FOURTEEN

HENRI III, KING OF FRANCE

There is no country in the world to equal this kingdom

1574–76

Once Catherine had composed herself after Charles IX’s death she despatched one of her trusted officers, M. de Chemerault, with a letter to Henri in Poland telling him that he was now King of France. The next day a second courier followed de Chemerault – taking a different route – bearing a longer letter in which she expressed her sorrow at witnessing yet another of her children die: ‘I beg the Almighty to send me death rather than see this again. … Such was his love for me at the very end, not wishing to leave me and begging me to send for you without delay, he asked me to take charge of the kingdom until your arrival and to punish the prisoners whom he knew to be the cause of the troubles in the realm. After this he bade me farewell and asked me to kiss him, which almost broke my heart.’¹

She described the scene of Charles’s last few hours in which he called his senior advisers and royal bodyguards, commanding first that they obey his mother and then that they serve their new King. In her grief and with her customary ability to gloss over any unpleasant realities, she added that he spoke of the re-established loyalty expressed by Alençon and Navarre towards himself. Even more improbably, she wrote that the late King had recalled Henri’s ‘goodness and that you had always loved and obeyed him, serving him faithfully and had never given him any cause for grief. … His last words were “Eh ma mère”. My only consolation is to see you here soon in good health as your kingdom needs you, for if I were to lose you, I would have myself buried alive.’² She also urged him to take the safest route back to France via the Habsburg Empire and Italy.

Catherine counselled extreme caution in the manner of Henri’s leaving Poland. ‘As for your departure, do not allow any delays of any sort.’ Warning him to beware of attempts by his northern subjects to detain him, she suggested that he leave a Frenchman to take charge of the affairs of Poland until his younger brother could be sent out, or that the Poles elect a leader from among themselves and rule their own country, supervised and aided in all things by a French commissioner. Later, perhaps, Henri could send his own second son to be their King. France had paid a hefty price for the Polish throne and Catherine felt loath simply to give it up. She imagined that the Poles would be more than content with this solution, ‘for they would be kings themselves’. In fact, though his subjects would in theory have welcomed the departure of Henri himself, they were not prepared to lose a king who brought the prestige and benefits that came with close connection to a Continental superpower. Clearly some serious and prolonged negotiations would have to take place before Henri would be allowed to leave Poland.

The last part of the Queen Mother’s letter was the counsel of a wise stateswoman. She implored her son to show impartiality to his entourage. Above all, she urged him not to start handing out posts and positions, favours and benefices, at least until he arrived in France. Only then could he be fully advised by her of the loyalty and good services he had received from those at home as well as those who had stayed with him during his Polish sojourn. Together, she wrote, they would go through the lists of the most deserving and able of his subjects and distribute posts, offices and rewards accordingly. She promised that nothing would be done before his arrival and that she would

keep all benefices and offices that will fall vacant. We shall tax them, as there is not an écu left to do all the things you need to do to maintain your kingdom.… The late King your brother charged me with the conservation of the realm and I will not fail you. I will do all that I can to hand it over to you united and at peace … to permit you some little pleasure after all the trouble and difficulties you have endured.… The experience you have acquired from your voyage is such that I am sure there has never been a king as wise as you … I have had nothing but worry upon worry since you left: thus I believe that your return will bring me joy and contentment upon contentment and that I will no longer suffer from trouble or annoyance. I pray to God that it will be so and that I shall see you in good health and soon.³

Now the Queen Mother busied herself with a general ‘house cleaning’ for the new King’s return. Having sent the letters to her son and, with the help of the banker Giovanni Battiste Gondi, borrowed 100,000 écus for Henri’s journey to France, Catherine took the precaution of leaving Vincennes almost immediately after Charles’s death. She moved into the Louvre where, for her personal security, she had all the entrances walled up except one. Some unfinished personal business of the Queen Mother’s was dealt with summarily – the execution of the unfortunate regicide-turned-rebel Gabriel de Montgomery, who was decapitated and then écartelé (quartered). Her relentless pursuit of the man who had inadvertently killed her husband is one of the very few instances in which Catherine, despite her later reputation, sought vengeance.

Navarre and Alençon were prompt in their official ratification of Catherine’s regency, published on 3 June 1574. She also ensured that the traditional forty-day lying-in-state and forthcoming funeral of her son would be every bit as splendid as that of Francis I. Catherine next focused her attention on buying a two-month truce – at a cost of 70,000 livres – with the Rochellais and the Protestant leader La Noue in Poitou, by which time she believed Henri would be back and be able to decide for himself how best to deal with the rebellious heretics. François de Montmorency and Marshal de Cossé were meanwhile left in the Bastille to await His Majesty’s pleasure.

The news of his accession to the French throne reached Henri at around eleven o’clock on the morning of 15 June by a messenger from the Emperor who, despite the guards at the King’s door, insisted on seeing Henri at once. After a tremendous commotion he succeeded in relaying the information to His Majesty. He arrived one hour before M. de Chemerault, despite the latter’s record-breaking time covering the 800 miles from Paris to Cracow in sixteen days. During the month before Charles’s death, Henri had received reports of his brother’s desperate decline and imminent demise. While he expected the news, typically he had formed no real plans for action when it finally did come. The only preparation he had made had been an attempt to seduce the Poles into believing that he was finally settling in and adopting the ways of his new country. He no longer hid away in his rooms claiming ill-health, and had stopped looking obviously moody and homesick. During his time in Poland he had – in order to escape from close contact with his people – built up a barrier of etiquette that separated him from them. This had only increased their desire to see him and made him seem yet more remote and regal. Now when he appeared before his subjects he was animated and charming. He took to wearing Polish dress and even learned some of their traditional dances. Eschewing wine, he affected an enthusiastic preference for beer – though in fact he did not like alcohol at all.

By mid-April the nobles began to warm to their King. One matter which had caused great affront to the whole country since his arrival was Henri’s obstinate reluctance to show any interest in his intended bride – the forty-eight-year-old spinster, Princess Anna Jagellona. To her great disappointment he had hitherto managed to avoid her and they had only met at official functions. Knowing that his days in Poland were numbered, he felt that he would do well to pay court to the eager lady in an effort to lull his ‘captors’ (for this is how he viewed them) into believing in his transformation from French prince to Polish King. For Henri was Florentine to his fingertips when it came to deception.

When the news of Charles’s death became public it caused great consternation in Cracow. Henri – calm and self-possessed – announced that a Diet must be called for September and that he would hand the government of France over to the Queen Mother while the Polish assembly deliberated upon how to proceed. Poland’s interests must come first, cooed Henri reassuringly; France was, after all, in his mother’s safe and experienced hands. The King appeared remarkably serene and though the less trusting nobles determined to keep a close eye on him, it was generally believed that he would behave honourably.

Beneath the tranquil surface, however, the King and his suite were making frantic preparations to get away as fast as possible from this detested country. They decided that the night of Friday, 18 June would be the ideal moment for escape. Three days before, Pomponne de Bellièvre, France’s ambassador to Poland, took his official leave of the King since his mission had officially ended with the death of Charles IX. But Bellièvre had a secret mission: to go ahead and prepare the getaway route for Henri, supplying fresh horses at the various relays and stops, as well as other necessities for their flight. On the 18th itself, de Chemerault received a summons from the King who gave him letters for Catherine, with the urgent instruction to take them to her as soon as possible. He was given leave to depart immediately. All this took place in front of the council and seemed innocuous enough. De Chemerault was not, however, returning to France but had been instructed to meet Henri at a small ruined chapel later that same night, in a hamlet outside Cracow. He would act as a guide for the King and his suite of fellow escapees, leading them to Poland’s borders with the Empire.

The whole plan suddenly risked being exposed by the incompetence of René de Villequier, Master of the King’s Household, who had been spotted with a large baggage train of mules quite clearly headed away from Cracow. Now the people’s suspicions were alerted, and Henri exploded with rage and berated the dunderhead Villequier. An already risky escape had just become yet more hazardous. The train contained jewels and other valuables not only belonging to Henri but also to the Crown of Poland. Much as he prized these things, he valued his life more and did not rate his chances against a mob of angry Poles if his escape plan failed. A great buzz went around that the King secretly planned to leave and Count Tenczin, his Polish Chamberlain, approached him in some dismay declaring that ‘the city and senate deplored the King’s intended departure’. Smoothly came the reply: ‘A man of comprehension like yourself will easily perceive that it is not my intention to depart. My nobles know what I resolve upon in council in their presence. As for the populace, it is better to leave this their reverie uncontradicted! I care little for the rumour, but much for my own reputation.’⁴

Although Henri’s calm had convinced Tenczin, by that evening there remained a great commotion that the King was indeed plotting his departure. The Chamberlain came to tell Henri that orders had been given by the Senate to place guards around the palace. Had there been no plan the King would have manifested his outrage at this presumption; instead he remained as cool as ever and suggested that not only should the Senate have guards at the palace entrances, but that he himself would like to help ‘tranquillise my good subjects and retire to bed in the presence of you all; then when you have seen me sound asleep, this panic may perhaps subside’. Supper was a merry affair that night with the King, in high spirits, at his witty best. Finally he retired to his chamber and, when left alone, as was the custom, with his Chamberlain at the foot of his bed, his curtains were drawn and Henri pretended to fall asleep. After some time Tenczin emerged from the King’s room to say that His Majesty was indeed sleeping. In rooms next to Henri’s those planning to leave with him had quietly been making their preparations. As soon as Henri judged it safe, he joined his companions.

