Sense of Touch: Love and Duty at Anne of Brittany's Court

by Rozsa Gaston

  The queen sat slumped in her chair, doubled over in pain. Her belly was evident now, her face pale and worn. Seven pregnancies in seven years had taken their toll. But what matter if the result was the birth of a healthy dauphin?

  “Come, Nicole. The queen needs your healing touch.” Madame de Laval lifted a silver-ringed hand from the queen’s shoulder and gestured to Nicole.

  “My lady, how can I help?” Nicole cried, rushing to her sovereign’s side, her glide forgotten.

  “Touch me, dear girl. Touch my belly the way you touched my horse, and heal what ails me,” Anne said. Her eyes were opaque, guarded, as if she were in another world, one no one else could enter at that moment.

  Nicole’s heart hurt to see her queen in such a pained state. She had no experience with pregnancies, but she knew about infections. Apparently the queen had heard of Nicole’s success with healing Petard. What else had she heard of that had gone on at the stables over the past fall? Brushing such thoughts aside, she put her hand on the queen’s belly and slowly traversed its swollen, firm surface.

  “My lady, I do not wish to hurt you,” she said gingerly.

  “Touch firmly, Nicole. Tell me if the babe is alive.”

  “But my lady, have not the doctors been called?” Why was she being given such responsibility, in place of the court doctors who attended the queen?

  “A pox upon them! What good did doctors do for my son?” Queen Anne’s voice broke in anguish.

  “Your Majesty, the midwives are on their way now. Let us wait for them to arrive,” Madame de Laval suggested, looking doubtfully at Nicole.

  “Let her proceed,” the queen commanded. “She healed my horse. She has knowledge in her fingers.” She grabbed Nicole’s wrist, forcing the girl’s hand to remain on her stomach.

  “My lady, give me a minute,” Nicole said, pressing more firmly, her fingers walking the surface of Anne of Brittany’s belly until she found what she was looking for. The throb of the babe’s heartbeat was clear on the other side.

  “The babe lives, Your Majesty,” she finally said. “Here is his heartbeat, here.”

  “His. Hah!” the queen snorted bitterly, batting Nicole’s hand away and putting her own there. After a minute, she slumped back again against her chair.

  “Breathe, my lady, breathe deeply. Madame, can we bring some rose water for my lady the queen? And lavender sachets.” Now that she knew the babe was alive, she would turn her attention to calming the queen with another one of her favorite scents: Rose de Provence. But what calm could there be for her sovereign until the babe was safely delivered? Even then, there could be no final sense of security for the queen after what had happened to her time and again with her other newborns, either born dead or dying hours or weeks after their entry into the world. Silently, Nicole pondered the heartbreak of motherhood her queen had suffered thus far. Would she herself take such a journey?

  Madame de Laval clapped her hands twice. An attendant scurried out of the room in search of rose water and lavender.

  “My lady, are you in pain?” Nicole questioned.

  “I felt a cramp.”

  “Was it—was it the kind of cramp you’ve felt before?” She didn’t dare mention the queen’s three previous stillbirths. No mention of the past should sully the present moment. All signs should point to an auspicious outcome for this child, the seventh that had quickened in the queen’s womb.

  The queen’s eyes closed as she nodded her head ever so slightly.

  “No matter, my lady. It has passed, and the child’s heartbeat is strong.”

  “Just do something, Nicole. Do something differently than what those quacks have done in the past.” The queen sounded angry. Better that than resigned to failure.

  “I will, my lady,” Nicole promised. To begin, she would treat the child inside her queen as if it were her own. “May I put my hands on your belly again?”

  “Please. Do what you did for my stallion. Do what you did for his mare. You are gifted with your touch, Nicole. We know. Just don’t go touching stable-boys,” the queen laughed, the first moment of levity since Nicole had entered the chamber.

  Blood rushed to Nicole’s head. Saying nothing, she turned to take two sachets of lavender from the silver tray the noblewoman had brought back. She felt her face redden as she watched Madame de Laval put a graceful white hand to her mouth to suppress a snigger.

