“Won’t do him much good with Maman in control. Concini will see to that.”

“Another Italian! Isn’t it time France was for the French?”

“Yes, I agree. But don’t worry about Albert. The King is in leading strings and likely to remain there as far as I can see. He’s no Henri Quatre.”

“Ah, there was a man!” There followed what I guessed to be more shuffling and jostling, but to my chagrin they moved away. I should have liked to hear more about Charles d’Albert.

I was interested though and kept my ears open. It was no use asking questions—everyone either considered I was too young to understand or they did not want to waste time on me.

So I listened and at the time of the wedding I did know that Charles d’Albert was originally Alberti and he had come to France from Florence to make his fortune. When he found he could do this he decided to become French and changed his name to Albert. He came to the King’s notice because he was clever with birds and trained hawks. He loved to hunt with them and as the King did too that made a bond between them and they soon became very friendly. My brother made him his very special falconer and they were constantly in each other’s company training birds and making nets and thongs for hawking. Albert could train other birds and he was very clever with little sporting birds like pies grièches which, I discovered later, in England, were called butcher birds.

It was very interesting to see the young man of whom I had heard so much. He was considerably older than my brother Louis and he had certainly made his fortune at the Court of France. He had married, through the King’s graces, Mademoiselle Rohan Montbazon, who was recognized as one of the beauties of the Court.

Watching them now it was easy to see that he was on very familiar terms with the King.

I sat on a stool close to them. It was sometimes an advantage to be so young that one was ignored. I listened to their talk. They were discussing hunting, and Albert was asking the King to come as soon as he could to see a new falcon which he had acquired and of which he had high hopes.

They talked of falconry for some time and then Albert said suddenly: “Look at Concini over there. What airs that man gives himself!”

“You are right,” said my brother. He was not stammering now that he was talking to Albert which was a sign that he was completely at his ease.

“Your royal mother seems besotted by the man. I believe he thinks himself more royal than she is.”

“I dislike him, Charles. He tries to tell me what to do.”

“What impertinence! You should not allow that, Sire.”

I looked up and saw the pleased look on my brother’s face. He loved people to recognize his royalty. They did in the streets, of course, and cheered him as the King out of loyalty to our father, Christine said; but there were always those to tell him what to do. It must be a trial to be a king in name and not old enough to be one in fact.

“There’ll come a time,” said Louis.

“And I pray the saints it will not long be delayed,” added Charles d’Albert.

“Concini and the Queen Mother will delay it as long as possible you may be sure.”

“Indeed they will. They want to rule, and how can they do that if the King is in his rightful place?”

“I won’t always be a boy.”

“If you will forgive my saying so, Sire, you have the attributes of a man already.”

I could see why Louis was fond of Albert. This was the way he liked people to talk to him. “The time will come…” he said.

“Soon, Sire, soon.”

Someone had come forward and was bowing to Louis. I slipped away.

I realized later that I had been listening to the beginning of a plot.

Those wedding festivities were a turning point in my life. My mother seemed to realize that I was growing up, and because I was dainty and pretty and could sing and dance well, the people liked me. It was necessary for her to be seen with us children because the people always cheered Gaston and me and she could pretend the cheers were for her. In fact the only way she could get the people to cheer when her carriage rode by was to have us in it.

My mother loved displays of any sort—banquets, ballets, any kind of dancing and singing; she loved fine clothes too and was determined to have them because she believed that entertainments of a lavish nature made the people forget their grievances. It was no wonder that she had forced the Duc de Sully into retirement. He would have been horrified to see the exchequer, which he had always kept under his control and that of my father, dwindling away.

Paris was becoming a very beautiful city; and my mother liked to call attention to all that she and the late King had done to make it so. She wanted to give balls and fêtes throughout Paris. This she did and the people certainly loved to see the carriages passing through the streets and to catch glimpses of the nobility in all their splendor. On summer evenings the whole Court would go to the Place Royale where my father had begun to build what he intended to be a bazaar, lined with shops rather like St. Mark’s in Venice. My mother was very enthusiastic—possibly because of its Italian associations, and as my father had died before it was completed, she had had it finished in time for the wedding. There was a promenade known as the Cours de la Reine because she had planted several rows of trees along it and in an attempt to win the people’s favor had opened it to the public.

They thronged there and were delighted to catch glimpses of the grand seigneurs and ladies walking in the gardens.

Alas, it needed more than that to win the people’s favor, and even if my mother had been the best of rulers, she could not have hoped for great popularity, because she was an Italian.

Many of the nobles lived in the houses of the Place Royale and they all had magnificent gardens with wonderful examples of the skill of topiary, and the sculptured figures and glistening fountains were a splendid sight.

“See what a wonderful city we have given you!” That was what my mother was saying.

But the people continued to dislike her and they complained bitterly about the rise of Concini.

It was about this time that Mamie was brought into the nurseries to help her mother with the children. That meant chiefly Gaston and me, for Christine was at that time nine years old and so considered herself to be very grown up.

Mamie did not seem old to me although most people over fourteen usually did. She was even older than that—in her middle teens, I believe—and I loved her from the moment I set eyes on her.

She exuded an air of wisdom; she was serene; and she did not treat me as a child, so that I could ask her questions without fearing to expose my ignorance as I did with most people.

Then there was Anne, the new Queen, who was only thirteen and not quite old enough to be a wife, so I saw a great deal of her too.

We liked each other in a mild kind of way—not as I liked Mamie, of course, but although Anne gave herself certain airs and was a little coquettish in a rather prim way, she was not clever and hardly ever looked at a book, and this endeared her to me; she was lazy and did all she could to evade lessons; and she loved dancing and singing and we discussed ballets and danced and sang together; and she, with Gaston and me, arranged a dance which we said we would perform together whenever we had the opportunity to do so.

So I had two welcome additions to my life in Anne and dear Mamie. The days seemed to have become full of pleasure. I had no notion of the storms which were gathering in the country.

Then I began to learn, through Mamie, something of what was going on.

“You should know,” she told me. “It is a time of great events and as the daughter of a king you may well have your part to play in it.”

That made me feel very important.

It was then that she told me about the murder of my father and that ever since his death my mother had been Regent and would doubtless remain so until it was considered that my brother Louis was of an age to rule.

“When will that be?” I asked. “Poor Louis. He is not much like a king.”

“It might be sooner than you think.”

She pursed her lips and looked mysterious, glancing over her shoulder in a manner which I found most exciting. That was Mamie’s way. She created intrigue and made mystery around it.

I remember flinging my arms about her—it must have been some six months after she had come to the nursery—and making her promise that she would never go away.

She had stroked my hair and rocked me to and fro. “I’ll never go until they force me to,” she promised.

For all her exciting outlook on life, Mamie was a realist. “It could be that the time will come when I shall have to go. But for now…we are safe. I don’t think anyone wants to part us. To tell the truth my mother finds me too useful here with you children.”

“Gaston loves you too,” I told her. “And Christine also…although she doesn’t show it as I do.”

“Poor Christine! She thinks a great deal about the Princesse Elizabeth, and she fears that one day what has happened to her sister will happen to her.”

“Will it?”

Mamie nodded slowly. “Almost certainly,” she said. “Princesses usually marry.”

“I am a princesse….”

“A little one. You have a lot of growing up to do.”

She was comforting me, but I knew what was in store for me although it had not yet appeared on the horizon. But it would come, because it came to all Princesses.

“We shall always be together,” I said fiercely.