The large treasure box fixed to His Majesty’s bed was emptied and, aside from taking his own jewels away with him, Henri and his favourites stuffed their pockets with Polish gems, including pearls, diamonds and other jewels. These could come in handy if they needed to bribe their way through the hostile terrain ahead. To their intense consternation it transpired that all the palace doors and gates had been locked, though by chance they found that a small passage from the kitchens remained open and unguarded. After several near discoveries and various diversionary tactics, the party made their way out of the palace and arrived at the chapel beyond Cracow that served as their rendezvous.

Some of the King’s suite had left the palace earlier, pretending to the guards that they were off on romantic assignations, but neither they nor de Chemerault could be found when Henri arrived at the chapel. Fortunately the horses for their flight were tethered there and after waiting for some time they all agreed that the King could tarry no longer, since his absence would not go unnoticed for long. As they set off, some of his gentlemen did indeed appear, but Villequier, Pibrac, de Chemerault and the others were still nowhere in sight. Without de Chemerault, none of the party knew the route, nor could they speak the language, but undeterred by these obstacles they rode off into the darkness. After getting lost in a forest and having their progress slowed by bog underfoot, the party managed to get to Osświecim at about midday, where to Henri’s delight he found his favourites, Pibrac, Villequier, Quelus and the others, waiting anxiously for him. De Chemerault was also with them. It transpired that despite missing the rendezvous at the chapel they had managed to find their way to Osświecim with little trouble.

Meanwhile the King’s flight and the missing jewels and valuables had been discovered. The alarm was raised in Cracow and a furious cry of ‘Capture the perjured deserter!’ rang in the ears of the Tartar cavalry troop immediately despatched to seize Henri and bring him back to face his furious subjects. Many of them had decided to join the troops and armed themselves with such basic weapons as stones, sticks and spears.

When the exhausted party spotted the pursuing troops on horseback on the distant horizon, they spurred their horses on and at last crossed the tiny bridge made of planks that spanned the Vistula, getting them safely out of Poland and into Pless, in Silesia. They destroyed the bridge by throwing the planks into the water and were thus saved from the furious soldiers and huge mob that had gathered to drag their sovereign back in shame to face justice or worse. At Pless, Bellièvre awaited Henri and although they were supposed to be travelling incognito their pretence fooled no one, especially thanks to the ecstatic greeting that Bellièvre gave his King. The governor of Pless urgently advised Henri to proceed with his journey as he had no wish to become embroiled in a war over His Majesty’s person. With that the party set off again as quickly as they could and were soon in Vienna, having been met by an advance party of two of the Emperor’s sons, Mathias and Maximilian.

Henri received a warm greeting from Maximilian II, the Empress Maria and a large enthusiastic crowd. His former antagonist over the election for the Polish throne, the Emperor was now the personification of a gracious host to the young King who – in the sixteenth-century manner between older and younger sovereigns – he called both son and brother. It had been a risky and narrow escape, and despite its lack of dignity, let alone majesty, Henri now found himself a free man. He wrote to his worried mother assuring her ‘I am your son and have always obeyed you, and I resolve to devote myself more to you than ever before. … France and you are worth more than Poland. I shall always remain your devoted servant.’⁵

At the Imperial capital Henri found the money his mother had sent for his homeward journey, as well as several letters from her. Maximilian spoke to the King of the difficulties between those of the new religion and the Catholics in France, and advised his guest that when he returned he should show tolerance wherever possible and allow both religions to be practised in peace. He pointed out that this moderate approach had been a success within his own Empire and that the Lutheran princes coexisted in concord with the Catholic states. The Emperor harboured a secret hope that his widowed daughter, the Dowager Queen Elisabeth of France, might marry Henri, but the new King had his own views on the matter. He had only one bride in mind for himself and she was Marie de Clèves, the wife of his fugitive relative Condé, but this information he kept to himself.

During his stay in the Imperial capital Henri recovered from his alarming journey and appeared to be in generally good health, except for the usual trouble with the fistula on his eye and the abscess under his arm. The appearance of a new sore on his foot gave cause for concern too, especially when this stubbornly refused to heal even after applying a revolutionary new treatment to the problem. The diseased foot was placed into the throat of a newly bled bull, but despite optimistic predictions this innovative remedy proved a disappointment.

After the fugitive-like departure from Poland, Henri now showed that he could carry himself like a king and he seduced the Viennese people who were sorry to see him leave. On 11 July 1574 he arrived in the Venetian state, where he was welcomed with the gift of a golden coach and a guard of 3000 men, as cheering crowds now followed him on his route. Their number swelled as the journey progressed from village to village. They were so great that in one town, anxious to get a glimpse of the King passing in his golden carriage, the son of a senator stole the place of another man who, in the ensuing squabble, was stabbed to death.

At last Henri reached the edge of the lagoon where three gorgeously upholstered gondolas each in a different colour awaited him. Henri chose the one covered in gold brocade and the gondoliers, dressed in his livery of yellow with blue piping, helped him aboard. Setting off, he found himself surrounded by an accompanying fleet of 2000 vessels, and as a mark of honour the young nobles of the city created a half-moon of forty gondolas decorated in black velvet to sail around Henri’s own. After a short while he stood up on the roof of his gondola so that the cheering crowds could catch a glimpse of him. Until late that night, Henri toured the city’s canals and asked eager questions about the various Palazzi and churches they passed. On 18 July, after hearing Mass, he made his official entrée seated beside the Doge Mocenigo aboard the most magnificent ship he had ever seen. The purple mainsail billowed to show the emblem of the Lion of St Mark as 350 slaves rowed them across to the Lido where they dropped anchor. After hearing a Te Deum at St Nicholas, Henri took up residence at the Palazzo Foscari on the Grand Canal.

The following nine days spent in the city were probably the happiest and most carefree of Henri’s life. More Italian than French by nature, the innovations and artistic beauty that he found wherever he looked enthralled him. He went to pay his respects to the eighty-seven-year-old Titian and sat for Tintoretto. Nor did he resist buying the gorgeous items thrust before him by eager merchants and craftsmen. Fortunately Catherine had sent him a sum of 30,000 écus for his enjoyment of Venice and he added to this by borrowing a further 10,000 on his own account. His Polish treasure was for the most part squandered in an orgy of giving and spending. Like his mother, Henri was not only extravagant of nature but also extremely generous, handing diamonds, jewels and other precious items – including cash – to those who pleased and entertained him. He had never felt so happy and he wanted to show his gratitude for this rare moment of unalloyed joy. Many were able to retire for life after his visit.

Acquiring beautiful things by day, he even managed to spend 1000 écus on perfume alone. The glass blowers of Murano set up their gondolas outside his Palazzo on the Grand Canal and he watched fascinated as they fashioned their fabulous creations for him. Having visited all manner of other artisans for whom Venice is famed, by night Henri attended balls and banquets where he was fêted and adored. The twenty-three-year-old King shone in a way that he never had before, and never would again. Late at night the Duke of Ferrara, who with the Duke of Nevers had met Henri at Venice, took him out of the Palazzo by a secret passage to explore the city’s other delights, and Henri would return just before dawn, in rapture. He wished his mother could have been in Venice, saying, ‘If only the Queen my mother were here to take part in the honour which is paid me and which I owe to her alone.’ Having uttered these worthy sentiments he did not, however, find time to write to her even once from his personal paradise.

On 27 July, when his departure could be put off no longer, Henri bade farewell to the city, inspired by the art and beauty and civilised living that he had experienced there. Indeed, he returned to France with many innovations and ideas for refining and embellishing his Court. He left, having spent a sum of 43,000 écus and incurred debts of a further 19,000, not including all the treasure and gems that he brought back from Poland and had distributed so indiscriminately around him. He had been a veritable one-man fillip to the economic life of Venice.

