Dark Eminence Catherine De Medici And Her Children (3 page)

The journey north from Blois was not long and the cortege winding along through the sunshine seemed in a holiday picnic mood. Ladies and gentlemen of Catherine's household cantered or laughingly held their mettlesome mounts in check, exchanging quips; heavy travel wagons carrying chests and hampers of clothing and the royal layette rumbled along behind, leather suspension springs creaking,

The Dauphiness herself reclined in a litter curtained and lined in cloth of gold and borne by two palfreys, each led by a gentleman usher whose place was alternated with another as the journey progressed. For all its sumptuous beauty the litter must have been an uncomfortable vehicle as it swung and bumped along. But Catherine had traveled in litters all her life and did not mind. She laughed and chatted with her ladies, sang snatches of a song. Here for a while she could forget Diane de Poitiers.

Two weeks later the little girl who was born at Fontaine-bleau seemed to have absorbed within her tiny body all the shining friendliness of the spring. In her great dark eyes and in the black ringlets covering the baby head one glimpsed the Italian endowment of her maternal kinswomen. Whether in her cradle or out she seldom cried, gurgling, smiling happily, bringing two dimples into play with unconscious skill whenever a jeweled finger was waggled in her direction or a propitiating voice cooed honeyed nothings to her. Elizabeth seemed to enjoy them all

''She'll die young, poor bird/' her Italian wet nurse observed darkly. "Such angelic behavior is not meant for this world. You'll see." She made the sign of the cross above the sleeping baby, shaking her head.

But none of these dire predictions impressed Catherine. Francis, aye, one day he'd be the Dauphin and then, by God's grace, King (so she dreamed, her relentless will upon future covenants), but Elizabeth, that sweet, faultless gem of perfection, ah. ... The mother's smile was unusually tender. Elizabeth should rise to such heights of grandeur as

no woman of the Valois or even the Medici family ever had known. All her life through Catherine de Medici would use her children as so many puppets manipulated by the strings of her will on the stage of international politics. For Elizabeth already she envisioned a major role in a setting of matchless splendor.

She was a child of good omen, said her grandfather, Francis I, for hadn't a most satisfactory peace treaty been concluded between England and France the very week of her birth? And wasn't she but two weeks old when ambassadors arrived from Henry VIII confirming under oath the terms of the newly consummated treaty? And best of all, hadn't His Most Christian Majesty, the English king, jubilantly consented to be the little girl's godfather? Propitious signs, all of these.

The christening took place in early June. In the center of the grim, imposing Cour du Donjon at Fontainebleau a platform had been built, above it a canopy of blue silk bespangled with golden stars. Below and around the platform were displayed jeweled cups fashioned by Benvenuto Cellini; ivory carvings, cups and shields and exquisite devices which had been Charlemagne's; gold plate, carvings in the most elaborate design, all set out for the enjoyment of the visitors from England.

A gallery had been erected for the procession of the christening party leading from the royal apartments to the chapel, and this was hung with heraldic banners bearing alternately the arms and devices of the Houses of Valois and Tudor. A dramatic setting this, heavy with the weight of dynastic

wealth, bleak, for all its color, with the sinister, all-pervading presence of intrigue, a composite of the cruel, dazzling era in which Elizabeth of Valois was born. It was an imposing company that wound through that long gallery honoring the baby girl about to be christened. First came two hundred gentlemen of the King s household, defenders of the little princess, bearing their battle-axes; then came heralds, princes and nobles, and finally Lord Cheney, representative of Henry VIII, carrying the baby.

Did she grow a bit weary, smothered as she was that warm summer day in the folds of a christening robe so heavy and cumbersome that four nobles were required to carry its train? Did she cry in sheer fury and discomfort? Did she just for an hour forget to be angelic? We do not know, though probably she did, her small bleating complaints lost in the trumpet blasts and the thunder of cannons with which her name was greeted.

