The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

by C. W. Gortner

  What is one of the secrets that Catherine “confesses” in this novel?

  For one, the truth behind her relationship with the Protestant leader Admiral Coligny. I have always found it intriguing that so few of Catherine’s biographers have examined more closely this most enigmatic of friendships. Coligny was at court when Catherine arrived from Italy as a teenage bride; he was the nephew of the Constable of France, a powerful and important man, and therefore she and Coligny must have met long before they assumed their respective political roles. They were close to each other in age; they shared a history, as Coligny later served her husband, King Henri II; they probably witnessed to a certain extent each other’s trials and triumphs, before circumstances arose for them to join forces during the Wars of Religion. Coligny and Catherine could not have been more different, in both upbringing and outlook, yet for a time they shared a united response to the conflict threatening France and a mutual desire for accord. In her confessions, Catherine tells us what brought them together, and what led to the definitive tragedy between them.

  What do you hope readers take away from your work?

  I seek to reveal secret histories and in some small way restore humanity to people whose legends have overshadowed them. I also hope readers will come away from my work with the experience that they’ve been on an emotional journey. I want them to feel the way these people lived, their hardships and joys, and differences from and similarities to us. Though a Renaissance queen faced issues we don’t, love, hatred, power, intolerance, passion, and the quest for personal liberty remain universal themes.

  What is your latest project?

  I’m currently writing a historical novel about Isabella of Castile, tracing her life from her dramatic youth to her accession as queen of Castile and the early years of her controversial reign. I covered the latter years of Isabella’s life in my previous novel The Last Queen, which is about her daughter Juana; while researching that book, however, I realized I had a solid grounding in the facts of Isabella’s life but had not truly considered how she evolved as a monarch and a woman. She’s been lauded as a saint by some and labeled a fanatic by others; she set in motion the horrors of the Inquisition yet also financed Columbus’s voyages and united Spain after centuries of internal strife. Isabella is truly the first queen of the Renaissance, a ruler who was more powerful than her husband; yet few people know the incredible story of her tumultuous rise to the throne, her forbidden love with Fernando of Aragón, or the events that led to that most climactic of years—1492. Isabella was fallible and, like so many controversial figures in history, often misunderstood. I hope to bring to life for readers her incredible will, vision, and strength, as well as shed light on some of her less comprehensible actions.

  QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

  1. C. W. Gortner presents a sympathetic picture of Catherine de Medici, a figure much maligned in history. His goal is to flesh her out as a complex and multifaceted human being—one who faced difficult choices and did the best she could under the circumstances. Does he succeed? Is Catherine a reliable narrator of her own life?

  2. Some historians believe that France would have fallen into revolution two hundred years earlier than it did had Catherine not been in power. In what ways was she instrumental in preserving the stability of her country? Do you consider her methods ruthless or pragmatic?

  3. Talk about Catherine’s early life. What does it show about her personality? How does she feel about being offered as a bride to a prince she has never met? Discuss the role throughout history of highborn women used as pawns in games of power. Can you think of others?

  4. Discuss Catherine’s arrival in France. What kind of reception does she receive? What are her expectations and what does she find? What kind of prejudice does she face?

  5. How would you describe Diane de Poitiers and her position with Catherine? In what ways do their positions change? Do you think Diane acted out of love for Henri? Did you like her? If so, why? If not, why not?

  6. Discuss the religious strife that affected most of Europe during this time. What would it have been like to live through this turmoil? Are there any parallels we can draw today? Discuss the ways in which Catherine seeks to keep peace between the opposing factions.

  7. How does the novel present the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre? Did you understand the events leading up to it and Catherine’s role? Do you think she deserves the full blame for the massacre? Do you think it could have been avoided? If so, how?

  8. Discuss Catherine’s complex relationship with Coligny. What brought them together and what led to that final moment between them?

  9. How does the novel address Catherine’s dealings in the occult? How do you feel about her visions, knowing there is documented evidence to support her prophetic abilities? Do you think she put too much trust in her own visions of the future?

