by Jean Plaidy
Gone was the old man of France.
He knew that the Dauphin with his mother and sister looked on sourly; inwardly he laughed at their discomfiture.
The most beautiful girl at the Court was his Queen, and he was man enough to rejoice in her.
The Court had returned to the Palais des Tournelles in order to celebrate Christmas and the New Year.
The Queen was feverishly gay. If the King wanted to prove that he was not an old man, let him. He must join her in the revels; and she would show them how Christmas and the New Year was celebrated at her brother’s Court.
The weather had turned bitterly cold; deep snow was in the streets and biting winds swept through the Palace. The Queen did not seem to be affected by the weather. Her mood became more hilariously gay as the days passed.
This is how she was meant to be, Louis told himself. She is getting over her infatuation with the Englishman. She is ready to enjoy her new status; it is a glorious thing to be Queen of France even if one must take the old man with it.
When she was with him Louis strove to be gay; he was constantly attempting to prove that he had regained his health and strength. He wanted to make that sly speculation on the face of the Dauphin a certainty. He wanted to send Louise’s hopes diving down to disaster. He was using all the means he could lay his hands on to give his old body a semblance of youth.
He opened the Christmas revels with the Queen beside him; he danced with her; he supped with her, and it was his wit which provoked her to laughter.
As for her, she seemed inexhaustible; it was as though she danced a wild dance and bewitched the King into sharing it with her.
On New Year’s Eve her gaiety seemed to reach its climax. The King never left her side.
When she rose to dance she held out her arms to him and François watching with his mother and sister had never felt his hopes so low.
“She is a witch,” hissed Louise. “She has breathed new life into him. He looks ten years younger than he did before his marriage. He was never so besotted with Anne as he is with this one, and Anne could lead him by the nose.”
“Oh, Mother,” sighed Marguerite, “who would have thought it would have come to this? Each night she is in his bed. There can be one outcome.”
“All our hopes … all our plans …,” moaned Louise.
“And at that time,” muttered François, “when the crown seemed about to be placed on my head!”
The trinity was in despair.
The Queen was aware of this. Mischief would lighten her eyes every time she met one of the family. Yet behind her gaiety there was a certain brooding, a watchfulness.
The heat of the ballroom had been excessive; outside the temperature was at freezing point.
They had danced and retired late to their apartments; the Queen lay in her royal bed, rejoicing. There could be no love-making tonight. He was too ill. He could not pretend to her as glibly as he did to others.
She had comforted him. “My poor Louis, you are so tired. You shall sleep. I shall be close to you … thus … and when you have rested you will feel well again.”
She bent over him and, looking up into her round young face, he longed to caress her; but she was right, he was too tired.
So he lay still and she lay beside him, keeping her fingers laced in his.
And she thought: It cannot be long now. Something tells me.
She was sorry and yet exulting. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and ask his pardon. She wanted to say: I wish you dead, Louis, and I hate myself for wishing it; but I cannot stop this wish.
It was long before she slept. She kept thinking of the heated ballroom, and she fancied she could still hear the sound of music mingling with the howling wind outside. Faces flashed in and out of her mind. François, lean and hungry … hungry for her body, half loving her, half hating her, since the tournament in which Charles had beaten him. Louise, alert and fearful, those glances which covered the whole of her body, speculatively fearful; and Marguerite so anxious that her brother’s way to the throne should not be blocked. The King … whose spirit yearned toward a greater amorousness than his body would allow.
She thought of Charles in the arena—the dreadful moment when she thought the German would unseat him and perhaps inflict some injury. Then she remembered him, victorious, receiving the prize from her hands.
How long? How long? she asked herself.
She did not have to wait for the answer.
She would never forget waking on the morning of New Year’s Day when the wintry light filtered into the bedchamber and on to the gray face of the man in the bed. She leaned over him in deep compassion and said: “Louis … you are very sick today?”
He did not answer her. He did not even know it was his beautiful Queen who had spoken.
Then she knew that the day for which she had prayed and yearned had come.
The door of the cage was opening; she would soon be free.
Yet when she looked down at that withered face, at the bleak, unseeing eyes, she could only murmur: “The pity of it!”
Is the Queen Enceinte?
DRESSED COMPLETELY IN WHITE, Mary sat alone in that room in the Hôtel de Clugny which was known as la chambre de la reine blanche. Here she was to remain, in accordance with custom, for six weeks while she mourned her husband.
Mary was relieved to be able to shut herself away in this manner. Her husband was dead but she knew that she was not yet free to make another marriage, and that there would be all sorts of opposition to her choice possibly not only from England but from France. She had come to understand that the English and the French would be wrangling over her dowry, her jewels, and all the costly appurtenances with which they had thought it necessary to load her before making her Queen of France. The fight was not yet over; therefore it was a pleasure to be shut away from the Court and be alone with a few of her attendants: six whole weeks in which to review the new life which lay ahead and to plan that she should not again be deprived of her heart’s desire.