  Head down, Nicole tucked a sachet under each of her sleeves then ran her hands over the queen’s belly, through her gown. She had no idea whatsoever what to do to keep the child inside alive, but this much she did know. Babies like to be touched. She sensed they like to hear their mother’s voices, too.

  “My lady, would you speak to your child while I warm him with my hands?” she suggested.

  The queen smiled wearily. “My child, stay inside awhile longer. And when you come out, stay on Earth until you have done your duty.”

  There it was again: the call to duty, this time coming from the queen. Nicole didn’t like hearing it from her father, but from her queen it was different. Even the unborn one in the queen’s womb was being called to serve a fixed role: either to one day rule France or to marry someone who would. No wonder the queen’s children had resisted life on the outside. What freedom did they look forward to as royal heirs?

  As Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, murmured to her unborn child, Nicole moved her hands over her belly as if she were caressing the babe itself. Within a minute, she felt a flutter under one hand. Her heart leaped for joy.

  “My lady, did you feel that?”

  “Dear girl, I have felt such a flutter countless times.” Again, the queen shut her eyes.

  Nicole couldn’t imagine what her sovereign must suffer to have felt such stirrings of life through seven pregnancies, only to have not a single child to show for her labors. No wonder she had turned her mind so energetically to overseeing her castle and court. The paintings on the wall behind her had just arrived from Milan. They had been brought back by Charles VIII, from his last campaign there. Once the babe arrived safely, she had heard Madame de Laval say the queen planned to commission the painter himself to paint the child, perhaps the future dauphin. From past experience, one hardly dared hope.

  “My lady, may I smooth your face?” It was best to act rather than think, especially upon the grim subject of the queen’s previous pregnancies.

  “By all means. Take off my headdress so you may massage my head. I am so tired of—” she waved away her thoughts with her hand, and rested it in her lap.

  Nicole understood. It wouldn’t do for her monarch to voice her fears to those beneath her. It would not be seemly for the queen of France to express weakness before her subjects.

  Yet every woman in France knew her story, its barren outcome. How many of them at this moment were lighting a candle and saying a prayer for their queen, that this time the result would be different and France would celebrate the arrival of a dauphin in a few short months? Again, Nicole caught herself. Best not to speculate. Past experience did not bode well for future success when it came to the queen’s pregnancies. Even worse, all of France knew of her trials.

  Nicole took another lavender sachet and ran both of her hands over it, rubbing so that her skin absorbed its scent. Then she carefully tucked the sachet into the neck of the queen’s gown. Thinking too much, especially on past events, would be best avoided by the queen until the babe’s birth. Nicole would help her to feel rather than think. Distraction was where her sense of touch could accomplish the most good. And calming the queen would soothe the babe inside, just as her mother had calmed the mothers of sick children they had brought to her, knowing the children would be soothed if they sensed their mothers were.

  She dipped her fingers in the bowl of rose water the attendant held out and lightly ran them over the queen’s brow. At age twenty-one, Anne of Brittany’s skin was still smooth and unwrinkled.

  “Harder, dear. Don’t be afraid to touch my face. It won’t break,”
the queen directed her.

  May your heart not break either. Nicole willed away the thought by pressing her fingers down more firmly. She smoothed the queen’s face, circling each side of her brow, then worked her fingers back into her hairline.

  “Ahhh,” the queen sighed.

  Nicole smiled to herself, gaining confidence, and began to massage the queen’s head.

  “Let your fingers work their magic like they did with my horse,” the queen exclaimed. She leaned back in her chair, her head falling to one side.

  Nicole worked silently, enjoying the half smile playing about her sovereign’s mouth. She prayed the queen wouldn’t mention Philippe again, nor would Madame de Laval either. Well she remembered running her hands through Philippe’s thick châtain hair, a shade somewhere between brown and blond. Thinking of it made her fingers stronger, more imaginative in their romp through the queen’s hair. She would massage the worries right out of her sovereign’s head while she secretly conjured up the memory of Philippe’s head in her hands. Would she ever see him again?