  10. Discuss Catherine’s children and her relationships with them. Did you understand the various influences that shaped them? Whom did you like the most? Who was the least likeable? Do you think Catherine was a good mother to her children?

  11. Is there any regret in Catherine’s account of the actions she’s taken or the sacrifices she’s made? How does she evolve as a person, from youth to old age?

  12. How do you account for Catherine’s reputation in history?

  13. What part of this book most surprised you? Which part most engaged you or did you find most interesting? What have you learned from reading The Confessions of Catherine de Medici about the sixteenth century, French history, and Catherine herself?

  If you loved

  THE CONFESSIONS

  OF CATHERINE DE MEDICI …

  turn the page for a taste of

  C. W. Gortner’s

  The Last Queen

  ONE

  I WAS THIRTEEN YEARS OLD WHEN MY PARENTS CONQUERED Granada. It was 1492, the year of miracles, when three hundred years of Moorish supremacy fell to the might of our armies, and the fractured kingdoms of Spain were united at last.

  I had been on crusade since my birth. Indeed, I’d often been told of how the pangs had overcome my mother as she prepared to join my father on siege, forcing her to take to her childbed in Toledo—an unseemly interruption she did not relish, for within hours she had entrusted me to a nursemaid and resumed her battles. Together with my brother, Juan, and my three sisters, I had always known the chaos of a peripatetic court, which shifted according to the demands of the Reconquest, the crusade against the Moors. I slept and awoke to the deafening clamor of thousands of souls in armor; to beasts of burden dragging catapults, siege towers, and primitive cannon; to endless carts piled with clothing, furnishings, supplies, and utensils. Rarely had I enjoyed the feel of marble underfoot or eaves overhead. Life consisted of a series of pavilions staked on stony ground, of anxious tutors gabbling lessons and cringing as flaming arrows whooshed overhead and crashing boulders decimated a stronghold in the distance.

  The conquest of Granada changed everything—for me and for Spain. That coveted mountain citadel was the most opulent jewel in the Moors’ vanishing world; and my parents, Isabel and Fernando, their Catholic Majesties of Castile and Aragón, vowed to reduce it to rubble rather than suffer the heretics’ continuing defiance.

  I can still see it as if I were standing at the pavilion entrance: the lines of soldiers flanking the road, winter sunlight sparking off their battered breastplates and lances. They stood as if they had never known hardship, gaunt faces lifted, forgetting in that moment the countless privations and countless dead of these ten long years of battle.

  A thrill ran through me. From the safety of the hilltop where our tents were, I had watched Granada fall. I followed the trajectory of the tar-soaked, flaming stones hurled into the city walls and beheld the digging of trenches filled with poisonous water so no one could breach them. Sometimes, when the wind blew just right, I even heard the moans of the wounded and the dying. At night while the city smoldered, an eerie interplay of shadow a
nd light shivered across the pavilion’s cloth walls; and we awoke every morning to find cinder dust on our faces, our pillows, our plates—everything we ate or touched.

  I could scarcely believe it was over. Turning back inside, I saw with a scowl that my sisters still struggled with their raiment. I had been the first to wake and don the new scarlet brocades my mother had ordered for us. I stood tapping my feet, as our duenna, Doña Ana, shook out the opaque silk veils we always had to wear in public.

  “A curse on this dust,” she said. “It has seeped even into the linen. Oh, but I cannot wait for the hour when this war is at an end.”

  I laughed. “That hour has come! Today, Boabdil surrenders the keys to the city. Mamá already awaits us in the field and—” I paused. “By the saints, Isabella, surely you don’t plan to wear mourning today of all days?”

  From under her black coif, my elder sister’s blue eyes flared. “What do you, a mere child, know of my grief? To lose a husband is the worst tragedy a woman can endure. I will never stop mourning my beloved Alfonso.”