Long after Elizabeth was asleep in her cradle the celebration continued with a banquet at which the King played host, followed by pageants, joustings and "dysquisings." The

following day Catherine must watch while her husband, Prince Henry, wearing the colors and motto of Diane de Poitiers, easily came off victor in the jousts.

It was a gala time, one of the last during the reign of Francis I, and Catherine, the daughter-in-law who had become his faithful companion, dreaded telling him the news which just had come from England: Henry VIII, his friend with whom he felt a certain kinship, was dead. There would be no further treaties to sign with Henry.

Less than a month later the dying King held Catherine's hand—she was kind and understanding, this little Medici. Somehow she could comfort him now as he looked back with a dully aching conscience at some of the terrors that had marked his reign, butcheries he might have halted had he been less wavering in his judgment. Three thousand men, women and children killed in cold blood, children sold into slavery, gentlemen and scholars sent to the galleys—all in the name of religion. Yes, the dying man admitted, it had been bad, but heresy was worse. ("Do you not agree, Catherine, my child? Bien,'surl"').

So, in one of his favorite palaces at Rambouillet, Francis I died. Here in its vast forests lie Lad done his best hunting; here his "Little Band" had demonstrated its skill in the saddle; here, at last worn out hy worry and by the ravages of a life ill-spent, he came to the end of his reign. He might have been a truly great king, for he loved honor and held all double-dealing in contempt, but he lacked the strength of character to stamp out cruelty and treachery which all were a part of the era in which he lived.

In midsummer, 1547, in Rheims Cathedral, Henry was crowned King of France. Unloved, humiliated, yet outwardly serene, Catherine was now Queen Consort. Her own coronation came two years later, in 1549, at the Church of Saint-Denis in Paris when both she and Henry were thirty-one years old.

In the nursery at Saint-Germain meanwhile, the Dauphin, Francis, a languid six-year-old, complained to his four-year-old sister Elizabeth about an earache. "It plagues me," he whined, lifting a thin white hand to cover it, "and neither my physician nor my apothecary can find herbs to cure it— and I am weary of bloodletting. It makes my legs ache so."

"Monsieur, my brother,"—Elizabeth put aside the piece of linen on which she was learning to featherstitch and came to stand beside him—"my chief dresser, Claude de Nau, has great faith in oil of bergamot and betony. I'll get it from her, so be of cheer." She loved this brother of hers and her stiff brocade skirts swished about her as she ran on her small errand of mercy from the common nursery to her own adjoining sitting room. And months later when a visitor came

from Scotland who was to mean a great deal in the life of the Dauphin, gentle little Elizabeth still amused her dresser, her nurse and Madame de Clermont, her governess, by her ministrations and the medications she so gravely prescribed.

"But I ask you, Madame, my sister," Francis persisted just before the arrival of the august guest, "who is this Mary Stuart? Queen of Scotland, I know, but why must she come to France to join our household here at Saint-Germain? Our baby sister Claude, Your Grace, and I are so amiably met. Now, prithee, why must we have this tiresome girl from Scotland?"

Elizabeth could not supply the answer, but within weeks when governors, nurses, and ladies-in-waiting wherever the royal children were in residence were openly discussing it, the secret no longer remained a secret. Mary of Scotland, eleven months older than Francis, was coming to France to be his betrothed bride!

Mary's father, James V of Scotland, died before she was born. Her mother was Mary of Guise—and between the Guise family and Catherine de Medici there was no love. As little Mary Stuart was an only child she became at birth Queen of Scotland, with her mother acting as Regent. Now Protestant England was warring with Scotland which was divided between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism; and Mary of Guise was a staunch Catholic. Henry VIII had wanted little Mary Stuart to marry his son, Edward VI, and so bring Scotland into the English Protestant fold. So much did he want it that he had tried to kidnap her! However, her clever mother had her spirited away up into the wild High-

lands when she was four years old and with her she sent four little ladies-in-waiting for playmates—all named Mary: Mary Flemming, Mary Seton, Mary Beaton, and Mary Livingston.