  Mournfully, she contemplated a future without him. Then she thought of the sadness her queen must feel in contemplating her own past. First, the loss of both parents by age eleven, her sister at age twelve, then the loss of every one of her children, six in all. But the worst had been the death of Charles Orland less than two months after his third birthday.

  What was the loss of her own one true love compared to the many loves her queen had lost? Still, it hurt to think she would never have Philippe de Bois to call her own. Just as Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, had never had any of her children to call her own for longer than a few hours or a few weeks, save for her ruddy little toddler.

  Nicole’s hands surged into the back of the queen’s slender neck. Which loss could be worse? The loss of a child one has come to know and love, or the loss of a child one has never known outside the womb?

  Undoubtedly the loss of Charles Orland, she mused. Who could forget the day the queen arrived home to learn the news? Nicole shook her head in memory, her fingers digging deeper into the queen’s scalp, working hard to make her sovereign forget the past and think of nothing at all while she carried her still-living child.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A Queen Like

  No Other

  No one had been able to deliver the news when the royal coach clattered into the courtyard that gray early December day in 1495. The king and queen had been escorted out hastily, faces pale and white, their eyes questioningly upon their staff. What they saw in their courtiers’ eyes only whitened their faces further, and tightened the mask of composure that a monarch worthy of his or her title must wear in public.

  It had been Jeanne de Laval who had rushed to the queen’s side. Her voice was low, but Nicole could still hear the fateful words she delivered.

  “He took with fever suddenly, Madame. No one could do anything.”

  “What do you mean? How is he?”

  A horrible silence ensued. Not a single courtier spoke. Neither did anyone dare to look at the queen’s face. Finally, Jeanne de Laval spoke again.

  “Madame, you must be strong.” She reached out, wrapping an arm around the queen’s waist.

  A heartrending cry broke from Anne of Brittany’s lips. Nicole’s insides twisted at the sound of it. She turned and hugged Marie de Volonté, who had come to court just weeks earlier. Mostly, they had been rivals, but they needed to support each other now, in order to help comfort the queen later when the full realization of what had happened overcame her.

  Jeanne de Laval hustled the queen away from the staring eyes of the court, up the stairs and into the castle, to the bedchamber of her son.

  “Mon bébé, no-o-o-o-o,” Anne of Brittany’s anguished words carried down the stairs and into the courtyard, wrenching and terrible.

  Nicole stood rooted to the spot along with the rest of the household. A chill fell over her heart, like an ice-cold stabbing pain. Hugging Marie de Volonté again, she willed it away. Then she opened her eyes onto the staircase and realized she would never see the bouncy, joyous Charles Orland run down them again, his nurse chasing him from behind, and the pain returned. If her own heart felt stabbed through by the thought, what must her queen’s grief be like?

  The dauphin was dead. There was nothing anyone could do to bring him back. It hadn’t yet been officially announced, but everyone on the castle grounds already knew. Three nights before, the boy had come down with a fever after playing as usual during the day, then having supper with his nurse and attendants. Charles Orland had turned three less than two months earlier. His parents had been away, his father campaigning in Milan, and his mother staying in Lyon near the French-Italian border, where she could more quickly receive news and visits from her husband as he waged war on the other side of the Alps.

  When Nicole had woken at dawn two days earlier to the sound of horses’ hooves in the courtyard, she had rushed to the top of the gallery stairs just in time to see a messenger gallop away in the direction of Lyon. She had known instantly that the dauphin was gravely ill. By the time the king and queen arrived, he was already gone, carried to heaven on angels’ wings deep in the night.