  Isabella had a flare for the dramatic, and I refused to let her get away with it. “You were married less than six months to your beloved prince before he fell off his horse and broke his neck. You only say that because Mamá has mentioned betrothing you to his cousin—if you ever stop acting the bereaved widow, that is.”

  Prim Maria, a year younger than I and possessed of a humorless maturity, interposed herself. “Juana, please. You must show Isabella respect.”

  I gave a toss of my head. “Let her first show respect for Spain. What will Boabdil think when he sees an infanta of Castile dressed like a crow?”

  Doña Ana snapped, “Boabdil is a heretic. His opinion is of no account.” She thrust a veil into my hands. “Cease your chatter and go help Catalina.”

  Sour as curdled cheese our duenna was, though I suppose I should have spared a thought for the trials the crusade had wrought on her aged bones. I went to my youngest sister, Catalina. Like Isabella, our brother, Juan, and, to some extent, Maria, Catalina resembled our mother: plump and short, with beautiful pale skin and fair hair, and eyes the color of the sea.

  “You look lovely,” I told her, tucking the scalloped veil about her face. Little Catalina whispered in return, “So do you. Eres la más bonita.”

  I smiled. Catalina was eight. She had yet to master the art of the compliment. She couldn’t have known her words eased my awareness that I was unique among my siblings. I had inherited my looks from my father’s side of the family, down to the slight cast in one of my amber eyes and unfashionable olive complexion. I was also the tallest of my sisters, and the only one with a mass of curling coppery hair.

  “No, you’re the prettiest,” I said, and I kissed Catalina’s cheek, taking her hand in mine as the distant blast of trumpets sounded.

  Doña Ana motioned. “Quick! Her Majesty waits.”

  Together, we went to a wide charred field, where a canopied dais had been erected.

  My mother stood clad in her high-necked mauve robe, a diadem encircling her caul. As always in her presence, I found myself bending my knees slightly to conceal my budding height.

  “Ah.” She waved a ringed hand. “Come. Isabella and Juana, you stand to my right, Maria and Catalina to my left. You are late. I was beginning to worry.”

  “Forgive us, Your Majesty,” said Doña Ana, with a deep reverence. “There was dust in the coffers. I had to air their Highnesses’ gowns and veils.”

  My mother surveyed us. “They look splendid.” A frown creased her brow. “Isabella, hija mia, black again?” She shifted her regard to me. “Juana, stand up straight.”

  As I did her bidding, another trumpet blast reached us, much closer now. My mother ascended the dais to her throne. The cavalcade of grandes, the high lords and nobles of Spain, materialized on the road in a fluttering of standards. I wanted to shout in excitement. My father rode at their head, his black doublet and signature red cape accentuating his broad shoulders. His Andalucian destrier pranced beneath him, caparisoned in Aragón’s scarlet and gold colors. Behind him rode my brother, Juan, his white-gold hair tousled about his flushed, thin face.

  Their appearance elicited spontaneous cheers from the soldiers. “Viva el infante,” cried the men, beating swords against shields. “Viva el rey!”

  The solemn churchmen followed. Not until they reached the field did I catch sight of the prisoner in their midst. The men drew back. My father motioned, and the man on the donkey was made to dismount and forced forward, to raucous laughter. He stumbled.

  My breath caught in my throat. His feet were bare, bloodied, but I marked his inherent regality as he unwound his soiled turban and cast it aside, revealing dark hair that tumbled to his shoulders. He was not what I expected, not the heretic caliph who’d haunted our dreams, whose hordes had poured boiling pitch and shot fiery arrows from Granada’s ramparts against our army. He was tall and lean, with bronze skin. He might have been a Castilian lord as he crossed the field to where my mother waited, his steps measured, as if he crossed an audience hall clad in finery. When he fell to his knees before her throne, I caught a glimpse of his weary emerald eyes.

  Boabdil lowered his head. From his neck, he removed an iron key on a gold chain and set it at my mother’s feet, a symbolic symbol of defeat.

