death-bed, a circumstance happened
of so whimsical a nature that, though not of consequence to merit a place
in the history, it may very well deserve to be related by me to you.
Madame de Nevers, whose oddities you well know, attended the Cardinal de
Bourbon, Madame de Guise, the Princesse de Conde, her sisters, and myself
to the late Queen of Navarre’s apartments, whither we all went to pay
those last duties which her rank and our nearness of blood demanded of
us. We found the Queen in bed with her curtains undrawn, the chamber not
disposed with the pomp and ceremonies of our religion, but after the
simple manner of the Huguenots; that is to say, there were no priests, no
cross, nor any holy water. We kept ourselves at some distance from the
bed, but Madame de Nevers, whom you know the Queen hated more than any
woman besides, and which she had shown both in speech and by
actions,--Madame de Nevers, I say, approached the bedside, and, to the
great astonishment of all present, who well knew the enmity subsisting
betwixt them, took the Queen’s hand, with many low curtseys, and kissed
it; after which, making another curtsey to the very ground, she retired
and rejoined us.
A few months after the Queen’s death, the Prince of Navarre, or rather,
as he was then styled, the King, came to Paris in deep mourning, attended
by eight hundred gentlemen, all in mourning habits. He was received with
every honour by King Charles and the whole Court, and, in a few days
after his arrival, our marriage was solemnised with all possible
magnificence; the King of Navarre and his retinue putting off their
mourning and dressing themselves in the most costly manner. The whole
Court, too, was richly attired; all which you can better conceive than I
am able to express. For my own part, I was set out in a most royal
manner; I wore a crown on my head with the ‘coet’, or regal close gown of
ermine, and I blazed in diamonds. My blue-coloured robe had a train to
it of four ells in length, which was supported by three princesses. A
platform had been raised, some height from the ground, which led from the
Bishop’s palace to the Church of Notre-Dame. It was hung with cloth of
gold; and below it stood the people in throngs to view the procession,
stifling with heat. We were received at the church door by the Cardinal
de Bourbon, who officiated for that day, and pronounced the nuptial
benediction. After this we proceeded on the same platform to the tribune
which separates the nave from the choir, where was a double staircase,
one leading into the choir, the other through the nave to the church
door. The King of Navarre passed by the latter and went out of church.
But fortune, which is ever changing, did not fail soon to disturb the
felicity of this union. This was occasioned by the wound received by the
Admiral, which had wrought the Huguenots up to a degree of desperation.
The Queen my mother was reproached on that account in such terms by the
elder Pardaillan and some other principal Huguenots, that she began to
apprehend some evil design. M. de Guise and my brother the King of
Poland, since Henri III. of France, gave it as their advice to be
beforehand with the Huguenots. King Charles was of a contrary opinion.
He had a great esteem for M. de La Rochefoucauld, Teligny, La Noue, and
some other leading men of the same religion; and, as I have since heard
him say, it was with the greatest difficulty he could be prevailed upon
to give his consent, and not before he had been made to understand that
his own life aid the safety of his kingdom depended upon it.
The King having learned that Maurevel had made an attempt upon the
Admiral’s life, by firing a pistol at him through a window,--in which
attempt he failed, having wounded the Admiral only in the shoulder,--and
supposing that Maurevel had done this at the instance of M. de Guise, to
revenge the death of his father, whom the Admiral had caused to be killed
in the same manner by Poltrot, he was so much incensed against M. de
Guise that he declared with an oath that he would make an example of him;
and, indeed, the King would have put M. de Guise under an arrest, if he
had not kept out of his sight the whole day. The Queen my mother used
every argument to convince King Charles that what had been done was for
the good of the State; and this because, as I observed before, the King
had so great a regard for the Admiral, La Noue, and Teligny, on account
of their bravery, being himself a prince of a gallant and noble spirit,
and esteeming others in whom he found a similar disposition. Moreover,
these designing men had insinuated themselves into the King’s favour by
proposing an expedition to Flanders, with a view of extending his
dominions and aggrandising his power, knew would secure to themselves an
influence over his royal and generous mind.
Upon this occasion, the Queen my mother represented to the King that the
attempt of M. de Guise upon the Admiral’s life was excusable in a son
who, being denied justice, had no other means of avenging his father’s
death. Moreover, the Admiral, she said, had deprived her by
assassination, during his minority and her regency, of a faithful servant
in the person of Charri, commander of the King’s body-guard, which
rendered him deserving of the like treatment.
Notwithstanding that the Queen my mother spoke thus to the King,
discovering by her expressions and in her looks all the grief which she
inwardly felt on the recollection of the loss of persons who had been
useful to her; yet, so much was King Charles inclined to save those who,
as he thought, would one day be serviceable to him, that he still
persisted in his determination to punish M. de Guise, for whom he ordered
strict search to be made.
At length Pardaillan, disclosing by his menaces, during the supper of the
Queen my mother, the evil intentions of the Huguenots, she plainly
perceived that things were brought to so near a crisis, that, unless
steps were taken that very night to prevent it, the King and herself were
in danger of being assassinated. She, therefore, came to the resolution
of declaring to King Charles his real situation. For this purpose she
thought of the Marechal de Rais as the most proper person to break the
matter to the King, the Marshal being greatly in his favour and
confidence.