The Duke of Savoy had, at Catherine’s request, travelled to Venice and joined her son’s party there. Henri felt pleased to see his uncle and they spent much of his time in the city together. Emmanuel-Philibert’s duchy formed part of the route home for the young King and that clever statesman, seeing that Henri was still untested politically, as well as in a semi-permanent state of ecstasy, decided he would press his own agenda, waiting only for a propitious moment. Their journey to France took Henri through Padua, Ferrara and on to Mantua. At each stop he received increasingly frantic letters from his mother enquiring as to her son’s progress and urging him to return as the turbulent political situation in France worsened.⁶ Ignoring his mother’s desperate appeals, Henri stayed for twelve days in Savoy with his aunt and uncle.⁷ It was now that Emmanuel-Philibert asked Henri to hand back to Savoy the last remaining towns held by France in Piedmont. Still enjoying his flush of happiness, the King declared that as a mark of friendship and goodwill he would indeed return Pinerolo, Savigliano and Peruza.⁸

Strictly speaking, this had been agreed in the 1559 Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, but Henri’s gesture proved extremely unpopular, not only with his immediate circle of courtiers (one of whom – the Duke of Nevers – was governor of French territories in Italy) but also with the people of France generally. Although this had been precisely the sort of decision that Catherine had implored her son not to make, advising him to leave all major decisions until he had returned, she put a good face on the situation and ignored the indignant protests from the royal councillors. In return for supporting Henri’s territorial promise, Catherine received 4000 troops from Savoy which she would need in her struggle to put down the rebels.

Catherine travelled from Paris to meet her son just outside Lyons. Sitting beside her in her personal coach were Alençon and Navarre. Like two naughty children, she kept them close by at all times. She had left Paris with many worries but soon forgot them when – at last – on 5 September she embraced her beloved Henri at Bourgoin, who knelt and kissed her hand. Both wept as they were finally reunited. Exhilarated, as he crossed the border into France, he had uttered the words, ‘There is no country in the world to equal this kingdom.’ After greeting her son she turned to his brother, Alençon, and to Henri of Navarre. Presenting the two young men to the King she said, ‘Sire, deign to receive these two prisoners, whom I now resign to Your Majesty’s pleasure. I have informed you of their caprices and misdemeanours. It is for Your Majesty to decree their fate.’ Henri held out his hand to his brother who kissed it, then he greeted Navarre pleasantly and embraced both men. Alençon, who never knew a good thing until it was too late, could be heard trying to justify his treachery into the King’s shoulder, but Henri merely smiled and said, ‘Be it so, mes frères; the past is forgotten. I restore you both to liberty, and ask only in return that you will give me your love and fealty. If you cannot love me, love yourselves sufficiently to abstain from plots and intrigues which cannot but harm you and which are unworthy of the dignity of your birth.’⁹ It was a noble attempt to start a reign in amity and magnanimity.

Similarly Margot approached her brother to welcome him. In her memoirs she recalls that he stared fixedly at her. He had been kept abreast of her involvement in the plots of her brother and husband. Nevertheless he enfolded her in his arms and complimented her on her beauty. Margot, having had more than her share of intimate embraces from Henri, wrote, ‘When the King clasped me to him I shivered and trembled from head to foot, the which emotion I had the greatest difficulty to conceal.’ The following day at Lyons he made his official entry into the city and at his special request he seated Catherine beside him; he wished to honour her for the monumental struggle she had faced keeping his kingdom intact. Later that day he called his first council meeting.

Catherine was fifty-five years old when her favourite child ascended the throne that she had so jealously guarded for her sons. In sixteenth-century terms she was already in advanced old age. She was certainly overweight, though she did not drink alcohol. Her capacity for rich foods in remarkable quantities astonished everyone, and once or twice she nearly died from the subsequent indigestion and havoc that it caused her system. Nevertheless, she remained as spry and alert as ever. She continued to ride into her sixtiesand still loved the chase – though she had taken several serious falls over the years – and she remained an excellent shot. Her more feminine interests and pursuits were also still in evidence. An outstanding needlewoman, as Brantôme noted, she often spent her time after dinner in her circle of ladies ‘engaged on her silkwork in which she was unsurpassed’.

Catherine remained open to and intrigued by new ideas, inventions and innovations, her mind eager and enquiring. When tobacco arrived from the New World she was presented with a sample in 1560 by Jean Nicot, her ambassador to Portugal, and told that the dried leaves were to be tightly rolled in paper and smoked. It was claimed that this plant possessed all manner of healing powers. Deciding she would not smoke the tobacco, she crushed it instead into a powder, claiming to find it most efficacious against headaches. Her adoption of tobacco was naturally taken up by the Court and eventually by the people, who called it herbe de la reine or nicotiane, and it is thus thanks to Catherine de Medici that the French learned to love tobacco. For all the talk of her as a poisoner, this is the only definite evidence of her use of it – albeit unwittingly. Just as she had brought the side-saddle to France many years before and popularised the use of forks, her influence allowed many such novelties to flourish. Another item Catherine brought with her from Florence and made fashionable was the use of drawers for women. When dancing or dismounting from a horse, she wished to keep her modesty and instead of simply wearing the traditional linen undershirt and petticoats beneath her dress, she wore this early version of underpants to avoid accidentally exposing more than a well-shaped and beautifully stockinged leg. Her drawers were made of many different materials including gold and silver cloth, although it is hard to imagine that the latter were anything but a torture of discomfort to wear. This garment was taken up by some Frenchwomen but generally ignored by Englishwomen, where it did not come into use until many years later.

Catherine also introduced the folding fan, which hung from a ribbon attached to the girdle and could be elaborately decorated. It became a great favourite in England. Another item she is credited with promoting, much loved by courtiers, was the handkerchief, considered an essential Renaissance fashion accessory. Handkerchiefs originated in Venice and were a luxury item only legally permitted for use by the gentry. Catherine had a huge collection of decorative ones; these had a small central cloth, which was held in the hand in order to allow the fancy edges to show. Only the simplest squares of linen were actually put to proper use; the rest were for display only.

Although fascinated by ‘the new’, when it came to the institution of the monarchy she maintained her atavistic reverence for the old. She had become more majestic with the passing years, and though her double chin and full but determined mouth were more accentuated than ever, she could caress her listeners with her seductive voice – appearing almost intimate with them – all the while subtly maintaining the insurmountable boundary that placed her above all others except her son the King. While introducing or encouraging many new fashions the Queen Mother ensured that her own appearance varied little, except at her children’s weddings. Ever since she had been widowed she wore a wide black shirt and from her shoulders fell enormous wing sleeves; her black bodice was pointed and around the back of her white ruff stood a high black collar, and ‘over all this flowed a long black mantle’. Though she presented a sombre figure, the cut and quality of the lace and work in general made her mourning anything but drab. She subtly enhanced her black dress (usually made from plain wool) by its excellent cut; sometimes she used trimmings such as fur and gems, which created a majestic effect if the occasion demanded. When it came to her undergarments she denied herself nothing: hidden beneath the black wool she wore the finest chemises and the most exquisitely embroidered petticoats. As was her intention, she stood out from the other gorgeously and colourfully dressed ladies and gentlemen, particularly during Henri III’s reign. One dazzled ambassador reported of the courtiers that ‘the world had never before seen anything to match them’.

Unlike her contemporary, Elizabeth of England, Catherine did not pluck her eyebrows or her forehead – a high forehead was considered a sign of great beauty – though she did wear make-up sparingly. She experimented with ‘new products and formulae’ and is credited with popularising their use among European noblewomen. Catherine wore rouge, over a wash of white lead to tint her skin as pale as possible, and occasionally she also used eye shadow. She did not adopt the taffeta or velvet beauty spots favoured by Elizabeth I, placed on the face to draw the eye off any imperfections (such as hideously discoloured teeth). The use of such primitive cosmetics, the layers of lead skin whitener on the face and mercury sublimate to smooth the skin, proved hazardous. As bathing was rare, these poisonous beautifiers were left on the face and added to until eventually they needed to be ‘refreshed’ and had to be washed off, before the process recommenced.

Catherine also promoted the use of scent. (Florence claims one of the oldest perfumeries in the modern world, set up at the convent of Santa Maria Novella.) Since personal hygiene as we know it today was practically non-existent, body odours could be quite overwhelming. Both men and women used quantities of scent to disguise their malodorousness; even pet animals were given a liberal sprinkling. At Grasse, which had become a large glove-making centre, urine was applied in the tanning process; but to remove the unpleasant stench the tanners sprinkled perfume. Thus gloves were scented and even after glove-making in Grasse collapsed in the eighteenth century, the perfume industry that had been set up there on the Florentine model continued to thrive (as it does to this day). This lack of personal hygiene and the rarely cleaned many-layered clothes also meant a constant infestation of fleas. Taffeta was used as much as possible because of the belief that it acted as a deterrent.