  Jeering applause and insults came from the ranks. With an impassive countenance that conveyed both his inviolate disdain and infinite despair, Boabdil allowed the applause to fade before he lifted his practiced plea for tolerance. When he finished, he waited, as did everyone present, all eyes fixed on the queen.

  My mother stood. Despite her short stature, slackened skin, and permanently shadowed eyes, her voice carried across the field, imbued with the authority of the ruler of Castile.

  “I have heard this plea and accept the Moor’s submission with humble grace. I’ve no desire to inflict further suffering on him or his people. They’ve fought bravely, and in reward I offer all those who convert to the True Faith baptism and acceptance into our Holy Church. Those who do not will be granted safe passage to Africa—providing they never return to Spain again.”

  My heart missed a beat when I saw Boabdil flinch. In that instant, I understood. This was worse than a death sentence. He’d surrendered Granada, thus bringing an end to centuries of Moorish dominion in Spain. He had failed to defend his citadel and now craved an honorable death. Instead, he was to be vanquished, to bear humiliation and exile till the end of his days.

  I looked at my mother, marked the satisfaction in the hard set of her lips. She knew. She had planned this. By granting mercy when he least expected it, she had destroyed the Moor’s soul.

  His face ashen, Boabdil came to his feet. Burned earth clung to his knees.

  The lords closed in around him, leading him away. I averted my eyes. I knew that if he’d been victorious he would not have hesitated to order the deaths of my father and my brother, of every noble and soldier on this field. He’d have enslaved my sisters and me, defamed and executed my mother. He and his kind had defiled Spain for too long. At last, our country was united under one throne, one church, one God. I should rejoice in his subjugation.

  Yet what I most wanted to do was console him.

  We entered Granada in resplendent procession, the battered crucifix sent by His Holiness to consecrate heretic mosques carried aloft before us, followed by the nobility and clergy.

  Discordant wailing sundered the air. The Jewish warehouses were being impounded. Gorged with fragrant spices, yards of silk and velvet, and crates of medicinal herbs, the market represented Granada’s true wealth, and my mother had ordered the wares secured against looting. Later, she would have them inventoried, tallied, and sold to replenish Castile’s treasury.

  Riding with my sisters and our ladies, I gazed in disbelief upon the ravaged city. Shattered buildings stood empty, seared by flame. Our catapults had leveled entire walls, and the stench of rotting flesh wafted from the mounds of broken stone.
I saw an emaciated child standing motionless beside some dead rotting animal bound to a spit; as we passed, gaunt women knelt in the ruins. I met their impenetrable stares. I saw no hatred or fear, no remorse, as if the very life had been drained from them.

  Then we started to ascend the road to the Alhambra—that legendary palace built by the Moors in their flush of glory. I couldn’t resist rising in my saddle to peer through the gusts of dust kicked up by the horses, hoping to be the first to see its fabled walls.

  Someone cried out.

  Around me the women pulled their mounts to a halt. I looked about in bewilderment before returning my gaze to the road ahead.

  I froze.

  A high tower thrust into the sky like a mirage. On its parapet I could see a tiny group of figures, the wind snatching at their veils and flimsy wraps, light sparkling on the metallic threads woven through their gowns.

  Behind me Doña Ana hissed, “Quick, cover the child’s face. She must not see this.”

  I swiveled in my saddle to look at Catalina. My sister’s eyes met mine in fearful confusion before one of the ladies pulled the veil over her face. I clenched at my reins, turning back around. A cry of warning hurtled up my throat as I saw, in paralyzing horror, the figures seeming to step out over the parapet, like birds about to take flight.

  Around me, the ladies gasped in unison. The figures floated for an impossible moment in the air, weightless, shedding veils. Then they plummeted downward like stones.

  I closed my eyes. I willed myself to breathe.

  “See?” chortled Doña Ana. “Boabdil’s harem. They refused to leave the palace. Now we know why. Those heathen whores will burn in hell for all eternity.”