The five little girls must have loved their days in the Highlands, far from Court restraints, playing their endless simple card games, shrieking over their rounds with hilboquet, when more than one tumble resulted from running blindly into one another as they tossed their wooden balls and caught them again in their cups. There were rides on their ponies across the moors and picnics high in the hills with baskets filled with pasties and honey cakes and mugs of milk. So two years passed and then came rumors, and the games and the picnics ended. Mary's hiding place had been discovered! But Guise relatives in France were quick to point out that a marriage between Mary and the Dauphin, young Francis, would unite Mary's crown with that of the Catholic House of Valois, so why not send her to France as speedily as possible?

Mary's mother saw to it that there was little surface evidence of the elaborate plans she was making* So when little Mary and her entourage set sail for France it was accomplished before the English were aware of it. The Queen and her party landed in a little town on the coast of Brittany and from there began their progress west toward Saint-Germain.

None of the pomp and magnificence of that progress was lost on the starry-eyed young Queen. She knew well why she was there. Queen in her own right, she would become the betrothed of a boy named Francis. One day they would

marry and she would be Queen Dauphiness of France. In the tutored mind of this oddly sophisticated child these were facts she accepted without curiosity. Instead, mounted on her pony or on the saddle before one of her gentlemen, riding in the safe circle of his arm, and surrounded by her glittering escort, she rode across the land, small gauntleted hand raised in grave salute to passers-by. Occasionally as they passed through larger towns or villages she slipped on her small black velvet mask lest, as her mother had warned, the French think her overbold. And so at last she came to Saint-Germain.

King Henry and Catherine were on a Progress to Lyon in the south, and so were not at the palace to welcome her. However, word had been left that no expense and no effort should be spared to make her welcome as a daughter of the House. Her escort, with the exception of Lady Fleming, her governess (not little Mary Flemming of her Highland sojourn), were returned to Scotland and a household of her own was set up and a suitable retinue of French ladies and gentlemen appointed. The King further decreed that though Mary and Elizabeth should be companions, Mary should always take precedence over the Valois princesses as she was already Queen of Scotland.

Francis and Elizabeth and even the two-year-old Claude had been prepared for the arrival of Her Majesty, and on a golden morning in late September the three Valois children were taken in solemn procession to the audience chamber to be presented. The Dauphin had been in an agony of nervous anticipation for days.

"Sister," he appealed to Elizabeth as they waited in the

antechamber with their ladies and gentlemen, "please hear me say it once more lest I forget the foremost words. . . ." He was bravely arrayed, this frail lad with the persistent earache. He was wearing a doublet of softest white kid, its neckband topped by an enormous ruff which seemed to be supporting his head and holding it upright. Around his waist was slung a belt of crimson velvet in which he carried a velvet-sheathed dagger and a miniature sword. Full gally-hosen of rose-colored velvet were gathered just below the knee above stockings of palest pink net; and on his feet he wore slippers of cream-colored leather.

Elizabeth, in her tilting cloth-of-gold farthingale and wide ruff, edged away from Madame de Clermont and took Francis's hand. "Say on^mon frere. You kiss Her Majesty's hand and then—now, 'Say on. . . ."

"In the names of our august parents, Their Christian Majesties, we welcome you to France/' the words came in a shaky treble, a whisper out of control, "and we hope God may bestow upon you continued good health and a long and happy life."

"Well done, brother! Oh, see, the door is opening. , . ,"

Seconds later she was looking into the hazel eyes of Mary Stuart, sensing in her little-girl heart that here was a very beautiful being, indeed, but "Je ne laime yos!" She almost said the words aloud. Mary's face under the rippling waves of golden hair escaping from her severe escoffion of pearl-strewn net was bewitching in its coquetry. Catherine, her future mother-in-law, said of her somewhat grudgingly the moment she laid eyes on her, "She has only to smile to have