by Jean Plaidy
‘I am eager to begin,’ said Henriette nervously. ‘I cannot wait.’
‘You must curb your impatience. There must be no carelessness. First we have to talk to the jailers. We shall have to offer a large bribe, as it will be necessary for them to escape afterwards.’
‘A bribe?’ said Henriette. ‘How can we come by as much money as will be necessary?’
‘We have our jewels. What are a few diamonds and emeralds compared with the lives of our beloved!’
‘You are right,’ said Henriette.
‘Perhaps tomorrow,’ said Margot. ‘Yes, we will do it tomorrow; and this: afternoon I will ride to Vincennes in my coach and you will come with me. You will warn Coconnas of our plan while I whisper it to La Mole. It will be a rehearsal for our great adventure. But first I will see the jailers, and if they are the men I think they may be, it will be easy. Henriette, we must succeed tomorrow.’
‘If we do not,’ said Henriette, ‘I shall die of a broken heart.’
Inside the coach which rumbled along the road to Vincennes sat the two young women, tense and nervous. Henriette pulled her cloaks about her and shivered; she felt in the bag she was carrying for the mask which would hide the features of her lover.
Margot also trembled with excitement.
‘If only we succeed!’ murmured Henriette for the sixth time through her chattering teeth.
‘Don’t say “If”, Henriette. We shall. We must. You must look distrait or it will be known as soon as we enter the castle that we are planning something of this sort. All is arranged. The horses stand ready saddled for the jailers. You have your jewels; I have mine. It is quite simple. I do not think this will be the first time men have walked out of their prisons in the dress of women. In less than an hour we shall be on our way.’ Margot talked continually, for she found it stemmed her own nervousness to talk. ‘Now, Henriette, there must be no delay in the dungeon. Immediately the door has closed on you, you must remove your cloak and top dress. It must not take more than a few minutes for you and Coconnas to be ready. We will meet outside the dungeons and walk quickly out of the castle. Oh, do not be foolish! Of course we shall do it. It is so simple.’
The coach had drawn up.
‘Now, Henriette, pull yourself together. Look sad. Remember you are going to see your lover for the last time . . . so they think . . . for tomorrow he is to be executed. Think how you would be feeling if it were not for our plan . . . and look like that. Look at me. Like this . . . you see? I declare I want to laugh aloud when I think how we are going to fool them all. Come, Henriette. Ready? All we need is courage and calm.’
The coachman held open the door for them. His face was grave. He had his orders: two ladies were leaving the coach; four would return, and no sooner were they inside than he was to gallop with all speed to a certain inn where fresh horses were waiting.
It was all carefully planned; and in the service of the Queen of Navarre one was called upon to do strange things.
It seemed very cold within the thick stone walls of the castle. The guards saluted the Queen and her friend with sombre gallantry. They knew of their relationship with the prisoners in the dungeons below, and in their romantic chivalry they shed a tear for the sorrowing ladies. There were many of them who would have been ready to risk punishment in order to allow the beautiful Queen and Duchess to say a last farewell to their condemned lovers. Gallic sympathy for all lovers showed itself in their eyes as they watched the heartbroken and charming ladies.
The door of the cell was opened by a silent jailer, who looked sadly at Margot. How frightened they all are! she thought. All except myself.
And as she stepped into the cell she felt nothing but the joy of the adventure and the sure hope of success; she felt that the suspense and misery of the last weeks were almost worthwhile, since through them she could enjoy this supreme moment, this intense pleasure of offering his life to her lover.
The door shut behind her.
‘My darling,’ whispered Margot. ‘My Hyacinth . . .’
Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light, and she could see what looked like a bundle on the floor.
‘Where are you? Where are you?’ she cried in alarm.
The bundle seemed to stir slightly. She went to it and knelt down.
‘My love . . . my darling . . .’ she muttered; and she drew back the rough blanket. There he lay, his face deathlike, his black curls damp on his forehead.
Margot cried in anguish: ‘What ails you? What has happened?’