The colour of Catherine’s naturally dark hair was from time to time lightened either by bleach or with the use of coloured hairpieces. In the sixteenth century blond hair was considered the ideal for beauty. France and Italy made the best wigs in Europe and the hair sold at public hair auctions often came from nuns. Portraits of Catherine usually show her hair parted in the middle with small sprigs of curls on either side of her face peeping out from her French hood, or later her peaked widow’s cap which covered most of her hair. As she grew older these were most likely to have been hairpieces. Men were also known to wear false beards, though a small goatee beard was the fashion for the latter part of the 1500s. A century earlier the Duke of Lorraine had worn a waist-length false beard to the Duke of Burgundy’s funeral.

The Queen Mother’s capacity for hard work remained undiminished; indeed she thrived on the challenges she faced. She could work late into the night after an official banquet, give instructions to her secretaries on several different subjects at once and, if necessary, survive on very little sleep. Long used to the habit of power, she prepared to enter unfamiliar territory; with Henri on the throne how much real influence would she now exercise? Catherine loved Henri, but she also feared him.

Henri was a grown man, and though he was by far the most intelligent of Catherine’s sons and had ideas of his own about how matters should be conducted, she knew he was capable of an indolence which as King would be dangerous were she not behind him, guiding him with her by now-unrivalled experience of ruling the country. His more eccentric personality traits also worried her; his extravagance both in material and emotional terms were troubling. He protected and loved his favourites, the handsome mignons, with a zealous devotion that became more marked now that he had become master of France. Nor could his passionate love for Condé’s wife be considered an altogether straightforward heterosexual phenomenon; it seemed to be more an obsessive though probably platonic fascination with an idol.

Catherine could not fail to have been concerned by the two conflicting sides of her son’s temperament, one the sensual lover of excess, the other a religious penitent, desperate for redemption, for whom no sacrifice to God was too great. His love of dressing in the richest clothes, later designing dresses for his wife as well as costumes for himself and his favourites, and his adoration of jewellery and other adornments would not have been tolerated by his father. As regards morals and manners, Henry II had presided over a comparatively austere Court by Renaissance standards. His code had covered clothing and he had introduced highly complex ‘sumptuary laws’ to curb the sartorial excesses to which courtiers often fell prone, although these regulations were frequently ignored. His cure for Henri would have been to send his son out hunting, or risking his life in some manly pursuit. The usual Valois mania for the chase and chivalrous feats were, on the whole, anathema to Henri III, who preferred to remain indoors out of the cold. Nonetheless, the obverse side to Henri’s character was amply demonstrated when he made his escape from Poland. However despicable it had been, Henri had showed immense personal courage during that desperate dash for the Imperial frontier, and when his entourage of nobles begged him again and again to turn back, he had pushed on, heedless of the dangers both before and behind him.

Unfortunately, during his absence in Poland the voluptuary in Henri’s nature had greatly advanced. The Venetian ambassador Giovanni Michiel wrote, ‘All his old gallantry and serious ideas which were so talked about have entirely disappeared; he has given himself up to a life of such idleness, sensual pleasures dominate his existence, he takes so little exercise that everyone is astonished. He spends most of his time with the ladies, covered in scent, curling his hair, wearing large earrings and rings of all different sorts. The sums spent on his beautiful and elegant shirts alone are unimaginable.’¹⁰ One English observer wrote to Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I’s Secretary of State, about the new King but gushed compliments. He described Henri’s charm and the marvellous though ephemeral ‘je ne sais quoi’ that the King possessed in such large measure, but which tragically the portrait painters had never managed to capture. (Since he had once been a possible suitor for the Queen of England’s hand, this had probably prompted the favourable report.)

Zuñiga, the Spanish ambassador, wrote to Philip on 22 September 1574 that the King spent all his evenings dancing and attending banquets. To the sombre and black-clad Spanish king he continued in a vein that he knew would appal his master: ‘For the last four days he has been wearing a costume of violet satin, breeches, doublet and mantlet. All the clothes are covered in pleats and long slashes strewn with buttons, and white, red and violet ribbons. He wears earrings and coral bracelets.’¹¹ The ambassador finished by writing, ‘With all of this he shows who he really is.’ This remark was surely a reference to the King’s obvious effeminacy. While Zuñiga found more fault than was perhaps strictly necessary, apart from the Spanish courtiers who stuck to far more austere fashions, noblemen in the sixteenth century dressed as richly as women, wearing earrings, jewel-encrusted costumes and fantastically elaborate clothes, though Henri did favour excessive confections even by the standards of the day. At the very least his behaviour suggested a taste for transvestism.

Henri took men’s fashions to new extremes. Doublets were worn over whalebone or wooden corsets – women also used the corset – which were agonising to wear and actually considered dangerous to health as they not only constricted the wearer’s ribs and waist to such an extent that breathing became difficult, but they also caused sores on the skin from the friction. These seeming instruments of torture were made illegal in England, but not in Henri’s France. It is often said of Catherine that she insisted her flying squadron all had 13-inch waists. While this precise measurement seems unattainable – even given that French inches were slightly bigger than English ones – a tiny waist was required and this could only have been achieved by using the unyielding wooden corsets that sometimes ‘pierced the flesh with splinters’. Henri and his courtiers also wore heavily padded sleeves. A cloak was hung over the shoulders and, to balance this, the King favoured padded breeches slashed with brilliant colours. (Slashing had come into existence after the Swiss defeated the invading army of Burgundians led by Charles the Bold in 1477. In a surprise attack upon the invaders in their camp the Swiss slashed their enemy’s tents and standards to shreds. To celebrate their victory they took tiny pieces of the cloth from the enemy’s banners and tents, and laced them triumphantly through their clothes. This evolved into the slashing style which allowed contrasting colours and fabrics to enhance the costumes of the rich.)

In the joy of being reunited with her son, Catherine put any thoughts of his weaknesses aside. The gossips and ill-wishes might call him ‘King of the Island of Hermaphrodites’ but she knew that at his best Henri could rule France and be a great king. Tactfully and carefully she made some suggestions as to how he should start his reign. In her own words she summed this up: ‘He can do everything but he must have the will.’¹² First she advised having a much smaller council and this he heeded, reducing its number to eight as well as the princes.

The new council was composed of Catherine’s trusties and some of his own. These were René de Birague, Jean de Morvilliers (Bishop of Rheims), Sebastien l’Aubespine (Bishop of Limoges), Jean de Monluc (Bishop of Valence), Guy de Pibrac, Paul de Foix, Philippe Comte de Cheverny and Pomponne de Bellièvre. Some of those who had shared the semi-exile in Poland were also rewarded with prestigious positions. Villequier and De Retz shared the post of First Gentleman of the Chamber, each rotating their duties every six months. Roger de Bellegarde became a Marshal of France and Martin Ruzé was made Secretary of State.¹³ Catherine’s core of loyal and experienced men were thus kept on into the new reign.

The Queen Mother had also counselled that Henri open all despatches himself and not leave matters to secretaries of state who had grown used to responding as they saw fit without consulting their master. Henri ordained that no official document be considered valid without his personal signature upon it and demanded that all correspondence be shown to him first. From the beginning his hard work is evidenced by his small neat writing on hand-drafted documents and his compact signature on official papers. The delegation of the monarch’s prerogatives and powers that had been the increasing hallmark of the last reign was over; France had a King once more.

Determined to show the ‘main de maître’ (hand of the master) as advised by Catherine, Henri even revoked her right to open diplomatic despatches without his seeing them first. If she was taken aback she hid her feelings; it was, after all, her own advice that he followed. She had told him to ‘show that [he] was the master and not the companion’. Some time before, Catherine had also warned that the gens de robe longue (magistrates and office holders) were difficult, tiresome and loquacious: ‘They spoil everything and try to control everything by their arguments, their verbosity, and their knowledge, which makes them so overbearing and presumptuous that they expect their opinions alone to be considered.’¹⁴ Far better, she suggested, to have military men as his advisers who said what they meant and were brief and to the point: ‘They have nothing but common sense, and are not lettered or opinionated and will at least come to terms at the discretion and according to the opinion of the King.’¹⁵ What she meant was that military men were simpler to manipulate, more naturally loyal and their intentions far easier to read. Her long experience had taught her how to get what she wanted from them. The professionals and intellectuals were altogether too opinionated.

