by Jean Plaidy
This was partly due to his sister, herself as handsome and even more clever—but that might have been because she had two years’ advantage. They did not quarrel as most children do. If she thought François needed correction, Marguerite explained gravely where he was wrong, and because he knew that everything his sister or his mother did was to his advantage, he would listen with serious attention.
Life at Cognac was quiet and well ordered, presided over by the children’s mother—good-looking, energetic and twenty-two years old. She was Louise, Duchess of Savoy, some two years a widow; her hair was of a light auburn shade, her eyes blue, her skin fair; she was not tall, as her children promised to be, but petite and dainty; she was marriageable, but so far had eluded the propositions which had been made for her. All her passion and devotion was for her children and, because one of these was a boy, because it was not inconceivable that a great future might be his, she had imbued her daughter, Marguerite, with her own enthusiasms; and the little girl was learning, as her mother did, to make the boy the center of her life.
So now in the gardens of Cognac Marguerite sat with François under a tree and read aloud to him while he leaned against her and watched her finger as it pointed out the words she read. He was contented because he knew that when he tired of the book Marguerite would tell him stories of her own invention; and the hero of these stories, who always faced great odds and overcame them, was a man of kingly bearing, of great nobility, for whom some sort of crown was waiting—but Marguerite never explained what crown—and he was dark, and saved from being effeminately beautiful by a long nose which somehow was very attractive simply because it was his. This hero had a variety of names; he might be Jean, Louis, Charles…but the boy knew that these names were disguises, and he was in truth François.
A pleasant occupation; lying in the hot sun, watching the peasants at work in the vineyards, thinking of his pony which he could ride when he wished, although he must take a groom with him, because his mother was afraid for him to ride alone. But that was only because as yet he was four years old and one did not remain at four forever.
Any problem, any fear he had only to take to Marguerite or his mother and they would lay aside what they were doing to put his mind at peace.
Life was good when at four years old one was the center of it. The peasants showed their respect for him. When he went by on his little pony they shouted for Angoulême. “Now that your father is dead,” his mother told him, “you are the Comte d’Angoulême and these people look to you as their master.” But because he was clever he knew how much he depended on those two who were always at his side; so he listened to them and gave them love for love.
There was not a happier family in France than that one at Cognac.
From a window of the château, Louise watched her children. There could be no more lovely sight for her. Her charming daughter, with the book in her lap and her adored one leaning against his sister. She often told herself that life had begun for her with his birth, and that while she could plan and scheme for him she would find it well worth living. His childhood should be happy in every respect; it should be quite different from that which she had suffered. Although had she suffered? Not really, because she had never been one to accept defeat. She had always believed that she had had a proud destiny; and she had learned what it was: To be the mother of François.
Now here at Cognac on a lovely spring day she thought of Amboise. There she was, a little girl walking discreetly with her governess in the grounds of the château. She could almost feel the heat of those stone walls against her back; she could clearly see the cylindrical towers and the great buttresses, the tall windows rising behind her; and, below the rocky plateau on which the château stood, the valleys of the Loire and the Amasse. She had been brought up with the Court by the eldest daughter of Louis XI, the Regent Anne of France, who ruled France until such time as her little brother Charles should be old enough to take the crown.
They had not been entirely happy days for one as proud as Louise of Savoy, because Anne had been a stern guardian. There were no fine clothes, no jewels, few pleasures. Louise must learn to be a serious young woman who would gratefully accept the husband who had been assigned to her. It was true that Louise’s aunt, Charlotte, had been the wife of Louis XI, but although she was Queen of France she had been of small account, and all knew that Louis had taken a malicious pleasure in bullying the poor woman until she almost lost her senses.
Therefore it was scarcely likely that Louis’s stern daughter should consider Charlotte’s niece of much account; yet, as a member of the family of Savoy, which through the marriage had been linked with the royal family, the child must be cared for.
What long days they had been, sitting quietly in one of the great chambers of the Château d’Amboise, working unobtrusively at one’s tapestry, keeping one’s ears open, taking in all and saying nothing. Yet Anne of France had not neglected her word; Louise must learn to play the lute, to dance in a sober fashion; she must study affairs so that she would not be a complete fool in conversation.
The husband Anne chose for Louise was Charles d’Angoulême, son of Jean d’Angoulême, who was a grandson of Charles V, and thus not without some claim to the throne.
Louise remembered, as a little girl of eleven, being betrothed to Charles, who was sixteen years older than she was and not very pleased to be given a child for his bride. His domestic affairs were a little complicated. He had a mistress, Jeanne de Polignac, who had given him a child; and he had installed her in his château at Cognac. Jeanne was a clever woman and had taken under her care two other illegitimate children of her lover’s; it was a pleasant easygoing household he had set up in Cognac, and Charles felt that an eleven-year-old wife would be a complication.
However the Regent Anne was insistent and the ceremony had taken place.
How well Louise remembered arriving at Cognac; a little apprehensive, eager to please her husband, determined to have a son; she could never forget her husband’s connection with the royal family, and she could not help being secretly delighted that the young King, Charles VIII, was malformed and possibly would not have healthy children.