In silence he gazed at her.
‘Oh, God!’ she whispered. ‘Blood . . . blood on the floor on the blanket . . . blood everywhere . . . his blood . . .’
With the utmost gentleness she lifted the blanket further; she cried out as she saw those broken bleeding legs and feet.
She understood. They had applied the Torture of the Boot; they had broken his beautiful limbs and he would never walk again. Her magnificent plan to save him had been foiled.
‘Oh, my darling,’ she cried, ‘what can I do? What can I do to help you!’
He was now aware of her, for she saw the faint smile on his lips.
He was murmuring something and she had to bend over him to catch his words. ‘You came . . .’ he said. ‘Dearest . . . that will suffice. It is all. I ask . . . You did not forget . . .’
She put her face against his and he tried to raise a hand to touch her, but the effort brought an agonized groan to his lips and the sweat to his forehead.
‘You must not move,’ she said. ‘Oh, my darling, what can I do? Why did I come too late?’
Again he spoke. ‘You came . . . That . . . is enough.’ The jailer came silently into the cell.
‘Madame, you must go. Oh, Madame, most deeply I regret. The order came, Madame, and there was nothing I could do to prevent its being carried out. There was nothing I could do . . . nothing
She nodded. ‘The order came,’ she repeated; and she seemed to see her mother’s smiling face. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘I understand.’
Henriette was waiting in the corridor; she was holding a kerchief to her eyes.
‘Annibale also?’ murmured Margot.
Henriette nodded.
And together they walked out to the coach. There was no need to act the part of two broken-hearted women who had said a last farewell to their lovers.
Before the Hôtel de Ville in the Place de Greve the crowd had assembled to see the execution of the two men who had conspired against the life of the King. This execution had attracted a good deal of attention because it was said that the two men who were to die had been great lovers—one the lover of no less a person than the Queen of Navarre, the other of another lady of quality, the Duchess of Nevers.
The crowd grumbled. It was the wicked Queen Mother who was responsible. All the ills and sorrows of France came through her. There had been books written about her. Some said she was jealous of her daughter, and that was why she had cruelly tortured Margot’s lover and had decided to destroy him. Nothing too bad could be said about the Queen Mother. At all public ceremonies other emotions gave way to hatred of her.
‘He made a waxen image of the King . .
‘Ah! It is time he was dead, that madman.’
‘Hush! You know not who listens. And what if he dies? Who follows? Our elegant gentleman from Poland? Little Alençon? They are a swarm of vipers.’
The sounds of tumbril wheels were heard and for a while silence descended upon the crowd.
Then someone whispered: ‘They say he has been cruelly tortured. It was the Boot. Both have been tortured . . . La Mole and Coconnas. They cannot walk to their execution.’
‘Poor gentlemen. Poor handsome gentlemen.’
‘How long shall we allow that woman to rule this land?’ But the tumbrils had stopped, and the two men were being carried to the scaffold.
The packed crowd watched; many among it wept openly. It seemed so cruel that these men should die for making a waxen image o
f one who was all but dead himself. Tortured as they had been, they still bore signs of handsome elegance.
The executioner signed to the men who carried La Mole to set him down on the scaffold.
‘Your time has come, Monsieur,’ he murmured.
‘I am ready,’ said La Mole. ‘Adieu, my darling,’ he whispered.
The executioner placed him where he wished him to be.
‘Have you anything more to say, Monsieur?’
‘Nothing, but that I ask you to commend me to the Queen of Navarre. Tell her, I beg of you, that her name was the last that passed my lips. Oh, Marguerite, my queen . . . my love . . .’
He laid his head on the block and waited for the deft blow of the executioner’s sword.
A deep sigh broke from the watching crowd.
It was the turn of Coconnas. First the brief and terrible silence, then the muttered words, the flash of the sword, and the head of Coconnas lay with that of his friend on the blood-stained straw.
Catherine was triumphant. There was now no doubt that the King was dying. He was no longer strong enough even to be carried about in a litter. He could not leave his bedchamber.