The names noticeably absent from the King’s most important office holders were those of the great dynasties that had featured so prominently since the days of Henri’s father and grandfather: the Guises and the Montmorencys had, on the whole, been left out. Catherine’s advice to her son culminated in a wise discourse on the importance of keeping a regular timetable, dealing with public affairs in the morning and other matters after his dîner (lunch). She pressed him to make himself available to the people in the way that his grandfather, Francis I, had done. He must hear the people and receive their complaints or petitions personally. Only by doing so would it be clear that the King was the fount of all decisions in the realm, and from him emanated all honours, offices and favours. He must avoid showing too much favour to his closest friends and companions, and from making any one of them too powerful. She had certainly learned this lesson from the group of mighty nobles her husband had unintentionally bequeathed her. Henri should, she advised, implement these habits and ideas immediately, otherwise they would never get done, and only then would he be respected and obeyed as a king and not treated like a child.

Unfortunately, while Henri agreed with much of the political advice, he espoused a different view of how a monarch should comport himself and had brought back with him the habits he had acquired in Poland that were designed to keep him from the pullulating throng. These did not please the French people. He no longer took his meals surrounded by the public, but from behind a low balustrade intended to keep the crowd from coming too close. When he ate, his gentlemen attended upon him rather than his servants. The King did permit certain individuals to approach him, but they had to ask permission first and follow a strict set of rules before engaging His Majesty in conversation. Dîner was taken at around eleven o’clock and the more elaborate souper in the evening, the latter often followed by a ball or some other entertainment. Mealtimes were no longer the milling of courtiers around the person of the King while he ate.

Unlike his predecessors, Henri did not want to live as publicly, believing that overfamiliarity was the author of insolence. It offended his royal dignity to be surrounded by his most senior courtiers while he stood undressed and he ordered that henceforth they should not enter his chamber until he was clothed. Such reforms provoked a furious response, but he clung to them as far as he could, although when some nobles protested by leaving Court he was forced to relax or give up many of them, at least for the time being. In 1585 he printed a booklet of precise instructions on etiquette for his Court. This served as the foundation for the fantastically stylised manners, customs and rituals that later dictated court life at Versailles in the time of Louis XIV and his successors. Thus Henri III could be considered the author of the bizarre and minutely ordered existence and habits of the last monarchs of the ancien régime. The heartily accessible yet still majestic ways of his grandfather and father were to become an abandoned relic. There was nothing hearty about Henri; he was far too dainty and aware of his position.

Catherine could not but notice within a few days of seeing her son that many of the traits that were a worry to her before he left had become yet more accentuated during his time in Poland. One observer even wondered whether, since his departure in 1573, the King had not only ‘gone from Paris to Cracow but also to Sodom and Gomorrah’. She observed his intense disappointment that Condé’s wife, Marie, Princess de Clèves, did not feature among the welcoming party that greeted him outside Lyons – she awaited the birth of a baby and travel would have been dangerous. Meanwhile, Condé was still at large in Germany and an enemy of the state.

Marie had abjured the Protestant religion at the same time as her husband in 1572 and had since espoused the Catholic faith with a sincere fervour. Without a blush Henri spoke quite seriously and determinedly about his forthcoming marriage to the already married and pregnant princess. He fretted about organising her divorce as quickly as possible so that their own union might take place without delay. Time spent apart from Marie had been an agony for him, as his daily letters to her had witnessed, but it would not be long now before she wore the crown of France as his wife and Queen. Catherine kept silent. She did not wish this for her son, but how could she deny him if it were to bring him happiness and, above all else, children? France needed legitimate heirs to continue the Valois line and prevent the Bourbons from taking the throne.

Rumours questioning the King’s ability to produce children abounded. On 20 September 1574 Catherine’s relative, the papal nuncio Salviati, wrote to Cardinal Galli saying that although the King would marry,

it is only with difficulty that we can imagine that there will be offspring … physicians and those who know him well say that he has an extremely weak constitution and will not live long. … He is so feeble that if he sleeps en compagnie for two or three nights he is unable to get up from his bed for a whole week afterwards. When you hear that the King is suffering from an indisposition, which is presently the case, and cannot leave his bed for two or three days, you can be sure that amour has been the cause of his illness.¹⁶

It was not just amour that made the King ill, he also suffered from weak lungs like Charles, and drank only water as his constitution could not tolerate even so much as a glass of wine. A few days later Archbishop Frangipani wrote,

The one true and proper remedy for this kingdom would be a true king who not only wants to be a true king, but understands what it takes to be one. Then everyone would be put in their place. I do not see these qualities in this young man, neither in his spirit which is prone to indolence and sensual excess, nor in his body which is weak and prone to ill health. … At twenty-four years old he remains indoors, and for the most part in bed. He needs to be vigorously spurred on to force him to do anything which requires action.¹⁷

At the time of his arrival in Lyons Henri had announced, with Damville and the rebellious Languedoc in mind, ‘I have no greater desire and wish … than to recall my subjects to me and to the natural obedience which they owe me by gentleness and clemency rather than by other means.’¹⁸Catherine, sure of her son’s military talents – forgetting that it was the now-dead Tavannes who had usually been the actual author of her son’s successes – and with men at her disposal, joined the hawks on the council. Henri, instead of following his initial inclination towards offering a general amnesty, took the uncharacteristic line pushed by his mother. For all her advice that he be the master, she had ensured that he felt there was no one else he could trust implicitly or to whom he could turn for impartial direction.

Damville, now leader of the Politiques, had made the journey to Turin (where Henri had broken his journey home to France with his aunt and uncle of Savoy) in order to explain his actions during the last days of Charles IX’s reign. This presented a clear sign that he sought a peaceful solution at the start of the new one. He had also spoken of the need for concessions to pacify the reformers. If Henri had released the two ‘Montmorency hostages’ from the Bastille, Damville’s elder brother François and his brother Méru’s father-in-law Marshal de Cossé, and treated reasonably with Damville, allowing him to keep the governorship of Languedoc, then the two-month truce Catherine had bought could probably have been extended into a larger peace agreement. Yet Henri, spurred by Catherine and the warmongers on the council, rejected this peaceful option and the country prepared itself once again for renewed hostilities.

Just at this crucial moment tragedy struck for Henri: on Saturday, 30 October 1574 Marie of Clèves-Condé died of a lung infection. Rumours abounded that Condé had sprinkled poison on to a letter to his wife that would ensure a lingering but certain death, but in fact the young woman’s lungs had been weak for years. A few weeks earlier all had seemed well as she had successfully given birth to a daughter who had been named Catherine after her sister, the Duchess of Guise. The news of Marie’s sudden death arrived at Lyons on 1 November. The Queen Mother – for whom this development came as a relief, since Marie had been a spirited girl who might well have proved tiresome and interfering as Henri’s consort – dared not tell her son but placed the letter carrying the dread tidings under a pile of correspondence so that the King might come across it himself. When he did eventually read the report telling him that his ‘Dame de Clèves … blessed with a singular goodness and beauty’ had expired, he characteristically fainted.

Henri’s grief and devastation were such that Catherine feared for her son’s life. Hysterical and exaggerated emotion finally exhausted the King, who suffered from a violent fever and took to his bed and would neither eat nor drink for three days. Eventually Villequier and the Duke of Guise had to force food down his throat on the Queen Mother’s orders. When he did finally reappear his clothes were covered with death’s heads that had been embroidered in silver thread on to his exquisitely cut black velvet costume. Tiny silk skulls even decorated his shoes. Henri cut a tragic, albeit theatrical, figure and bore his sorrow ill. The Court was ordered into full mourning, though his mother urged him not to linger overlong in his grief and resolved to look for a bride worthy of him as quickly as possible. She firmly removed all the little mementoes he carried about his person that had belonged to his beloved and began the process of finding a wife for her son. Among the possible candidates, the Queen Mother suggested a Swedish princess, Elisabeth Wasa, for she felt that only the daughter of a king provided a truly fitting bride for her son. A marriage to Elisabeth would also have helped Henri keep the Crown of Poland; and there was another unexpected bonus that recommended her to Catherine: the princess did not speak a word of French.

In his grieving lassitude, Henri appeared to agree with his mother’s choice. A demand for a portrait was sent to the French ambassador in Stockholm, though all the while the King had already made up his mind to marry someone else. He had secretly decided upon Louise de Vaudémont, the princess from Lorraine whom he had met there just before leaving for Poland. Her striking resemblance to his dead Marie and her humble demeanour both charmed him. This unloved child of a minor prince of the Lorraine family, whose stepmother had treated her so cruelly, would become his bride and Queen, but for the moment Henri said nothing.

