by Jean Plaidy
In horror, Navarre confronted Margot.
You are exposed, Madame,’ he said.
‘How so?’
‘Your evil plans concerning me are known.’
‘I know of no evil plans: She was genuinely surprised, being quite innocent of the charge. She was no crafty poisoner; all her sins were committed impetuously. Moreover she was always most furious when she was falsely accused, and when she heard from her husband of what Ferrand had said against her, her rage broke forth.
‘How dare he suggest such a thing! It is cruel; it is folly.’ ‘You are in communication with your mother, are you not?’ ‘Why should I not be?’
‘She has declared herself in favour of the Cardinal’s succession.’
‘What a fool you are! She is in favour of my succession, and that must be yours. And you are foolish enough to think I would poison you!’
‘You are your mother’s daughter.’
‘I am my father’s daughter also. I do not love you; that would be impossible. But I realize my position rests with yours. Do not be such a fool as to believe the confession of a man, made under torture. You will have to be shrewder than that if you are ever going to win what is yours by right.’
‘Your mother is in constant council with Guise. To my mind, he is the one who, backed by the League, is going to make a bid for the throne.’
Margot smiled faintly. Yes, she thought; and if all had gone as I once wished it to, I should be with him now.
She thought of him—tall, spare and handsome still; more noble now, more distinguished, some said, than he had been even in ‘the fresh beauty of his youth. There was a yearning within her, a longing for Paris, for a different life, to go back and act differently. Marriage with the man who now stood before her had been inevitable; but there had been an occasion later when she had had a chance to break away from him. She had refused it in her blind and stupid pride.
‘You,’ she said at length, ‘have suspected me of trying to bring about your death, and I find that hard to forgive. I am tired of your court. I am tired of your people. I do not like your mistress, who is the real Queen of Navarre; and that is something I cannot happily endure. I would like to leave Nérac for a while.’
‘You shall not go to Paris,’ he said.
‘I was not thinking of Paris. During the Lenten season a great Jesuit father is to preach at the cathedral at Agen. May I have your permission to make the journey there?’
He hesitated. It would be a relief to be rid of her. How did he know what secrets had been in those documents which she sent to Paris? How could he be sure that,- however closely she was watched, she would not smuggle out important information? If she went, he could see that she was well guarded.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Go to Agen for the Lenten season. I will give my consent.’
She was happy now. She thought: once I have left him, I will never return to him. Why should I tolerate a husband who scorns me—me, the daughter of France, the sun of the court of Paris, the most beautiful of Princesses . . . when he is nothing but a provincial oaf!
But why concern herself with a man who meant little to her? Her thoughts were of another—that man whom she firmly believed would be King of France, for he was surely destined for greatness; the gods had fashioned him for it.
Margot was now deep in intrigue such as she loved. She would hold the town of Agen for the Catholic League. She would show France and Henry of Guise whose side she was on.
Catherine saw clearly for what Henry of Guise had been working all these years. He had decided not to depend entirely on his popularity. Rumour was circulated throughout the country that the Guises had been proved to have a stronger claim to the throne than had the Valois; and although these rumours did not appear to spring from Henry of Guise, Catherine knew that he was behind them.
It was said that ‘The line of Capets had succeeded to the temporal administration of the kingdom of Charlemagne but it had not succeeded to the apostolic benediction which appertained to none other but the posterity of Charlemagne. The House of Lorraine sprang from the issue of Charlemagne, and as certain members of the line of Capet were possessed of a spirit of giddiness and stupidity while others were heretic and excommunicated, it was now time to restore the crown to its new heirs . . .’
This was ominous. So he would be King, not by popular acclaim only, but by right. That was typical of Guise, she was beginning to understand. He must be King not only because the people wished it, but because he was heir to the throne. As an aristocrat of aristocrats, he worshipped law and order; and mob rule nauseated him.
Catherine was disturbed to realize that this was not only being said throughout France, but that Cardinal Pellevé, a firm supporter of the League, had given his approval of it, and that it was being submitted to Rome and Spain. She knew that she had not been wrong when she had guessed that Guise and his supporters had no intention of allowing the Cardinal of Bourbon to rule.
She sought out Guise at once.
‘There is much in this account of the House of Lorraine’s being descended from Charlemagne,’ she said. ‘You know of what I speak, of course?’
The Duke admitted that he had heard the rumours.
‘My lord Duke, it seems to me that there is one course we must take. If it is true that the Capets have forfeited their right to the throne, then the Cardinal of Bourbon has no right.°
‘That is so,’ admitted Guise; but apart from the brightness of his eye above the scar he showed no sign of emotion.
‘The House of Lorraine,’ she said slowly, ‘according to this new authority should be the rulers of France. There will be some to agree with that, and some to dispute it.’
‘There are always some who are for us and some who are against us, Madame.’
‘And it is wise in some cases to placate both sides. Do you agree?’
He indicated his agreement, wondering what suggestion she was going to offer. He was certain that it concerned Margot. Divorce for him; divorce for Margot; and that marriage, which had been proposed before, could take place.