  The king was as beside himself as the queen, although less vocal about it. Losing a child was terrible for parents, but losing the heir to the kingdom was another thing altogether. The death of the dauphin, the only direct inheritor to the throne of France, was a catastrophe for the country, as well as for every member of Charles VIII and Anne of Brittany’s court. Charles Orland, the king and queen’s robust and merry son, had been the flower of their hopes, with no other living children.

  After two miscarriages and the loss of her only child, Queen Anne was beside herself. She shut herself away in her rooms for the entire Christmas and New Year’s season, and was seen only twice over the following six weeks.

  The beginning of 1496 dawned dismal and gloomy. The king’s older cousin, Louis, Duke d’Orléans, was now heir to France. Anne had admired him as a child, but she wanted her own children to inherit the kingdom she ruled with her husband the king, not his cousin and his issue, although Louis had none yet. She had brought her own Duchy of Brittany to the throne, and she wanted her own child with Breton blood to rule her inherited lands one day, along with France. To that end, it soon became apparent as winter turned to spring that the queen was with child again. At least she had not let her grief overwhelm her instinct to try again.

  The death of Charles Orland chilled Nicole’s heart. Everyone said it was the first year of life that was the most dangerous for an infant. Yet the young prince had been strong and lusty from the moment he was born, and look what had happened to him. A fever or an accident could carry away anyone at any time. If even the king and queen’s firstborn son couldn’t be saved, how much hope did anyone else have for a child to grow into adulthood? All these worries Nicole hid in her heart and tried to keep out of her mind. It was enough just to live for the day, she told herself. It was all anyone had, really.

  That September, before the harvest was picked, the new dauphin arrived. The court hummed with happiness, the king and queen beside themselves with joy. The child was named Charles, after his father. His arrival was heralded as a gift from heaven to replace the loss of Charles Orland of the year before. But on the first of October, the mild fall weather turned blustery; with the winds came a chill that caught the new prince and weakened him. Unbearably, on the third day of October, 1496, Charles VIII and Anne of Brittany lost their second dauphin.

  That October 11th marked what would have been Charles Orland’s fourth birthday. Instead it marked the loss of two living sons for the king and queen, and two dauphins for France. Queen Anne disappeared for the entire day, the king with her. Nicole couldn’t imagine what grief they shared between them. But perhaps because they were young and still in love, they turned to each other in their time of despair. This the court knew, because, by Christmas of that year, it was whispered that the queen was again with c
hild.

  In July of 1497, Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, delivered another son, Francis, Dauphin of France. Within hours he was dead.

  This time, Nicole vowed, things would be different. She was bid to come to the queen’s chamber almost every morning of the Lenten period, from early February through the first weeks of March 1498. Charged with relaxing and distracting the queen, she began by massaging her sovereign’s small, white hands with their slim, delicately-tapered fingers. Sometimes, while she was there, the queen’s doctors would come to check on her, but the queen was short with them.

  Nicole understood. They had succeeded neither in keeping her sovereign’s toddler alive nor her two sons who had followed. What did they know?

  “She is cramping again,” Madame de Laval murmured to one of the senior ladies of honor, one rainy March day just before spring’s arrival. Nicole caught their hushed conversation as she hurried past in the hallway outside the queen’s chamber. She had just finished massaging the queen’s fingers as well as her feet. They had been swollen, as had her face.

  “Her time will come soon,” the other remarked.

  “She is not due until late spring,” Madame de Laval observed, her face a tight mask.

  “Let us keep her feet elevated and—”

  A cry came from the chamber within. It was a cry every adult woman recognized, whether they had uttered it themselves or assisted one who had.

  “Madame!” Jeanne de Laval rushed into the room as Nicole turned and followed behind.

  The queen lay back in her chair, moaning. The ladies helped her up then began to walk her up and down the room. Nicole saw the cushion where the queen had sat. It was soaked. She peered closer. Water, not blood. Thank God.

  “Get the midwife,” Madame de Laval barked.

  “Yes, Madame,” Nicole ran from the room to the kitchens, where she knew the midwife and her assistants would be, warming themselves at the fire and on alert for the queen’s needs.