Hostage Queen (Marguerite de Valois)

by Freda Lightfoot

  Margot was convinced they were both about to be shot when Nançay, Captain of the Guard, strode in, and on seeing the Princess thus surrounded, the intended victim clinging to her like a limpet, he actually laughed out loud at the sight.

  Margot was incensed. ‘I see nothing to amuse you, good sir. These men would kill us both, me and this poor quivering fool wrapped about my waist.’

  ‘Begging your pardon, Madame.’ Somewhat chastened, the Captain ordered his archers to stand down, severely admonishing them for their indiscretion, and ordered them out of the chamber.

  The man was still shivering in her arms, making no attempt to move, and Margot cradled him to her breast. ‘Your men attacked this poor fellow, hunted him down like a wild animal. I refuse to release him to you. I order you to spare his life.’

  The Captain graciously bowed. ‘I concede his life to you, my lady, and I apologize for the over-enthusiasm of my archers.’

  Margot imperiously called for Madame de Curton, who crept shakily forward, as shocked by the invasion as was her mistress.

  ‘Please see to his wounds, dear Lottie. Let him lie down in my dressing room for a while to recover.’

  ‘My lady.’

  While Madame helped the injured man into the closet, Margot demanded to know what was going on. De Nançay’s expression was sour as he told her swiftly and calmly what was taking place that night within the walls of the Louvre.

  Margot was stunned, shocked to the core, quite unable to take in what he was telling her. ‘Dear God, and my husband?’

  ‘Safe, in the King’s bedchamber.’

  ‘But, I . . . I don’t understand. Coligny and his fellow leaders again attacked, you say? Who would do such a vile thing?’

  ‘There is no time to explain further. With your permission, Madame, I would escort you to your sister’s bedchamber. Perhaps you should dress.’

  It was then that Margot thought to examine her gown, her eyes opening wide with horror as she saw the state of it. All down the front of the young bride’s silken nightgown was a dark red stain. It was covered in blood.

  This was indeed her Noce Vermeil, or Blood Red Wedding, as it would ever after be called.

  Paris was in uproar. False rumours were spread in every quarter that the Huguenots had attacked the King in the Louvre.

  The cry went up. ‘Kill! Kill!’

  But it did not stop with the leaders. The streets of the city were soon thick with corpses, with children riffling through their pockets for treasures, or playing amongst them out of sheer daring. Men armed themselves with pistols, cutlasses, pikes, poniards, whatever they could find, and prowled the streets ransacking houses, cruelly killing without respect to sex or age. Tavannes and his men rode through the streets urging people to commit the most outrageous atrocities. Throats were slit, heads lopped off, entrails disembowelled. Private vengeance was swiftly acted upon, old enemies disposed of, every petty jealousy or squabble viciously settled. Debts, family feuds, betraying husbands and expensive lawsuits alike were dealt with by sword or dagger, whatever the victim’s religion, under the pretence that it was at the orders of the King.

  Catholics also perished, sometimes by accident or mistaken identity, more often through an act of vengeance by their enemies.

  Carts rumbled through the streets, sometimes filled with items from the looted houses, others laden with mutilated bodies which were then cast into the Seine. The gutters soon ran with blood, and the rats crept up from the sewers to taste the spoils of the night.

  And there was no way out for those who ran for their lives. Chains were drawn across each street, all chance of escape blocked, every exit barred, even the river. Men and women were pulled from their houses and slaughtered without ceremony; babies stolen from their mothers, ostensibly to save their souls with Catholic baptism, but butchered whether the deed were done or no.

  Throughout the night Catherine and her sons kept vigil within the Louvre, the King continually raving, roaring and cursing; by turns enthralled and revolted by the smell and sight of blood. Alençon sat nursing a silent resentment over having been kept out of the secret plotting, a slight he found hard to forgive.

  Rochefoucauld, alone in his own bed in the early hours when the masked murderers came for him, thought he’d been invaded by the King in disguise. He was familiar with how Charles loved to play this game of thrashing his friends for sport.