Catherine understood his line of thought and let him pursue it. Then she spoke. ‘I was thinking of the son of my dear daughter Claude, a boy whose parents were a Duke of Lorraine and a daughter of Valois. What could be more suitable? The supporters of my House would be pleased; the supporters of yours should be pleased.’
In his astonishment, he was silent for a second or two before he regained his composure. ‘Madame,’ he said, ‘that is a most excellent proposition.’
They smiled at each other; but she knew that he intended that no man should mount the throne of France after the death of Henry the Third but Henry of Guise; and he knew that she knew it.
Events were moving fast in the lives of the three Henrys of France—Henry the Third, Henry of Guise, and Henry, King of Navarre.
Guise was growing daily more powerful. The Treaty of Joinville, which Guise and the leading Catholics of France had made with Philip of Spain, was followed by Philip’s promise of troops and money for the cause to which Guise had pledged himself—the defence of the faith, the wiping out of heretics, and the disinheriting of Henry of Navarre. The League was everywhere; all over France it had sprung up in small groups to work not only against the Huguenots, but against the throne, Guise was now in control of a great army, one section of which was commanded by himself, the other by his brother, the Duke of Mayenne. The Pope, however, was now suspecting that the League had not been formed so much for the sake of Catholicism as for the elevation and advancement of the House of Guise and Lorraine. He foresaw that the arrogant man who was making a bid to rule France would be no humble vassal of Rome and Spain, for he had already announced that high offices of the Church should be appointed by the League and not as hitherto by Rome. The Pope was watchful; it might be that the pleasure-loving King would be easier to handle than the warlike Guise.
Catherine, eagerly watching, had, as she had planned, walked step by step with Guise. Th
e League was now putting forward demands which the King must either concede or refuse; and if he refused, he would have to face the mighty army of the League. The King was angry at being bothered, for he was in the midst of a delightful carnival. He wanted peace in which to enjoy himself. So he allowed Catherine to treat with Guise. The King was to force all his subjects to accept the Catholic Faith, and those towns which had been given to the Huguenots were to be taken from them and given to the League.
Catherine toyed with the idea of playing Navarre off against Guise, in accordance with her well-tried policy, but she decided that Guise was her man. The Catholics were in the ascendant, and if Philip of Spain sent the help he had promised Guise, Navarre’s case was hopeless.
She flattered the Duke and tried to convince him that she was his ally, while between them they kept up the fiction that her grandson should be King of France if the present King should die.
‘I am old,’ she told Guise. ‘I am weary. I have worked hard in my long life and I now have need of peace. You, my dear Duke, are as a son to me; you are my helper, my counsellor.’
She was seen walking with him, arm in arm; and when she referred to him it was affectionately as ‘le baton de ma vieillesse’.
Navarre watched from afar, gathering his followers, waiting for the moment when he would ask them to prove their allegiance. Meanwhile, the familiar clouds of civil war were gathering over the land.
Margot, her husband was relieved to contemplate, had been separated from him for some time. She had acted’ with her usual careless impetuosity at Agen. She had settled in at the château there and declared that she had come to hold the town for the League. The townsfolk had been sympathetic at first; they had been enchanted by her vivacity and her dark beauty; they had seen in her a romantic Princess fleeing from the husband to whom she had been married against her will, the husband who had a faith different from her own. But very soon scandalous stories of the happenings inside the castle seeped out. It was said that there were scenes of unparalleled immorality between Margot and certain gentlemen of the castle; and that her women were no better than she was. The people of Agen did not wish to be ‘protected’, as Margot called it, by such an immoral woman; they now began to believe the stories which for so long had been circulating about her. They became threatening, and in the end Margot had been forced to leave Agen, fleeing as her brother had fled from Poland—in a manner more dramatic than was necessary. She had ridden pillion with her lover of the moment, the Lord of Lignerac; and her women had followed in the same manner on the horses of the officers of her court. Lignerac had taken her to his castle in the mountains of Auvergne and kept her there as his prisoner, so enamoured of her was he, so distrustful of her fidelity. There the troublesome prisoner was forced to stay, although it was said that she was making attempts to evade the old lover with the help of several new ones.
Navarre could smile at the exploits of Margot; but his own life was too exciting just now for him to think very much about her. He knew that in the civil war which seemed inevitable, Guise and the King of France would be uneasy allies; and that he would be the opponent of both of them. He knew that he would be faced by a formidable force, so he asked that, rather than plunge the country into another war, Guise should meet him in single combat, or, if it was preferred, with ten men aside, or twenty—the number could be decided on.
‘It would give me great happiness, he wrote, ‘to deliver at the price of my blood, the King our sovereign lord from the travails and trials a-brewing for him, and his kingdom from trouble and confusion, his noblesse from ruin, and all his people from misery.’
The Duke of Guise replied that he must decline the honour while appreciating it; had this been a private quarrel between them, then gladly would he have accepted Navarre’s proposal; but it was no private quarrel; theirs was the cause of the true religion against the false. It could not be settled by two men’s fighting together or even by ten or twenty on each side.