It was May month and the apartment was full of sunshine. Close to the King’s bed, the little Queen sat, pretending she had a cold that she might now and then furtively wipe away the tears which she could not suppress. Madeleine’s face was distorted with grief. Marie Touchet watched, pale and full of sorrow. These women who had guarded him knew that the end could not be far away.
Margot also watched, but Catherine guessed that her thoughts were not on the King. She was still, as Catherine put it to herself, ‘temporarily heartbroken’ over the La Mole affair. What a complex creature Margot was! The document she had recently drawn up in defence of her husband had astonished Catherine. She realized that her daughter was one of the cleverest people at the court. She had the brain of a lawyer, and Monsieur Paré said that had she wished she could have been the best of all his pupils. Her mind was lively, shrewd and cunning; she had the Medici mind; yet she had inherited many traits from her grandfather, Francis the First, and her sensuality was so dominant that it overshadowed other more noble characteristics She spent many hours at her writing desk; she was a dreamer and her imagination was so vivid that she must continually concoct adventures, when they did not occur in fact; and herself, whether in fact or fiction, must always play the heroine. She wrote her memoirs regularly, and these, Catherine knew, were highly coloured versions of what actually happened at the court, with Margot always portrayed as the central figure of romance and intrigue.
Watching her daughter now, she thought of how, after the execution of those young men, Margot had given orders that their heads were to be brought to her; and now she and that frivolous Henriette de Nevers had had the heads embalmed with sweet spices and fitted into extravagantly jewelled caskets, so that they could spend a good deal of time lavishing caresses on them, recalling past pleasures, curling the hair on those dead heads and weeping with bitter enjoyment. No, Margot was certainly not to be unduly feared while her sentimental nature was allowed to override her intelligence.
There was little to fear from Charles now. His son was dead, and his other child, being a girl, was no obstacle to Henry’s coming to the throne. Charles could not last many more hours. Alençon and Navarre were in semi-captivity; Montgomery and Cossé were to be removed at the first opportunity. Why should she delay? She slipped out of the death chamber to her own and sent for six of her most trusted men.
When they stood before her, she said to them: ‘Ride as fast as you can to Poland. The King is dead . . . or so near to death that one may call him so. Long live King Henry the Third!’
She smiled contentedly after they had gone. The great moment for which she had waited so long had arrived. Her darling Henry was about to be King.
But in the royal bedchamber the King was clinging to his life.
He cried weakly in the arms of Madeleine. ‘Oh, God,’ he murmured, ‘what blood! What murders! Oh, God . . . forgive me. Oh, God, have mercy on my soul. I know not where I am. Marie, Madeleine . . . do not leave me. Do not leave me for an instant. Tell me where I am.’
‘In my arms, my dearest,’ said Madeleine. ‘Safe in my arms:
Marie stood on the other side of the bed, and Charles took her hand.
‘What will become of this country?’ he said; his voice rose to a shriek and died away pitiably. ‘And what will become of me? It was in my hands that God placed the fate of this great country. There is nothing you can say to alter that.’
‘There, my darling, my Charlot,’ soothed Madeleine. ‘May the murders and the bloodshed be upon the heads of those, who compelled you to them. . . on your evil counsellors, Sire.’
Madeleine, looking up, met the cold eyes of Catherine fixed upon her; Catherine’s cold mouth smiled slightly. Charles was aware of his mother’s presence and held out his hand as though to ward her off.
‘Madame,’ he said, ‘I must trust you to look after my wife and daughter.’
‘Rest assured, my son, that they will be well cared for.’ ‘And Marie . . . and her son . .
‘You have provided for them, Charles. I promise you that no harm shall come to them.’
Catherine smiled on Marie, poor meek Marie. She had caused little trouble except in those last weeks when she, with Madeleine, had stubbornly refused to leave the King’s side. But that was forgotten now, for the King was dying and that was what Catherine was waiting for. It mattered very little whether he had died a few weeks ago or now; his death was all that mattered. Let Marie live in peace, then; she was not of sufficient importance to be considered. Charles had created her son Duke of Angoulême, so Marie—the provincial judge’s daughter—had nothing of which to complain.