  ‘You won’t take me in,’ he called out, laughing as they approached. ‘See, I have got my clothes on.’ Without troubling to respond, they brutally stabbed him to death, showing no mercy.

  By morning the followers of Condé and Navarre were summoned to the courtyard, only to be mown down, one by one. Charles watched from his window, grotesquely entranced by the whole performance. Catherine stood beside him, perhaps to ensure that he did not escape or weaken when the hapless victims called up to him for mercy. Seeing the King standing there, in apparent charge, they could not then blame her.

  All was chaos, a dozen or more dispatched in very short time.

  Some Protestants, believing the massacre to be the work of the Guises, arrived at the Louvre seeking protection from their Sovereign. They came on foot and by river, but what they found there soon had them turning tail and running for their lives. Seeing them run, the King, inflamed by what he had just witnessed, snatched up an arquebus and fired after them. His shots failed to reach the fleeing mob, but the guards proved more skilled, and Charles laughed with macabre satisfaction when he saw their dead bodies floating upon the water.

  ‘Have I not played the game cleverly?’ he cried.

  Catherine, as composed and cold as ever, calmly discussed with her Escadron Volant which Huguenot was the most handsome, or had died the most heroic death, and even who should be next, rather as they might discuss the most favoured colour for a new gown. That night her ladies disposed of several gentlemen who had long been an irritation to them.

  As dawn was breaking, wrapped in the Captain’s cloak, Margot was led along the passages of the Louvre by Nançay. She’d quickly changed her nightgown but not troubled to dress, and was half fainting with dread at what she might find.

  ‘You say my husband is in the King’s apartment, and quite safe?’

  ‘He is, Your Majesty. Would you have me take you to him?’

  ‘No, I will go to my sister, as you suggest. I believe I can manage now.’

  But the Captain insisted on accompanying her, which proved to be wise, for, as they entered the antechamber of her sister Claude, another gentleman came running in, fleeing from the very same archers who had so recently invaded her bedchamber. They charged and ran the poor man through with a pike, leaving him dead at her feet.

  Margot screamed and fell into a dead faint. Caught by the Captain, he half carried her into her sister’s apartment, other Huguenots fleeing with her. Navarre’s First Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and Armagnac, his First Valet de chambre, all begged their new Queen to save their lives. Right at that moment she doubted she could even save her own.

  Margot threw herself on her knees before the King and Queen Mother and begged for the life of her husband, and of Condé, his much loved cousin. Catherine agreed without argument. Not out of the goodness of her heart, but because she dare not destroy all the Bourbons as that would place too much power in the hands of the Guises. She needed to have some form of insurance.

  Unaware of the workings of her mother’s mind on this matter, Margot simply praised God that they were to be spared.

  ‘There will be conditions,’ Catherine insisted. ‘They will be forced to convert to the Catholic faith.’

  The King had the Huguenot princes brought before him, and made his wishes plain. ‘Let it be understood that I wish for one religion only in my Kingdom. Choose now – the Mass or death!’

  ‘It would be difficult,’ Navarre calmly remarked, ‘to abjure the religion in which I have been nurtured.’

  ‘I would never take the Mass,’ Condé cried, ever the ferve
nt believer.

  ‘Then it is decided,’ cried Charles. ‘Take them.’

  Navarre stepped quickly forward and, slapping his cousin on the back, remarked in his usual merry tone, ‘But then again, coz, where is the value in dying for a religion? Can we not perhaps agree to worship God in some other way?’

  ‘Indeed, I cannot. I must be faithful to my creed, or die for it.’

  A part of Navarre envied his cousin for his courage, yet he saw little point in becoming a dead hero. While inside he trembled more with rage than fear, he smiled equably, managing to maintain his image of the easy-going fool, ready to compromise in a way which would have grieved his mother sorely, had she been present.

  ‘Ah, but let us pause and consider this matter for a moment. Your Majesty would not, I take it, tamper with our conscience?’ He did not quite explain what it was his conscience might demand.