A blizzard of Protestant and Politique pamphlets attacking Catherine and the regime now deluged France, denouncing her greedy Italian financiers and ministers, the rule of women, the legitimacy of the Valois dynasty and the rights of an inherited monarchy. Published in 1576, the most notable and virulent attack upon Catherine was Le Discours merveilleux de la vie, actions et déportements de Cathérine de Médicis, Royne-Mère. Written by someone with an intimate knowledge of Court life cleverly blending fact with fiction, this slim volume was a huge success throughout the country and underwent several reprints. It accused the Queen Mother of every lurid and horrible crime imaginable. She had not only killed every person whose death had been convenient to her, orchestrated the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, seduced her sons into lives of fecklessness and debauchery so that she might usurp their rights, but her whole life was also so motivated by greed, hatred and a lust for power that no crime was too vicious for her provided she kept her position as the de facto ruler of France. Catherine reacted with amused interest; the charges were so exaggerated that she laughed and encouraged her ladies to read it to her aloud. The only pity, she commented, was ‘that the author had not previously applied to me for information, as by his own statement “it was impossible to fathom the depths of her Florentine deceit” … and he evidently knew nothing of the events he pretended to discuss’. Besides, she laughed, he had left so much out!

On 13 November Damville issued a manifesto in which he promised to fight against the evil regime infected with foreigners (i.e. Italians) that bled the country to death with iniquitous taxes, and deliberately created unrest over religious matters. He demanded a meeting of the Estates-General on sectarian tolerance and freedom of conscience, and a general conference to deal with religious issues.¹⁹ On 16 November the Court left Lyons for Avignon, the royal family travelling on a well-armed ship surrounded by protecting vessels. Once at Avignon, news of Damville’s military successes arrived with an alarming constancy and there was little cheer for the royalist army, despite the fact that they were well equipped and their number large. Catherine felt profound dismay; what she had hoped would be a forceful strike at the enemy bringing them to the negotiating table now turned into the same seemingly endless round of gains and losses that had bedevilled all the religious civil wars.

Henri appeared too steeped in his gloom and grief to act decisively. The loss of his adored Marie had sparked a fresh bout of religious fervour in him and he admired the procession of flagellant monks that he saw parading around the city of Avignon. The dismal sight of these dark and mysterious figures, faceless behind their enormous cowls, clad – and almost entirely covered – in blue, white or black robes, singing the ‘Miserere’ as they beat themselves evoked an almost mystical, perhaps even erotic thrill in Henri, who determined that he would lead a similar procession of self-mortification. This took place a week before Christmas 1574. Catherine took part to please her son, as did the rest of the Court. Some of the young courtiers whipped themselves into a frenzied state of ecstasy, led by the example of their King. Unfortunately, the cold December night grew freezing as the macabre candlelit march continued through light snowfall. The Cardinal of Lorraine, who walked barefoot for the procession, caught a chill. By 26 December this great prince of the Church, uncle of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had once ruled France in all but name with his brother François, was dead.

The cardinal had throughout the years been by turns both a scourge and a support to Catherine. His influence had been greatly reduced over the past decade, nevertheless his sudden passing at the age of forty-nine truly shocked her. Catherine heard of his death at her souper and seemed, for once, to be groping for words that would mark the occasion. She made a few innocuous comments, but appeared to have difficulty grasping that this man whom she had fought against, appeased, relied upon and always watched with caution, would no longer feature in her life. Almost all the ‘overmighty subjects’ whom she had had to put up with – and been ignored by – during her husband’s reign had now gone. She had outlived nearly all of them, yet the problems for which they were responsible remained as alive as ever. She was troubled with an uneasiness over the next few days and then one evening, again at her souper, an incident took place, witnessed by many. She believed she saw the cardinal before her for a moment and, dropping her glass, she uttered a cry. For many nights she had terrible dreams and like Macbeth after Banquo’s ghost’s appearance at his feast, slept fitfully, imagining him to be nearby.

Henri, dispirited with the lack of progress in the fight against Damville, sent word to him that he wished to hear his antagonist’s terms. As the noise of the rebels’ cannon could be heard from Avignon he decided that he could no longer tolerate the humiliation or the risk of being in such close proximity to the enemy and made up his mind to leave the southern part of the kingdom. Having broken the news to his mother about his choice of bride and borrowed 100,000 écus to defray the expenses ahead, Henri, his mother and the Court left Avignon on 10 January 1575 and headed north on a journey that would lead him to Rheims for his coronation and marriage.

On the same day as the King’s departure, Damville announced the inauguration of an independent state made up of several provinces in southern and south-central France. Once again, as with La Rochelle – which also resisted royalist assaults – France had a breakaway state within her borders; its absolute chief was the Prince de Condé (who had made an agreement with John-Casimir, son of the Elector-Palatine, for Protestant troops from Germany to aid Damville). As a Prince of the Blood, Condé lent legitimacy as the supreme figurehead, though the party ultimately hoped to make Alençon their titular head. Two secret emissaries were sent to persuade the duke to escape and join Damville, but they were arrested and summarily executed.

Catherine realised that she would not be able to change Henri’s mind about the young girl that he wished to marry. Louise de Vaudémont was not a princess who could bring with her a fortune or connections to a fabulous dynasty, but Catherine concealed her frustration over this and pretended that the whole match had been her idea all along. She wished to get the ceremonies behind her and continue to Paris where the King must address the desperate state of the Treasury, the semi-insolvency in which he found himself being a fundamental cause for the Crown’s inability to implement its authority.

The journey north provided a depressing reminder of the devastation left by the civil wars, never more than in the faces of the peasants. At Dijon he was unpleasantly surprised to find himself confronted with a delegation from Poland who had come to ask their King what his plans were for the throne that his mother had bought for him. With great eloquence Henri, who was perhaps one of the foremost charmers of his age, lyrically seduced his listeners, convincing them that as soon as he was married and had a son nothing would be able to prevent him from returning to his beloved Polish subjects. Once again believing their King, the Poles took their leave, assured that their union with France would remain intact.^fn1

Further consternation en route for Rheims came when a plot was discovered to have the royal cortège attacked in Burgundy – an area with a large number of Huguenot strongholds – and for Henri’s abduction. It is possible that Alençon had had a hand in this, but nothing could be proven. The King needed no added reason to hate his brother, who had already plotted to take the throne from him while Charles lay dying. Henri even told Navarre that if he should die Navarre must seize the throne and ensure that Alençon never wore the Crown of France.

The coronation itself, which took place on 13 February 1575, was replete with bad omens of all sorts. When the Cardinal of Guise (Henri, Duke of Guise’s brother and nephew of the recently deceased cardinal) placed the ancient crown of Charlemagne on the King’s head he felt weak and dizzy, and it slipped and nearly fell off. Henri then complained that it had injured his head. He found the constant changing of heavy robes and the five-hour ceremony fatiguing to the extent that he had to lie down during it. Worse still, there was also a rumour that His Majesty had not even been able to cure those that he touched for the king’s evil. To a superstitious people these signs all augured ill.

Furthermore, the preparations for the King’s marriage two days later had been reduced to a farce. Henri had become so overexcited about his bride’s wedding gown and other fine costumes for the festivities – all of which he had painstakingly designed himself – that he even insisted upon personally dressing her hair. The sweet-natured Louise stood patiently for hours as the King primped and fussed over her. At one point in his creative frenzy he managed to pierce her skin with a needle while sewing yet another precious stone on to his fiancée’s wedding dress; she patiently endured it all without uttering a cry. He had determined that Louise should be reinvented as his very own creation. She worshipped Henri and basked in the fuss he made over her.

Louise had been so little loved as a child that when one of Henri’s mignons, Cheverny, had arrived in Lorraine to ask for Louise’s hand in marriage on the King’s behalf, the girl had been woken up in her bedchamber by her stepmother making three curtsies to her. Assuming this to be a sarcastic gesture for having overslept, Louise, who until now had been treated like a servant, only realised something serious was afoot when her father also shuffled in and made three bows. However, she had to wait a little longer before she became Queen of France. After Henri had frizzed her hair and adjusted almost every curl it was so late that the ceremony – originally due to take place in the morning – had to be postponed until the evening instead when, at last, the couple were married by the Cardinal de Bourbon.

The next embarrassment that Catherine had to endure was the royal party’s lack of funds to continue to Paris. Word soon spread that ‘the King had not the price of a dinner’. She made an appeal to Parlement and enough money was finally collected for the King and his Court to journey to the capital. At last, after one and a half years, Henri returned to Paris. Before him lay a truly monumental task: he must untangle years of corruption and lack of accounts, and put in place stringent measures to remedy matters, and do all this in a financial climate that was depressed all over Europe during 1575. Huge quantities of Spanish gold from the Americas had been partly responsible for destabilising the European economy. Henri applied for loans from the usual sources abroad and set about taxing the middle classes, the peasants having been squeezed for so long that they had barely enough to eat, much less to pay their King. This raised 3 million livres, 50,000 of which Henri promptly gave to his mignon du Ghast.