‘I will look after your Queen and her little daughter. I will see that Marie and her son are cared for. Have no fear. These matters shall be attended to.’
He looked at her suspiciously and then asked that Navarre should be sent for.
Navarre was brought by guards, who waited for him outside the King’s bedchamber.
‘You plotted against me,’ said the King. ‘That was unkind. Yet I trust you . . . as I cannot trust my brothers. It is because of something plain about you . . . something that smacks of honesty. I am glad you came to say goodbye to me. I sent for you for a reason, but I cannot think what it was. There are enemies all about you. I know. You should be warned. There is one here whom you must not trust. I was warned, but I think the warning came too late for me. Mayhap it will not be too late for you. Do not trust . . .’ He turned his eyes on his mother, and stared at her as though unable to take them away. ‘Do not trust . . he began again. His lips were trembling, and Marie had to bend over him to wipe the foam from his mouth.
‘You tire yourself, my son,’ said Catherine.
‘No, I will say it. I will. It is the truth, and because it is the truth I must say it. Brother . . . Navarre . . . look after my Queen and my daughter. Look after Marie and her child. To you I leave the care of Madeleine. For you are the only one I dare trust. Promise me. Promise me.’
Navarre, whose tears came easily, wept without restraint. He kissed the King’s hand. ‘Sire, I swear. I will defend them with my life.’
‘I thank thee, brother. It is strange that you should be the one I trust . . . you, who have plotted against the crown. But trust you I do. Pray to God for me. Farewell, brother. Farewell.’ He looked at his mother and said: ‘I rejoice that I have no son to leave behind me who would have to wear the crown of France after me.’
He lay back in his bed after that speech; he was overcome by exhaustion.
He has spoken his last, thought Catherine. And now . . . that for which I have longed over so many dangerous and bitter years . . . that for which I have worked, schemed and killed . . . has now come to pass. My mad King Charles is dead, and my adored darling must now prepare to mount the throne.
THE KING OF POLAND WAS EXHAUSTED
. He lay back on his cushions while two of his favourite young men fanned him . . . du Guast, the best loved of them all, and that amusing fellow Villequier. Others sat close to his bed; one picking out the best of the sweetmeats; another admiring the set of his jacket in the Venetian mirror which the King had brought with him from France. The King smiled at them all. He was not really dissatisfied with his little kingdom. It was gratifying to be loved as his subjects loved him. He had only to appear in the streets to be surrounded by admirers who deemed it a privilege to look at him, for they had never seen anyone so magnificent as this painted, perfumed King. Sometimes he wore women’s clothes, and in these he looked more fantastic, more like a person apart from other men—which was what, his Polish subjects felt, a King should look like.
He had deteriorated a great deal since he had left France. He had lost even the slight energy he had possessed in his teens; he had become more selfish, more dependent on luxury. Now he feigned exhaustion because there were state duties which should be attended to. He loathed the meetings of his ministers; their councils bored him. He continually assured them that they could hold their gatherings without him. They must understand, he pointed out, that he was of gentle breeding and came from the fair and civilized land of France, from the most intellectual court in the world. He was no barbarian. He must have music to soothe him, not council meetings to plague him; he must listen to the reading of poetry which delighted him, not the harangues of politicians which tired him.
Count Tenczynski, his chief minister, was bowing before him, overcome with delight by the sweet perfumes and the sensuous décor of the King’s apartments, admiring, as all his fellow countrymen did, this air of luxury and civilization which French Henry had brought into their land.
‘And so, my dear Tenczynski,’ said the King, ‘I am weary. You must conduct your politics without me.’ He turned towards the gentleman who was eating sweetmeats. ‘One for me, dear fellow,’ he said. ‘You greedy creature, would you eat them all yourself?’