At Cognac Jeanne de Polignac was in control as the chatelaine of the establishment; and with her was her daughter Jeanne (who was also Louise’s husband’s daughter) and the little Souveraine and Madeleine whom he accepted as his, although Jeanne was not their mother.
It was a cozy household, efficiently managed by Jeanne, herself completely contented because she knew that a Polignac could not marry a Comte d’Angoulême. She gathered the young bride in her maternal arms and treated her as another daughter; and Louise, shrewd, wise, understanding her husband’s devotion to this woman, and that as yet he had no need of herself, accepted the situation.
Later she was glad of that move, for the good-hearted Jeanne became her greatest friend and confidante and helped her to live more comfortably through those first years of marriage than she otherwise would have done.
Now, looking at her own children, she was thinking of all this. Jeanne was still in the château, as devoted to little Marguerite and François as she was to her own Jeanne and Souveraine and Madeleine. Jeanne was a wonderful manager, now as she had always been; and what they would have done without her, Louise could not imagine, for Charles was comparatively poor and had always found it a struggle to live as a man of his rank should. Therefore little entertaining had taken place at Cognac, and often a strict economy had been necessary; but all were ready and willing to serve the Comte for, as his men and maid servants reminded themselves often, in serving their master they were serving the great-grandson of a King of France.
Perhaps for this reason Jeanne had been happy to remain his mistress when she might have had a good marriage; it was certainly the reason why Louise was happy to be at Cognac and to be his wife; it was the reason why she dreamed of the boy she would one day have.
Eventually her triumph came; she was pregnant and she prayed for th
e son who, she was sure, when he was born would make her completely contented with her lot. But the first pregnancy resulted in a disappointment as the child was not the boy she longed for, but merely a girl. This child, however, was beautiful and healthy from the day of her birth and she named her Marguerite. Louise had been sixteen years old then and she came through her confinement with miraculous ease. A girl and a disappointment; but she had at least shown she could bear children.
With the coming of Marguerite there had been a subtle change in the château. Jeanne stepped into the background; the chatelaine was now undoubtedly Louise. Not that Jeanne resented this. No, there was another little one to take into her motherly arms, and as she said to Louise: “This one surpasses the others. I never knew a child so quick to notice what goes on around her. It was never thus with even my own little Jeanne.”
Louise was exultant. Soon, she must have her boy.
Impatiently she waited for the signs of pregnancy; but at Court certain events were giving her anxiety. The young King Charles VIII had taken Anne of Brittany to wife. In his childhood little Margaret, the daughter of Maximilian, had been intended for him, and Margaret had come to Amboise to be brought up as the future Queen of France; but eventually it had been decided that it was more necessary for young Charles to bring Brittany to the crown than to forge an alliance with the Emperor; so Margaret was sent home, and Charles betrothed to Anne of Brittany. It was an insult which Maximilian would take a long time to forget.
So now that Charles and Anne were married, the fervent desire of Anne of Brittany was to get a son.
When Louise had heard that the marriage had been consummated she had shut herself in her chamber because she was afraid that she might betray her anguish. Between her husband and the throne of France stood two men: Charles VIII, a cripple who might possibly be unable to beget a son, and Louis d’Orléans, son of Charles d’Orléans, elder brother of Jean d’Angoulême, Louise’s own husband’s father. When she considered that Louis d’Orléans had married the daughter of Louis XI, Jeanne de France, a poor malformed creature who had been unable to give him an heir, her hopes had been high—if not for her husband, for that son she intended to have.
But if Charles VIII and Anne of Brittany should have a son, that would be the end of her hopes.
She might be only a girl herself, but she had her ambitions even then. And what sorrow was hers when the news was brought to Cognac that Anne of Brittany had been delivered of a healthy boy. How Anne would laugh, for she was well aware of Louise’s hopes, and as determined that they should come to nothing as Louise herself was that they should be fulfilled.
Then Louise discovered that she was once more pregnant.
She could smile now, as she remembered journeying to Amboise that she might make a pilgrimage to the cave of François de Paule, known as the Good Man, who inhabited a cave on the banks of the Loire. It had become the custom for pregnant royal ladies to visit him, imploring him to intercede with the Saints and ensure the birth of a healthy boy. The Good Man was reputed to have lived for a hundred years; he scorned the jewels that were offered him in exchange for his services, and all he asked for was enough food to keep him alive.
He had given her holy candles to be burned in her lying-in-chamber, and she now laughed to remember the day. It was September and warm; and she had not thought her pains were near.
How like him, she thought. All impatience to be born! He did not need holy candles. Was it for that reason that he came before I was prepared?
She had been out of doors, some distance from the château—for Jeanne had advised her that a healthy young woman should not lie about during the months of pregnancy—when suddenly he had decided to be born. There had been no time to get back to the château so her attendants had helped her to a tree and there she lay back in its shade and under the September sky was born her love, her life, her François, her King, her Caesar.
And watching him now, with his sister, Marguerite, she said aloud: “And from that moment the world was a different place because he had come into it.”