  ‘I would have you declare yourself of the true Faith.’

  ‘Quite so, and there has been enough killing this night, has there not? What benefit is there in adding to it? I may well find it in me to agree to your demands.’

  Condé was outraged. ‘I have five hundred gentlemen ready to avenge this lamentable massacre.’

  ‘Do you wish to feel the point of my dagger?’ roared the King. ‘As for you, brother Navarre, only show good faith and I will show you good cheer.’

  ‘Will you allow us a few hours to ponder on our choice, Sire?’

  He was so far out of his mind with blood lust that Charles might not have agreed to even this period of delay, had not his beloved Queen added her own pleas to those of Margot’s. Elisabeth fell to her knees before him and, weeping openly, begged the King to be generous, as he was known to be. She had hardly stopped crying since the atrocities had begun – when she wasn’t on her knees praying for her husband’s salvation, that is.

  At length, the entreaties of both Elisabeth and Margot won the day, and Navarre was allowed three days in which to make up his mind, and to talk his fanatical cousin round to his way of thinking. He knew it would be nowhere near long enough.

  Charles seemed almost relieved by this decision. Close to exhaustion, he wanted an end to the slaughter, but with the killings now spreading far beyond the city walls, what had been easy to start was going to be far less easy to stop.

  Margot discovered that sparing the lives of her husband and Condé did not resolve all their difficulties. They were made virtual prisoners in the Louvre, herself included, kept strictly within its four walls. There was also a bitter resentment in those who believed that being Princes of the Blood should not have saved them. Without question Navarre owed his life to her, and to the fact that he was willing to at least consider taking the Mass. To the dismay of all who loathed even the idea of a Huguenot ascending the throne of France, it was clear that no further attempt could be made upon Navarre’s life while he remained the Princess’s husband.

  A day or two later, while helping the Queen Mother to dress for chapel at her morning lever, Catherine drew Margot close for a private discussion.

  ‘Tell me, daughter, is your husband virile? Is he like other men?’

  Margot looked at her mother askance. What kind of question was that? She really had no wish to discuss the intimacy of her marriage bed with her own mother. Nor was this the place. There were a dozen people gathered in the chamber: the Queen’s physician, her secretary, various ladies in waiting, and even a few noblemen.

  Playing for time, Margot carefully tied the ribbons of the Queen’s petticoat about her plump waist. It was a task she loathed, her mother’s sweat, mingled with the stale perfume from her underwear, always making her nauseous. ‘Madame, how would I know? I have no knowledge of other men.’

  Catherine met her daughter’s innocent gaze, knowing she lied. But then it was a family trait, and she did it well. Thoughtfully, she sipped her coffee. ‘I think you are unduly coy.’

  Margot blushed. ‘I can only reply as did the Roman lady when her husband chided her for not informing him of his stinking breath, that never having approached any other man quite so close, she thought all men were alike in that respect.’

  Catherine let out a rumble of laughter, enjoying the joke, for Navarre had a reputation for not being attentive to his toilette. ‘I only ask,’ she continued, ‘because if he is not virile, I can easily procure you a divorce from him.’

  Margot took the kirtle handed to her by the next lady in line, welcoming the distraction as she steadied her breathing. ‘Divorce? Why so? Less than a week ago you were insistent upon this marriage.’

  ‘Ah, but the situation has changed. It is no longer politic. If you are still intact I could have it set aside.’

  Margot was speechless, quite unable to take in what her mother was suggesting. This marriage, which had been forced upon her, and performed at great cost to the treasury, not to mention the loss of thousands of innocent lives, was to be dissolved, simply because it was no longer politic? Was then the only reason for the wedding to lure the Huguenots to the capital? She shuddered at the thought.

  Catherine continued, ‘You could have Guise for a husband, if you so wished.’

  ‘Guise?’

  ‘Didn’t you once favour him? Rampant for him, I seem to remember.’

  ‘But you were against the match, and now he is married. We both are.’