The Hôtel de Clugny was situated in the Rue des Mathurins and had once been the home of Cluniac monks. It was small compared with Les Tournelles, but her own apartments were adequate; and somberly fitted out as a mourning chamber and lighted only by wax tapers, they gave her the feeling that she was shut away from the world; in such intimate surroundings she could think clearly.
Strangely enough she did mourn Louis, for she could not forget his gentleness and many kindnesses; and in spite of her relief she was a little sad because she had longed for his death; so while she exulted in her freedom she was a little melancholy; and now that he was dead she knew that she was not yet out of danger.
This was made clear to her during her interview with François; for although she was shut away from the Court her close relations were allowed to visit her; and of course these included François.
They faced each other and neither was able to suppress the excitement which burned beneath that solemn façade which convention demanded they should show the world. His future was in the balance, no less than hers, for whether or not he was to be King of France would be decided in a few weeks. Perhaps she could tell him now.
“My dearest belle-mère,” he murmured, using that name which he had always spoken with tenderness and an implication that it was ridiculously amusing that, through his marriage with her stepdaughter, one so young and beautiful should bear such a relationship to him. “These are sad days for you and I have been waiting impatiently to come to you and tell you that I am thinking of you every hour.”
A smile was upon her lips. Indeed you are! she thought. For on me depends whether or not you will be, in a few short weeks, crowned King of France.
“You have always been so thoughtful,” she murmured.
“I trust you are in good health … ?” His eyes strayed about her body.
“In excellent health,” she answered.
“And not indisposed in any way?”
“I am as well as can be
expected … in the circumstances.”
She saw the lights of alarm shoot up in his eyes, and a tremor of laughter ran through her. Serve you right, François, she thought. Did you not bring out the big German in the hope that you would unseat Charles? You might have harmed him … if he had not been so much better than your German.
“The circumstances … ?” he began.
“Have you forgotten that I have recently become a widow?”
His relief was obvious. Where was his old subtlety? It had deserted him, so anxious was he.
“I feared the King’s health was growing steadily worse in the weeks before his death.”
“Yet there were times when he was so gay … almost like a young man. Why, only just before his death …”
François clenched his fists. He was longing to ask her outright: Are you enceinte? Yet it would be unseemly to do so, and if he could only curb his patience for a few weeks he would know.
He left her, no wiser about this important matter than before.
Louise and Marguerite embraced François when he came to them direct from the Hôtel de Clugny.
Louise looked earnestly into his face.
“Did you discover?”
François shook his head mournfully.
“She might not know yet,” suggested Marguerite.
“Surely if there were already signs she would have told you!” protested Louise.
“She would have been only too ready to make it known,” mused Marguerite. “She would be so proud to be mother of the King of France.”
Louise covered her face with her hands. “Do not say that.” She shivered. “If it were true I think I should die of melancholy.”
François went to his mother and put his arm about her shoulder. She gave him the smile which was kept for him alone.
“Dearest, we should still be together,” he said.
“And while the world held you, my King, there would be a reason for living. But that another should have that which is yours! I think I should be ready to strangle the brat at birth.”
“I doubt they would allow you to be present at the birth,” retorted Marguerite grimly.
“You must not despair,” said François. “I do not think Louis was capable.”
Marguerite looked at her brother steadily. “And others?” she asked.
“I think the Queen was … entirely virtuous.”
Mother and daughter showed their relief. At least François had not shared her bed, and they were inclined to think that Louis, who was even weaker than they had realized, must have been incapable of begetting a child.
“The point is,” said Marguerite precisely, “is it possible for the Queen to be enceinte?”
“It is certainly possible,” François said.
“But if she is a virtuous woman, unlikely,” went on Marguerite.
“In a few weeks we should know,” put in Louise.
“And even if we should learn that the Queen is enceinte,” added Marguerite, “we should not utterly despair, because it is just as likely that she might give birth to a girl as a boy.”
“Even you do not understand,” cried Louise. “For years I have been in torment. I have seen the crown so near and suffered the frustration. And now I know I am near the end of that dreaded uncertainty, but it might prove that all my worst fears will be realized. It has been too long. …”
“Mother dear,” said François, “we shall soon be out of our misery. Let us remember that.”
She slipped her hand through his arm and laid her cheek against his sleeve while she looked up at him adoringly.
“Trust my King to soothe me,” she murmured.
“Whatever happens,” François reminded her, “we have each other. Remember … the trinity.”
“Yes,” said Louise fiercely, “but it must be a trinity with the King of France at the apex.”
“I have a feeling it will be,” said Marguerite calmly.