Accordingly, the Marshal went to the King in his closet, between the
hours of nine and ten, and told him he was come as a faithful servant to
discharge his duty, and lay before him the danger in which he stood, if
he persisted in his resolution of punishing M. de Guise, as he ought now
to be informed that the attempt made upon the Admiral’s life was not set
on foot by him alone, but that his (the King’s) brother the King of
Poland, and the Queen his mother, had their shares in it; that he must be
sensible how much the Queen lamented Charri’s assassination, for which
she had great reason, having very few servants about her upon whom she
could rely, and as it happened during the King’s minority,--at the time,
moreover, when France was divided between the Catholics and the
Huguenots, M. de Guise being at the head of the former, and the Prince de
Conde of the latter, both alike striving to deprive him of his crown;
that through Providence, both his crown and kingdom had been preserved by
the prudence and good conduct of the Queen Regent, who in this extremity
found herself powerfully aided by the said Charri, for which reason she
had vowed to avenge his death; that, as to the Admiral, he must be ever
considered as dangerous to the State, and whatever show he might make of
affection for his Majesty’s person, and zeal for his service in Flanders,
they must be considered as mere pretences, which he used to cover his
real design of reducing the kingdom to a state of confusion.
The Marshal concluded with observing that the original intention had been
to make away with the Admiral only, as the most obnoxious man in the
kingdom; but Maurevel having been so unfortunate as to fail in his
attempt, and the Huguenots becoming desperate enough to resolve to take
up arms, with design to attack, not only M. de Guise, but the Queen his
mother, and his brother the King of Poland, supposing them, as well as
his Majesty, to have commanded Maurevel to make his attempt, he saw
nothing but cause of alarm for his Majesty’s safety,--as well on the part
of the Catholics, if he persisted in his resolution to punish M. de
Guise, as of the Huguenots, for the reasons which he had just laid before
him.
LETTER V.
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day.
King Charles, a prince of great prudence, always paying a particular
deference to his mother, and being much attached to the Catholic
religion, now convinced of the intentions of the Huguenots, adopted a
sudden resolution of following his mother’s counsel, and putting himself
under the safeguard of the Catholics. It was not, however, without
extreme regret that he found he had it not in his power to save Teligny,
La Noue, and M. de La Rochefoucauld.
He went to the apartments of the Queen his mother, and sending for M. de
Guise and all the Princes and Catholic officers, the “Massacre of St.
Bartholomew” was that night resolved upon.
Immediately every hand was at work; chains were drawn across the streets,
the alarm-bells were sounded, and every man repaired to his post,
according to the orders he had received, whether it was to attack the
Admiral’s quarters, or those of the other Huguenots. M. de Guise
hastened to the Admiral’s, and Besme, a gentleman in the service of the
former, a German by birth, forced into his chamber, and having slain him
with a dagger, threw his body out of a window to his master.
I was perfectly ignorant of what was going forward. I observed every one
to be in motion: the Huguenots, driven to despair by the attack upon the
Admiral’s life, and the Guises, fearing they should not have justice done
them, whispering all they met in the ear.
The Huguenots were suspicious of me because I was a Catholic, and the
Catholics because I was married to the King of Navarre, who was a
Huguenot. This being the case, no one spoke a syllable of the matter to
me.
At night, when I went into the bedchamber of the Queen my mother, I
placed myself on a coffer, next my sister Lorraine, who, I could not but
remark, appeared greatly cast down. The Queen my mother was in
conversation with some one, but, as soon as she espied me, she bade me go
to bed. As I was taking leave, my sister seized me by the hand and
stopped me, at the same time shedding a flood of tears: “For the love of
God,” cried she, “do not stir out of this chamber!” I was greatly
alarmed at this exclamation; perceiving which, the Queen my mother called
my sister to her, and chid her very severely. My sister replied it was
sending me away to be sacrificed; for, if any discovery should be made, I
should be the first victim of their revenge. The Queen my mother made
answer that, if it pleased God, I should receive no hurt, but it was
necessary I should go, to prevent the suspicion that might arise from my
staying.
I perceived there was something on foot which I was not to know, but what
it was I could not make out from anything they said.
The Queen again bade me go to bed in a peremptory tone. My sister wished
me a good night, her tears flowing apace, but she did not dare to say a
word more; and I left the bedchamber more dead than alive.
As soon as I reached my own closet, I threw myself upon my knees and
prayed to God to take me into his protection and save me; but from whom
or what, I was ignorant. Hereupon the King my husband, who was already
in bed, sent for me. I went to him, and found the bed surrounded by
thirty or forty Huguenots, who were entirely unknown to me; for I had
been then but a very short time married. Their whole discourse, during
the night, was upon what had happened to the Admiral, and they all came
to a resolution of the next day demanding justice of the King against M.
de Guise; and, if it was refused, to take it themselves.
For my part, I was unable to sleep a wink the whole night, for thinking
of my sister’s tears and distress, which had greatly alarmed me, although
I had not the least knowledge of the real cause. As soon as day broke,
the King my husband said he would rise and play at tennis until King
Charles was risen, when he would go to him immediately and demand
justice. He left the bedchamber, and all his gentlemen followed.