The Rival Queens (51 page)

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Actually, Charles was born Charles-Maximilien, Henri was born Édouard-Alexandre, and François was originally christened Hercules (which was especially unfortunate, as he was later deformed through illness), but these names were changed over time, and I have elected to call them by their adult names throughout to avoid confusion.

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Actually, Catherine’s mother most likely died of puerperal fever, a bacterial infection associated with childbirth. Syphilis doesn’t work that fast.

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At twelve, Catherine was bluntly described by the Venetian ambassador as “
short and thin; her features
are not delicate, and she has protruding eyes, like most of the Medici.” Nor did her looks improve with age. “
She is a beautiful woman
when her face is veiled,” observed a courtier of Catherine when she was in her twenties.

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Ten years later François would try to relive the glory of these days, only to be defeated and captured at the battle of Pavia by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, which led to the imprisonment of Catherine’s husband, Henri, and his brother, the dauphin.

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Diane always wore black and white after the death of her husband, ostensibly as a mark of respect for her widowhood, although less benevolent observers speculated that it was because the stark color combination set off her red-gold hair and flawless skin so strikingly.

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Look it up.

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Marguerite was unfortunately a very popular name among the royal family, which can make for some confusion. Margot, Catherine’s daughter, was named for this Marguerite, François I’s sister.

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When Jeanne first married Antoine, a local bishop congratulated the bride’s father: “Sire, it seems to me that in your son-in-law you have acquired a useful helper for what you wish to do.” “You do not know him very well,” came the short reply.

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In this way did Catherine signal her allegiance to her native Italy. French women wore white to express bereavement. The Italian tradition of wearing black began during the reign of Joanna I, fourteenth-century queen of Naples, who buried three husbands and so had incentive to invent a new style for mourning.

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According to Michel de Castelnau, a government official and chronicler of the period, the term
Huguenot
came into general usage at this time. “This Name took its Rise from the Conspiracy of Amboise,” he explained in his memoirs, “for when the Petitioners fled at that Time for Fear, some of the Country-women said that they were poor Fellows, not worth a Huguenot, which was a small Piece of Money, of less Value than a Denier… From whence, by way of Ridicule, they were afterwards called Huguenots, which Title they likewise gave themselves.”

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One of these was Blanche of Castile, mother of Louis IX, later Saint Louis, one of the most revered kings in France.

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Catherine even went to the length of referring to Mary in code, calling her “a gentleman” when writing to her daughter Elizabeth, now queen of Spain. She ordered Elizabeth to use her influence with her husband, Philip II, to block a marriage between Mary and his son Don Carlos and to promote one between Margot and Don Carlos instead. “
You are not to lose
one hour or a single occasion… to bring about [the marriage with Margot],” Catherine lectured Elizabeth sternly in a letter she wrote in March 1561. “Urge these things upon your husband by every persuasion you can think of.” This was a mere three months after Catherine had promised to marry Margot to Antoine’s son, Henry, if Antoine surrendered the regency in her favor.

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It is very unfortunate that Henri was such a popular name in France at this time. No less than
three
Henris figure prominently in this story—Catherine’s son Henri; the duke of Guise’s son Henri; and the king of Navarre’s son, Henry. I will do my best to always be clear to which Henri (or Henry) I am referring!

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Alas, he did not. Despite Catherine’s protestations of maternal affection, Condé did not trust her, and rather than destroying her letters he ended up publishing them to protect himself when later she denied having appealed to him to attack Paris.

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In France, all legitimate power flowed through the king, even a boy king. The regent only commanded authority through proximity to the sovereign. The duke of Guise would never leave Charles IX in the hands of the Huguenots without a fight. Catherine, on the other hand, was expendable and would have taken all the blame.

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The gossipy royal observer the abbé de Brantôme reported that Catherine had a listening tube surreptitiously installed in one of the council rooms behind a tapestry so she could keep abreast of the intrigues of the Catholic faction (known familiarly as the Triumvirate). On one occasion she overheard “
one of the triumvirate
give it as his opinion that the queen should be put into a sack and flung into the river.” The chronicler made haste to say that the duke of Guise rejected the suggestion, but the incident does give a sense of Catherine’s standing at court.

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Through spies, the Huguenots got word that the duke of Guise never intended to honor the queen mother’s pledges, and that her negotiation with the prince of Condé was just an attempt to encourage the Protestants to lay down their arms so that they could be more easily slaughtered.

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It is highly unlikely that Coligny hired Poltrot to assassinate the duke of Guise. Honor was everything to the admiral; he would have scorned to take such a low road. Also, who but an innocent man would have made such a compromising statement? Jean de Poltrot had his own grudge against the Guises—he was a cousin of the man who had led the Huguenot attack against them at Amboise in 1560, while Francis II was still alive—and he was known for jests and empty boasts. “
He had spoken lightly
a long time before he went to Lyons in every place that he would surely kill Guise,” a fellow Huguenot later remembered.

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The new edict scaled back the rights of the Huguenots by granting the nobility freedom of worship only in the privacy of their homes. Commoners were prohibited from public practice except in those towns already considered Protestant before the war. The constable, Anne de Montmorency, was seventy years old. He was very rich and had been a power in France during Henri II’s rule. He was a Catholic who fought on the side of the duke of Guise but was more moderate in that he was willing to look the other way so long as aristocratic Huguenots worshipped in private and did not fight the Catholic majority.

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For someone who always claimed to have loved and revered her husband above all else, Catherine lost no time in overturning all Henri II’s (and Diane de Poitier’s) policies. Both Henri and Diane were zealous Catholics who would never have countenanced the Huguenots. And, although Henri spent money on Diane, he shunned the ostentation of his father’s court and was much more inclined (by necessity, because he, too, had accumulated a large national debt) toward austerity.

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Interestingly, Henry’s initial refusal to switch from Protestantism to Catholicism under pressure is highly reminiscent of Margot’s resistance to converting from Catholicism to Protestantism at the time of the Colloquy of Poissy. These two exhibited a strong sense of self even as children.

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Nostradamus deliberately veiled his prophecies because he was worried about the possible adverse consequences to himself and posterity if he foretold dire events too clearly. “[I composed] in dark and cryptic sentences the causes of the future evolution of human kind… [I was able to do so] without scandalizing and upsetting fragile sentiments by clouding my writing in obscure but, above all, prophetic language,” he explained with characteristic incoherence.

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Fittingly, Catherine’s ambassador delivered this flattering marriage proposal (along with the appropriate astrological calculations) to Elizabeth on Valentine’s Day, 1565. Through a return envoy, the queen of England thanked Catherine for the unlooked-for honor but, sensibly, demurred. Catherine was having none of it. “
The first objection you have urged
is the age of my son,” the queen mother of France replied to the turndown. “But if the Queen Elizabeth will put up with it, I will put up with the age of the Queen.” This exchange is especially illuminating because it gives a sense of just how little Charles IX was in control of his life, let alone the realm. “
I should be very glad
if your mistress would be as well pleased with my age as I am well-pleased with hers,” the adolescent king was reported to have trilled in earnest imitation of his mother. “In good sooth I love her,” he added, just to be on the safe side.