She had rarely allowed him out of her sight; his robust looks were a perpetual delight to her; and it had been clear from the first that he was no ordinary child. “This will be a fine man,” Jeanne de Polignac had laughed, holding the boy high in the air. “I never saw such perfect limbs. See, his features are already marked. That is his father’s nose.”
Such joy; and it would have been complete if Anne of Brittany was not also rejoicing for the same reason.
Jeanne said to her: “I doubt the Dauphin has the looks of our young François. I doubt he can yell as loudly for his food.” And Louise answered that there could not be another in France to compare with François. And she asked herself how stunted Charles and Anne of Brittany, who was scarcely in rude health, could have a lusty child. But she knew that although the peasantry in Cognac and Angoulême might rejoice and drink themselves silly with the wine from their grapes, the fact that there was an heir of Angoulême was making little stir elsewhere—and all because Anne of Brittany had produced the Dauphin of France!
A satisfied smile curved Louise’s lips. François had leaned forward and shut the book on his sister’s lap. She knew he was saying: “Tell me a story, sister.” Marguerite’s arm was about him, and she was beginning one of her stories which were really brilliant for a child of her age. What a pair! They were incomparable; and if Marguerite had but been a boy she would have been as wonderful as little François. But what joy it gave her to see this love between them!
She laughed aloud suddenly. She could not help it; she was thinking of how Fate was on her side, and she was certain that every obstacle which stood in her way was going to be removed. For little Charles the Dauphin, son of malformed Charles and ambitious Anne of Brittany, fell suddenly sick of a fever and not even the prayers and ministrations of the Good Man could save him. His mother was prostrate with grief and Louise believed that as soon as she had recovered a little from the shock she thought of that little boy who was now sitting under the trees with his sister Marguerite, strong and healthy, never out of the loving care of his mother.
There was a hatred between the two women, which must keep them apart. Louise could not imagine what disaster might befall here if she were ever misguided enough to go to Court. She was too apprehensive of the welfare of her François to flaunt his superior beauty and strength before a sorrowing and bereaved mother.
“They will never get a healthy son,” she whispered to Charles, her husband. “And if they do not, it will soon be your turn.”
“Louis d’Orléans comes before me,” he had reminded her.
“Louis d’Orléans!” she cried scornfully. “Married to crippled Jeanne! He’ll get no son to follow him. I tell you it will be you first and then François. I can see him, the crown on his head; and I’ll tell you that none ever has worn it, nor ever will, with more grace.”
Charles gave her his cynical smile. “Why, wife,” he said, “I had thought you a shrewd woman. And so you are in all other matters. But where our son is concerned you are over-rash. Have a care what words you utter. It would not be well if they were carried to Court.”
She nodded. She had her precious François to consider. She believed he must be kept away from intrigue, brought up in the quiet of Cognac, so that others less fortunate than she was might not see him and envy her. He must be kept hidden until that time when he was ready to emerge and claim his own.
“So I pray you have a care,” Charles had warned her, “and do not betray your feelings when we are at Amboise.”
“At Amboise!”
“My dear, it is natural that his kinsmen should follow the Dauphin to his tomb.”
How disconcerted she had been. She must travel from Cognac to Amboise with her husband, to pretend to mourn; not that that perturbed her as much as being forced to leave François behind. She had been more thankful then than at any other time for the presence of Jeanne de Polignac at Cognac. “Take care of the
children,” she pleaded with her, “and never let the boy out of your sight.”
Jeanne laid her hand on Louise’s. “You may trust me as you would trust yourself.”
How cold it had been that December! It was small wonder that the little Dauphin had not recovered from his fever. Yet François toddled through the great rooms of the château, cheeks rosy, oblivious of the cold; and Marguerite hovering, ready to catch him should he fall, also glowed with health. The bitter winds which carried off the infirm could not hurt them. It is their destiny to win great distinction in the world, Louise told Jeanne; and because she believed this, she left Cognac with an easier mind than she could otherwise have done.
But disaster coming from an unexpected direction was at hand. She and Charles set out with their attendants in that inclement weather, and when they left Cognac, Charles had seemed well. He was not an old man, being but thirty-six years of age, and the cold did not seem to trouble him; but by the time they had reached Châteauneuf he had begun to cough, and with each cough suffered such agonizing pain in his side that he could not suppress his groans. It had been impossible for him to remain in the saddle, and she had ordered that he be carried into a nearby house while she sent a rider with all speed to Cognac for the best physician to be found. What energy she had displayed in those two weeks which followed; she had never left Charles’s bedside; but even at that time of anxiety she had not forgotten to send messengers back for news of François. Praise be to Jeanne, François continued in good health, so that she could devote herself wholeheartedly to the fight for her husband’s life. While she sat at his bedside she visualized what his death could mean to her. She, a girl not yet twenty years of age, to be left alone to fight for her son’s place in society! She had the utmost confidence in her ability, yet she must remember that she was but a woman and that strong men would be ranged against her. Charles must live…for the sake of François.
But on that bitterly cold New Year’s Day Louise had become a widow. And a widow she had remained in spite of attempts to give her a husband. No one was going to marry her off. She had made one marriage for State reasons and out of that marriage had come her François; any other marriage might not be advantageous for her son; therefore there should be no marriage; he was enough for her from now on.