Catherine urged Henri to deal with the almost impossible task of putting the kingdom back on a financially balanced footing. Unfortunately, his former lassitude reasserted itself when he fully comprehended the magnitude of the task before him and he left hismother to do the work; soon he could no longer be bothered to attend the council meetings but engaged in frivolities with his mignons instead. None of this was lost on the Parisians who watched their King with scant respect. One piece of graffiti daubed on a wall near the Louvre called the King ‘Henri de Valois, King of Poland and France by the grace of God and his mother, concierge of the Louvre, hairdresser-in-ordinary to his wife’. His extravagance became an act of defiance. What did it matter how much he spent on his pleasures, he seemed to be saying, since the country faced an impossible situation anyhow?

Even before arriving in Paris, Catherine had received word that her beloved daughter Claude, Duchess of Lorraine, had fallen ill again. When she reached the capital, Claude was dead. This was yet another appalling loss. One of her chief pleasures had been to visit Claude and Charles and their children for the only truly happy family reunions she had ever experienced. She often stayed with the couple in Lorraine; now this refuge where she could be a grandmother and mother without ceremony would never be the same. Catherine took to her bed with a fever and nursed her misery. Meanwhile, to everyone’s astonishment, Henri briefly took to hunting (not usually his favourite sport) with his friends, riding carefree through the forests of Vincennes and the Bois de Boulogne. He conceded nothing to the loss of his sister nor to his mother’s feelings; if anything the round of balls and banquets became more frenetic than ever. Catherine hid the pain that his gross callousness caused her.

Apart from abandoning himself to pleasure with his closest companions, he kept himself busy causing further strife within his family. He wanted to remove the threat of the once-cosy clique of Margot, Navarre and Alençon, and destroy their trust in each other. When it came to malicious trouble-making Henri showed himself an inspired master. Aided by his mignons, who liked nothing better than to run to their King and fill his head with wicked inventions, from the very first days of his reign he set about dividing his family in order to rule it. During his time in Poland he had tried to re-establish relations with Margot, but after his sense of betrayal over her romance with Henri of Guise in 1570 and the maniacal beating she had received from her mother and Charles IX as a result, Margot recalled her vow to keep ‘the memory of his wrong immortelle’. Her love and protection for Alençon was evoked by her younger brother’s neediness. Unloved by Catherine, she enjoyed her brother’s ‘affection and attentions’, and decided to ‘love and embrace all that concerned him’.²⁰ After Henri’s departure to Poland she had made Alençon’s interests her own. Unfortunately, in attempting to play at her mother’s game of kingmaker, Margot found to her cost that she had backed the wrong brother.

Shortly after he first arrived at Lyons, Henri had already impugned Margot for meeting a lover while pretending to visit an abbey near her alleged admirer’s house. After the visit Navarre warned Margot of Henri’s accusation and had urged him to have her sent away. Margot swore that she had been falsely charged and Navarre, who had defended his wife, told her that she must go to her mother and brother who awaited her. He advised her to defend herself vigorously. Eventually it transpired that the scandal had been a malicious invention by one of the King’s mignons, who was forced to retract his accusation. Catherine had refused to listen to Margot’s explanation and berated her daughter in such a loud voice that the courtiers could overhear her shaming. Even after the truth had been uncovered, Catherine insisted that ‘the King could not be mistaken’ and received Margot very coldly. Without apologising, she simply told her daughter that the King wished to be reconciled with his sister. Navarre nobly supported his wife throughout the stormy ordeal, and Alençon joined the couple and embraced them both, saying that the three of them must remain united despite Henri.

Another absurd rumour now abounded that Margot had fallen under the evil and Sapphic influence of one of her ladies, Mme de Thorigny, the daughter of Marshal de Matignon. Henri insisted that the woman be sent away and not corrupt his sister further. Thus Margot lost one of her closest friends as Navarre had little choice but to obey the king. Henri’s favourite, Louis du Ghast, had become a particular adversary of Margot’s and, despite her brother’s efforts to have her receive his favourite cordially and with courtesy, she bluntly refused, considering him her enemy and treating him with mocking disdain. This maddened du Ghast who determined upon revenge. He reported to Henri and Catherine that Margot was having a love affair with a famous and dashing courtier, Bussy d’Amboise, also a member of Alençon’s set.

Catherine had by now become distracted with affairs of state and grown tired of the perpetual accusations which gave Henri an excuse to occupy his time on matters that had little to do with governing the kingdom, and she refused to react to this latest piece of gossip. The King and du Ghast decided to settle matters their own way, and organised a band of assassins to attack the young gallant as he left the Louvre late one night. Despite the surprise attack and the number of assailants, d’Amboise managed to escape. Understandably, he then decided to leave the Court immediately citing health reasons, which happened to be nothing less than the truth.

Henri next tried to create strife between Navarre and Alençon by exciting an amorous competition between them for the favours of Navarre’s mistress, the lovely Charlotte de Beaune, Baronne de Sauve. Charlotte was one of Catherine’s flying squadron and just how effective these Court lovelies were in promoting the King’s and Queen Mother’s plans was now perfectly illustrated. Navarre had proved a canny survivor who had thus far been able to keep his judgement. When it came to beautiful women, however, the young King’s common sense deserted him. Navarre and Alençon were enraptured by this young beauty and it created great friction between them. Margot recalled that Henri, and probably Catherine, had persuaded de Sauve to make herself available to the two men. ‘She treated them both in such a way that they became extremely jealous of each other … to such a point that they forgot their ambitions, their duties and their plans and thought of nothing but chasing after this woman.’²¹

The Court was no longer a place of great political machinations and manoeuvring; under Henri it became a hotbed of petty hatreds played out with knives, swords and whispered accusations. These were not only viciously fought out between the principals and their factions but also by their servants. Navarre wrote to a friend, Jean de Miossens, describing the perils he faced:

This Court is the strangest place on earth. We are nearly always ready to cut each other’s throats. We carry daggers, wear coats of mail and often a cuirass beneath a cape. … All the band you know wants my death on account of my love for Monsieur [Alençon] and they have forbidden my mistress to speak to me. They have such a hold on her that she does not dare to look at me … they say they will kill me, and I want to be one jump ahead of them.²²

The King, helped by Charlotte de Sauve, aroused suspicion of his wife in Navarre by warning him not to trust Margot as she would betray him for his infidelities, which in any case had probably been exaggerated by Catherine and Henri to inflame the Queen of Navarre’s sense of abandonment by her husband. Margot had helped save his life on several occasions. Most recently she had prepared his brilliant defence regarding his involvement in the attempted escape and uprising during the last days of Charles IX’s life. After the Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre, when the Queen Mother briefly considered having Navarre killed, Margot had stopped any question of annulment of her marriage – which would have freed Catherine’s hand in ridding herself of Henri – by telling her mother that she had had sexual relations with Navarre and that he was ‘in every sense’ her husband.

Margot may have entered into the marriage unwillingly but she was initially loyal to Henri. Through her, he learned the ways and means to survive around the politically labyrinthine Court. His wife also helped turn Navarre into a French prince absolutely at ease at Court. She set the women’s fashions, invented new dances, wrote verse and sang. She was admired by all for her beauty, wit and majesty. Since his marriage to her, Henri had become far more elegant, his manners exquisite, and he always appeared to be jovial and loyal to the King who kept him cooped up in this princely prison. Margot had taught him very well to play the game that she had known since her birth.

After her beloved and adoring father’s death Margot, unloved by her mother, had skilfully concealed her own emotional needs. Her marriage to Henri of Navarre was damned from its bloody beginning, but at first there existed a mutual loyalty between them on certain matters, though his constant early infidelities did much to damage her feelings for him as a husband. To keep her pride, she pretended to be more concerned for the injury his sexual adventures might do to his health, but by the end of 1575, according to Margot, the marriage showed signs of the terrible strain that external forces were putting upon it. Despite her protests that she could treat Navarre as a brother and share confidences with him, he began to keep his plans secret from her. As she recorded, ‘I could not endure the pain that I felt … and I stopped sleeping with the King my husband.’ This was a real tragedy for Margot, whose life now began to take a course that would lead to her eventual disgrace and disaster.

In April 1575 the deputation of Politiques had arrived in Paris to present their terms to the King. These included a bill of rights allowing complete freedom of worship, surety towns, law courts with representatives of both religions and the prosecution of those guilty of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. When they were read to Henri he could hardly contain his indignation. After berating them for their impudence he drily asked, ‘Well, what more do you want?’ Catherine, no less astonished than the King, commented that they spoke ‘as proudly’ as if they had ‘fifty thousand men in the field, the Admiral and their leaders all alive’. Despite their extreme reluctance, the Queen Mother and the King were unable to avoid continuing the discussions, but soon afterwards the talks broke up. Sporadic fighting continued, each side claiming victories, but none proved decisive.