François smiled at her. “I share your view, my pearl. So much so that I am already thinking as though I am King of France. We must find a husband for Mary Tudor … in France.”
“You have discussed this with her?” asked Marguerite.
“It is as yet too soon. She is, after all, making a pretense of mourning Louis. But I have heard that her brother is already sounding Charles of Castile. Such an alliance would not be good for France. Moreover it would mean that we should have to return her dowry, and there would be the question of her jewels. Louis was constantly giving her trinkets and, as these by right belong to the crown of France, I should not want to see them leave the country. Therefore I have been thinking of a possible match for her.”
“In France, of course,” said Louise. “Oh for the day when Mary Tudor is safely married and no longer a threat to François!”
“I have two suitors in mind for her. There is the Duc de Lorraine, and the Duc de Savoy.”
“My beloved,” cried Louise, “what a King you will make! What a happy day it will be for France when you mount the throne!”
Marguerite, her eyes shining, knelt before him and taking his hand kissed it. The gesture meant that she was paying homage to the King of France.
“It must be so,” murmured Louise. Then her eyes narrowed and she added: “It shall be so.”
Mary was filled with despair. The walls of her mourning chamber seemed to her like a prison, and within them she felt herself to be doomed.
For six weeks she must remain here. She could have borne that if when she emerged it was to be to freedom. But there were plans to prevent this. To ambitious kings she was not so much a woman as a bargaining counter. François forgot his gallantry when he considered her future; was Henry going to forget his promise?
Fear was her companion. Little Anne Boleyn who, in spite of her youth, knew how to keep her ears and eyes open, had told her that there was gossip among the French attendants and that they were wagering who would have his way over the next marriage of Mary—François or the King of England.
Henry was in negotiation to renew the match between Mary and Charles of Castile which had been broken when she was affianced to Louis. François had other plans for her.
“I could not bear it!” Mary murmured into her pillows. “I will not endure it. Henry shall keep his promise to me.”
She became so melancholy that her attendants were alarmed for her health. She complained of toothache and headaches; and on one or two occasion she burst into loud laughter which turned into weeping.
“The Queen realizes that she has lost a good husband,” said her attendants.
Each day she arose, fretting against her incarceration in the Hôtel de Clugny, while at the same time she rejoiced in her seclusion because it gave her time to think. She would feel suddenly gay because she had gained her freedom from Louis; then the gaiety would be replaced by melancholy when she asked herself how long this freedom would last.
Marguerite, hearing of the Queen’s state of health, came to visit her in some concern. Her moods, reasoned Marguerite, could be due to her condition, and Marguerite was a woman who believed that it was better to know the worst and plan accordingly.
In the mourning chamber, Marguerite embraced her.
“You are looking pale,” she said anxiously.
“Are you surprised?”
“Indeed no. You have had a great shock. And, even though the King’s death was expected, when these things happen they shock nonetheless. Tell me about your health. I hear that you have headaches and toothache.”
“I have never had them before.”
“Have you any idea why you should feel thus … apart from your melancholy over the King’s death?”
Mary lowered her eyes. They were too insistent. In spite of her alarm for her future she felt the laughter bubbling up inside her. Had François or Louise sent Marguerite to question her? They had all three lost their subtlety in their great anxiety.
“I feel at such a time it is natural for me to be in delicate health.”
“Are there any other symptoms?”
“I felt a little sick this morning.”
Mary reproached herself on seeing the look of despair which Marguerite could not suppress. Poor Marguerite! She had always been very kind to Mary. It was a shame to tease her.
Mary went on quickly: “I think it was because I was upset. I had heard that my brother was already planning a new marriage for me.”
“And you do not favor such a marriage?”
“I was affianced to Charles of Castile before I came to France. He was not eager for the match then; I am not eager for it now. Then I was a Princess of England; now I am a Queen of France.”
“I’ll swear you have grown to love France during your stay here and have no wish to leave it.”
Mary stared dreamily ahead of her and Marguerite went on: “My brother is anxious on your behalf. He wants to see you happy. He would make a very good match for you here in France. Then you need never leave us.”
“I do love France, it is true,” answered Mary. “But do you not think that it is somewhat unseemly to think of marriage for me when …”
“When?” asked Marguerite, alarmed.
“When I have so recently lost my husband?”
“Marriages for royal people are invariably arranged with little consideration for their personal feelings.”
“Alas,” sighed Mary.
“And my brother would not wish to force you into anything that was not congenial to you.”
“At this time it is congenial to me to remain as I am.”
“That he understands, but he puts forward certain propositions to you that you may bear them in mind; and if your brother should become insistent, you can tell him that you have plans of your own.”
Mary smiled, secretively and in a manner which increased Marguerite’s despair. “I have plans of my own,” she murmured.