Navarre now knew that war was inevitable; and within a very short time after he had made his offer and Guise had replied to it, the War of the Three Henrys had begun.
It was called The War of the Three Henrys, although one of these Henrys, the King of France, wished to have nothing to do with it. He was more furious when he heard of Guise’s successes than when he heard of those of Navarre; he was piqued and jealous on account of Guise’s. He was a strange creature, this King of France; in his early years he had been by no means stupid, but his love of his mignons and all those young men stood for had blighted that intellect which had undoubtedly been his. It emerged occasionally when he addressed the council meetings; there he could show by a sharpness of wit that he was a man who had profited from his reading of the greatest books of his age; but the determination to pursue pleasure at all costs, his great vanity concerning his personal appearance, the dominance of those worthless young men whose elegance, beauty and charm had won him—together these things had almost succeeded in suppressing the intellectual side of his character. But he still had enough sense to realize that in this war of the Henrys, it was his ally, Henry of Guise, of whom he must be wary—far more wary than of his enemy, Henry of Navarre.
Guise was fighting in the north against the Germans and the Swiss who had come in to help the Huguenots, and news came of the tremendous victory he had scored over these foreign troops. He had surprised the Germans while they were sleeping and so demoralized them that before they were able to collect themselves together, there was no German army. At this the Swiss took fright and were bribed to withdraw. News of this great victory was brought to the King. But it was a Guise victory; it was not even called a King’s victory.
In the south events did not turn out so happily for the King’s forces. Against the advice of Guise and his mother, the King had given the command of the southern army to Joyeuse, who, having been a successful mignon and bridegroom, now wished to make his name as a soldier. He had cajoled and wept when asking for the command of the army; and he had looked so charming a suppliant that the King had been unable to refuse him. And so, with six thousand foot, two thousand horse and six pieces of cannon, Joyeuse marched into the Gironde country to meet the little army at the head of which was the King of Navarre.
There were members of that tiny Huguenot force who trembled at the thought of the mighty army which had come to attack them; but when Henry of Navarre heard who was at their head he laughed aloud.
Before his men went into battle, he addressed them in his coarse Béarnais fashion, which, though it might offend the ears of elegant ladies, put great heart into soldiers about to go into battle.
‘My friends, here is a quarry different from your past prizes. It is a brand-new bridegroom with his marriage-money still in his coffers. Will you let yourselves go down before this handsome dancing-master and his minions? No! They are ours. I see it by your eagerness to fight.’
He looked about him at the glowing faces of the men touched by the faint dawn-light. His shrewd eyes twinkled. They would beat the dancing-master no matter how many cannon he had against their two, no matter if he had five hundred men to twenty of themselves.
Now for that little touch of spirituality which, he was aware, was so necessary to men such as these before they went into battle.
‘My friends,’ he resumed, ‘all events are in the hands of God. Let us sing the twenty-fourth verse of the one hundred and fifteenth psalm.’
Their voices rose on the morning air: ‘This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.’
The sun now appeared above the horizon and, before it was high in the sky, Navarre, at the cost of twenty-five men had inflicted a loss of three thousand on the enemy.
Joyeuse, bewildered, found himself surrounded by Huguenots, and saw that they recognized him. Fresh from the court, he believed his, beauty must appeal to these men as it had to others; but these warriors saw no handsome mignon; they saw their enemy, a sinner from the cities of the plain who had led
the King into extravagance and folly.
Joyeuse in horror cried out: ‘Gentlemen, you must not kill me! You could take me and demand a reward of a hundred thousand crowns. The King would pay it. I assure you that he would.’
There was a second’s pause, and then the shot rang out. Joyeuse opened his beautiful eyes in astonishment before he fell bleeding to the ground.
This was the greatest victory that the Huguenots had ever won, and all knew that they owed it to that quality in their leader which almost amounted to genius. The King’s army had been a mighty one, and even though it had been under the command of Joyeuse, would, but for Navarre, have gained the victory. The careless philanderer could throw off his laziness after all; he was a great soldier; the careless joker was, after all, a great King.
It was a fact that the character of the King of Navarre had been gradually undergoing a change for some time. There were occasions when he was a great leader, but almost immediately afterwards he would revert to the man they all knew so well. He was a man of contrasts, of a strange and complex nature. The rough Béarnais with his coarse, crude manners hated to see suffering; it affected him more deeply than it did most people of his time; and yet the emotion of horror and pity which it aroused in him were so fleeting that they would pass if he did not act at once. Now these feelings came to him as he surveyed the carnage of that battlefield, and it robbed him of his feeling of triumph. His men rejoiced while he mourned for the slain. He was a great soldier who hated war; he was a coarse and careless man, fond of horseplay and discomfiting his enemies, who in a moment could change to one far in advance of his time to whom cruelty and suffering could be utterly distasteful. He had little relish now for the conqueror’s feast which was prepared for him; he commanded that the fallen men should be treated with respect, and that everything possible should be done for the relief of the wounded.