Catherine’s original enthusiasm and insistence that Henri fight instead of treat with the Huguenot–Politique alliance had proved a desperate error. He could have begun his reign by making peace with Damville, but the endemic conflict now once again destabilised the country. Michiel, the Venetian ambassador, described his sobering impressions of France at this time:

Everywhere one sees ruin, the livestock for the most part destroyed … stretches of good land uncultivated and many peasants forced to leave their homes and to become vagabonds. Everything has risen to exorbitant prices … people are no longer loyal and courteous, either because poverty had broken their spirit and brutalized them, or because the factions and bloodshed have made them vicious and ferocious. … The clergy and the nobility, for various reasons, are also in hard circumstances, but particularly the nobility, who are completely ruined and indebted. Those who still have some pulse of life are the bourgeois, traders … and the class known as the gens de robe longue – magistrates, counsellors, treasurers, and the like – who spend little, know how to husband their resources and wait to devour the others. … Religion and justice have fallen into the utmost abuse … I should say that many care very little for religion and use it for their own purposes.… Demoralized, the people have lost their supreme reverence and obedience for the king, which was once so great that they would have given him not only their lives and their property but their souls and their honour … as for obedience to the royal orders and edicts they seem to make sport of them.

A further and still more catastrophic blow awaited Henri and the Queen Mother when, on the night of 15 September 1575, Alençon managed to escape from Paris taking around fifteen followers with him. In the hope of reconciling her two sons, Catherine had been persuaded by Alençon that he would not flee but would always address himself to the King if he had any grievances. She in turn had counselled Henri to allow his brother some freedom of movement around Paris. Henri excoriated his mother for letting his detested sibling and heir apparent slip out of their hands, almost certainly to join the Politiques. Henri tried to gather a force of loyal officers to bring him back dead or alive, but he found the men unwilling to follow his orders regarding the most senior prince in France, knowing that the future lay with him. It is noteworthy that Alençon reached Dreux, in his apanage where he was safe, with relative ease. Those senior nobles and officers who could perhaps have stopped the duke were either deliberately tardy in taking action or would not move at all. To act against the heir apparent was dangerous, and in this case the King’s mounting unpopularity was probably reflected in the demonstrable lack of effort to capture his brother.

From Dreux Alençon issued a manifesto that repeated three of the delegation’s key demands. He called for the convocation of the Estates-General, the expulsion of foreigners from the council and a religious pacification until a general Church Council could be called.²³ At first Catherine simply refused to believe that Alençon had been cunning enough to fool her; normally his lies were so transparent that they were almost embarrassing. Though it was too late to catch him, she spoke to the Duke of Nevers about using five or six men to kidnap her son, though finally she decided she must deal with Alençon herself.

In Germany Condé and Jean-Casimir headed towards the Rhine and the French frontier with a large Protestant force to join up with Damville. With Alençon at liberty and possibly planning to lead the anti-royalist forces, disaster seemed imminent. Catherine’s first meeting with her son took place between Chambord and Blois on 29–30 September. As he saw his mother descend from the coach, Alençon dismounted and walked towards her. He knelt before her and she raised him with an embrace. The first day was spent in tearful protestations of love between mother and son, but then Catherine tried to address the pressing business that had brought her to him. Before he would discuss his demands, Alençon insisted that as a gesture of good will François de Montmorency and Marshal de Cossé be freed immediately. On 2 October Henri reluctantly agreed to Catherine’s urgent request.

As she reviewed the duke’s demands, despite instructions from Henri to concede little, Catherine was anxious to conclude an agreement, even if it were only a temporary one. She needed to gain time for the forces of the Crown. She sent Alençon’s demands on to Henri and begged him to agree to them but at the same time she advised him to arm himself and prepare for war. Henri, Duke of Guise alleviated matters somewhat by winning a victory at Dormans on 10 October against German Reiters who had invaded northern France. During the battle Guise received an horrific wound to his face that almost killed him. Henceforth he was to share his father’s glorious sobriquet ‘Le Balafré’ (Scarface), but the victory at Dormans bore a poisonous fruit, giving French Catholic zealots a new hero.

On 21 November a six-month truce was signed. One of the articles stipulated that the Reiters of Jean-Casimir would receive 50,000 livres for not crossing the border into France. Since many of the articles of the truce were not enforced, the governors of the surety towns promised to Alençon quite simply refused to give them up and, since few of the tensions had eased, it seemed almost inevitable that the conflict would soon restart. On 9 January 1576 the Reiters did cross into France from Lorraine, leaving ruin in their wake. Henri blamed Catherine for the failure of the truce, but she retorted that she had warned him to arm all along while she kept the talks going: ‘I think I can boast of having begun, if it had not been interrupted, the greatest service a mother has ever given to her children.’²⁴ She also argued that she should not be held responsible if the governors of the surety towns would not give them up in accordance with the terms of the truce.

The Queen Mother returned to Paris at the end of January 1576. She had been away from her beloved Henri for four months yet her efforts on his behalf had earned her only his distrust and anger. Alençon, looking for an excuse to break with his brother, accused Chancellor Birague of trying to poison him on orders from the King and joined the Politique forces in Villefranche in south-eastern France. On 3 February, just as matters looked as if they could get no worse, the twenty-two-year-old King of Navarre – who, since Alençon’s escape, had been under particularly close supervision by ultra-Catholic guards handpicked by Catherine – managed to escape his gilded gaol while out hunting. He eventually reached his own kingdom for the first time since his marriage four years earlier. On 13 June he formally abjured the Catholic religion.

Henri’s fury at Navarre’s escape descended upon his sister, whom he now made his prisoner. He also accused her of aiding Alençon’s flight and (possibly with some cause) of having a hand in the death a few months earlier of his adored du Ghast. The mignon so detested by Margot, and many others besides, was murdered in his bedroom while having his toenails cut. It was hardly the glorious death the vain courtier would have chosen. He had been ill for some time and had withdrawn to his house near the Louvre. It is thought that he was suffering from a venereal disease, and had been resting and receiving treatment there. The assassin, Baron de Vitteaux, a well-known duellist on the run from justice, entered du Ghast’s house by an upstairs window after climbing a rope ladder before stabbing his victim to death.

Now that Navarre had gone, Margot believed her brother would kill her. She wrote, ‘If he had not been prevented by the Queen, my mother, I believe his anger was so great that he would have committed some terrible cruelty against me.’²⁵ Guards were placed at the doors of her apartments and ‘nobody, not even those closest to me, dared to visit me in case they should ruin themselves’.²⁶ Margot claimed that in an act of revenge Henri had ordered the murder of her former lady-in-waiting, Gilone de Thorigny, whom he had removed from her household on the trumped-up charges of lesbianism, just after his return from Poland. The poor woman had been dragged out of her house and was being taken off to be drowned when two of Alençon’s friends who happened to be passing caught up with the would-be assassins and saved her life.

With both Court and country disintegrating before her eyes, Catherine begged Henri to seek peace, at no matter what price. The King sent his mother to Sens to treat with the princes and their delegates. Catherine set out accompanied by her flying squadron and even took Margot with her. On 6 May 1576 the Peace of Beaulieu, or ‘La Paix de Monsieur’ as it became known – since Alençon appeared to have forced it upon his brother and personally benefited the most from the terms – was proclaimed. The sixty-three-article treaty represented nothing less than a triumph for French Protestantism, which now held virtual parity with Catholicism. Alençon – among other valuable lands and titles – received the dukedom of Anjou (although I shall continue to refer to him as the Duke of Alençon). Coligny and the victims of Saint Bartholomew were posthumously rehabilitated and the Massacre was publicly condemned as a crime. Pensions were to be paid to the widows and orphans of the victims for six years. Eight surety towns were granted to the Protestants, and the Reiters promised a generous pay-off to leave France. Navarre received the governorship of Guyenne and monies owed to him were to be paid back with interest. Damville was confirmed as governor of the Languedoc and Jean-Casimir awarded large territories in France as well as an annuity of 40,000 livres. The King also agreed to call a meeting of the Estates-General within six months. Though the treaty represented an obvious humiliation for Henri, it allowed him to keep his throne.

Henri wept when he signed the treaty; as he struggled to raise the funds to fulfil its expensive terms he cursed his brother and, most of all, his mother. She had advised him to embark upon this ruinous war and now it was she who had forced him to sign a document that he believed dishonoured both him and France. When Catherine returned to Paris outwardly he appeared as cordial and polite as ever to her, but he did not see her in private for a full two months. From now on a definite change in the relationship between them began to manifest itself; she became cautious in all her dealings with the King and took great pains not to irritate him. The glorious opening for Henri’s reign envisaged by the Queen Mother had collapsed. Now she found herself presiding over the dismal disintegration of her dreams.

^fn1 Later that same year, Etienne Bathory, Prince of Transylvania, was elected King of Poland.