  ‘I am not against the match now,’ Catherine snapped, growing irritated by her daughter’s obstinacy. ‘It may well serve, after all. And he could gain his freedom as easily as you can yours.’

  Margot realized she was being offered what she had always dreamed of: marriage with the man of her heart. It seemed too good to be true. Perhaps it was. Nothing Madame Serpent did was ever as straightforward as it seemed. And what of her husband? However reluctant they had both been for this marriage, country bumpkin in need of a good scrub though he may be, yet Navarre did not deserve what had been meted out to him and his followers. Nor did she deserve to be treated like some pawn on a political chess board, or made to choose between having her husband killed or divorcing him. Margot was suddenly filled with anger.

  ‘And were I to divorce him, would he still be safe?’

  Catherine slipped her bracelets on to her arm, the bone skulls jangling against each other as she did so. ‘Why would he not be? He is a Bourbon Prince of the Blood.’

  Margot met her mother’s gaze with one equally steady. ‘Since you put the question to me, then I can only declare that I am content to remain as I am. You wished me to be married to the King of Navarre, and I have done your will. I suspect the design of separating me from my husband is in order to work some mischief against him. How would I live with myself if that were so, and something dreadful were to happen to him?’

  ‘We must all learn to live with the consequences of our actions,’ Catherine answered dryly.

  On the evening of the 25 August Catherine led her sons the King, Anjou and Alençon through the streets of the blood-soaked city, going first to visit a miraculous thorn bush. Paris was eagerly seeking a sign of approval from God to justify the events of Saint Bartholomew’s Eve, and the Almighty, or someone, had supplied it in the surprise flowering of a hawthorn at a season when blossom was never normally seen. Surely this must be the very portent they needed. Catherine posted guards to protect this precious bush from the fervour of the people, or else to conceal the fraud.

  Bells were rung in joy, and some claimed to have seen a new star near Cassiopeia, surely a symbol of salvation? The Huguenots said it marked the slaughter of the innocents.

  Festivals were held, with much celebrating and rejoicing all over the city, people grasping at any opportunity to dress up, play, dance, and distract themselves from the grim reality of what had taken place. The city stank, suffering from a plague of rats since every cemetery was full to overflowing, and those corpses whose relatives could not afford to pay the twenty livres for a burial were left to rot in the streets.

  A thanksgiving was held in the Louvr
e, although neither Navarre nor Condé were permitted to attend. Margot stayed away with them, out of defiance. Alençon didn’t attend either, still sulking over having been excluded from the whole business, and feeling horribly snubbed as a result.

  ‘Be thankful, dear brother,’ Margot consoled him, ‘that the carnage is not on your conscience.’

  The two Huguenot princes were strictly confined to their apartments within the Louvre, not permitted to communicate with each other. Margot was allowed access to their chambers in the hope of seducing her husband to change his faith. She begged him, and Condé, with all her heart to do so, for only she understood the danger of crossing the Queen her mother. The Prince de Condé remained silent and uncommunicative, brooding over the loss of so many of his dear friends.

  The King of Navarre remained valiantly good tempered, joking and feigning indifference to the doctrines of either creed, studiously refusing to convert unless or until his cousin likewise agreed to do so. He did, however, make clear his abhorrence of the acts perpetrated on St Bartholomew’s Eve. And when Charles commanded him to accompany himself and his mother on their progress through the streets of Paris, he bluntly refused. No one could deny that he lacked courage.

  Margot remained firm in her intention to remain loyal to her husband, and Catherine was obliged to accept it. No doubt the girl had been eager enough to consummate the marriage, wanton hussy that she was. The Queen Mother still had mixed feelings towards her son-in-law, which very much blew hot and cold, sometimes very cold. At other times she couldn’t resist laughing at his jests as much as ever she did, often amused by his merry wit. Nonetheless, being forced to drop her plans for an annulment was irritating. Had she known how useful Guise could be, she might never have set herself so against him in the first place. Although who could say she wasn’t right to do so, knowing the strength of that arrogant young man’s ambitions?