He felt happier when they were there. He had turned his bedroom into a music-room.

But he was soon weary. He whispered to Anne: ‘I would my sister Marguerite would come to me. I do not see enough of my sweet sister.’

Anne’s voice was harsh with tears. ‘The Queen of Navarre herself is confined to a sick bed.’

‘Then tell her not that I asked for her, or she would leave it to come to me.

Beloved sister, my darling Marguerite, it is to be expected that when I am laid low, so should you also be. The saints preserve you, dear sister.’

‘Dearest,’ said Anne, ‘allow me to dismiss these people that you may try to sleep.’

He smiled and nodded.

In the morning he felt better. He was ready for the hunt, he declared.

Anne begged him not to go. Catherine joined her entreaties, as did other members of the Petite Bande. But he would not listen. He smiled jauntily at the bright and beautiful faces of his band; he caressed one and joked with another.

He must hunt today. He could not explain. He felt that Death was waiting for him behind the door, behind the hangings. Death had caught the English King; it should not catch Francis― yet.

His will was strong. Sickly pale, his eyes glazed, he kept his seat in the saddle. He commanded Anne to ride beside him, Catherine to keep close. The huntsman’s horn and the baying of hounds, he said, were the sweetest music in his ears. Catherine guessed that as he rode he felt himself to be not the aged man, but the young Francis.

The Petite Bande closed round him. They were afraid. Death was the swiftest hunter in the forest of Rambouillet that March afternoon, and each lovely woman, watching her leader, knew that this was the last ride of Francis’s Petite Bande.

Francis was delirious that night. He talked continually and it was as though ghosts from the past stood around his bead. Louise of Savoy, his adoring mother; Marguerite of his beloved sister; his meek Queens, Claude and Eleonore; the mistresses he had loved best― Frances of Chateaubriand and Anne d’Etampes; his sons, Francis and Charles. He felt the walls of a prison in Madrid enclose him; he knew again the glory of victory, the humiliation of defeat.

He regained consciousness, and with a wry smile spoke of the scandals of his reign.

‘A scandalous life I have led, my friends. I will make amends by dying a good death.’

Prayers were said at his bedside, and he listened eagerly to them.

‘I must see my son,’ he said. ‘Bring the Dauphin to me.’

Henry came and awkwardly approached the death-bed of the father whose love he had longed to inspire, and, only succeeding in winning his dislike, had disliked him in return.

He knelt by his father’s bed and Francis smiled, all differences forgotten now.

‘My boy― my only son― my dearest Henry.’

Henry sought for the right words and could not find them. But there were tears in his eyes and they spoke more eloquently than any words. Francis was anxious. What advice should he offer his son? He prayed that he would not make the mistakes his father had made.

‘Henry, children should imitate the virtues, not the vices of their parents,’ he said.

‘Yes, my father.’

‘The French, my son are the best people in the world, and you ought to treat them with consideration and gentleness, for when their sovereign is in need they refuse him nothing. I recommend you therefore to relieve them as far as you can of burdensome taxation―’

The sweat was running down the King’s cheeks. The room seemed hazy to him. His son’s face grew dim. He thought of the dangers which would beset this young man. He saw those two factions which could split the country in two; the religious controversy that now, he realized, was but a young sprig in his reign, would grow to a mighty tree whose fruit was bloodshed and misery.

‘Holy Mother, protect my boy!’ he prayed incoherently. ‘Holy Mother, let those about him advise him for his good and that of France.’

He saw Diane― guiding his son. He remembered afresh that game of snowballing which had begun so innocently and had ended in heartbreak. It was symbolic. These women’s quarrels had amused him. Madame Diane against Madame Anne. But what would grow out of them? Horror and bloodshed. His beloved friend, the young Count d’Enghien, had been crushed to death in the first skirmishes of civil war which would rend his country. The chest was but a symbol. He saw that now. Why had he not seen it before?

‘Henry― oh my son― why have we come together now that is too late?

Henry, beware― beware of those about you. There are some―’

Henry must put his ear close to his father’s mouth if he would catch his words.

‘Beware― of the Guises. Ambitious― they will snatch the crown. The house of Guise― is the enemy of the house of Valois. Henry― closer. Do not be ruled by women as I have been. Learn from the faults of your father. Oh, Henry, my boy, keep the ministers I have about me. Good― honest men. Do not bring back Montmorency. He will strip you and your children of their doublets and our people of their shirts. Henry, deal kindly with Anne. Remember she is a woman. Always― be considerate― to women, but be not ruled by them as was your foolish father―’

The King’s eyes were glazed, and now it was impossible to hear what he said.

‘Father,’ said Henry, bending close, ‘give me your blessing.’

The King had only time to embrace his son before he left Rambouillet and France forever.


* * *

At Béarn, the King’s sister, lying in her sick-bed, was overwhelmed with foreboding. Her brother in danger, needing her and she not with him! She left her bed and prepared to make the journey to Rambouillet. She was ready to set out when news was brought to her.

Sorrowing, reproaching herself for not being with him, she fell into melancholy. Her life was ended, for he had been her life. She would retire to a convent; in piety only could she find relief from her grief. She was done with life. The King, her beloved, was dead; therefore was she dead also.

Anne, in her own apartments, waited for Diane’s revenge. It could only be a matter of days now. Diane would not long delay.

Henry, saddened by the death, yet felt relieved. Never more would he stammer in that presence. Already attitudes had changed towards him. They knelt and swore allegiance; they sought to gratify every wish before he knew he had it.

Diane, serene outwardly, was inwardly aware of a deep pleasure. At last her kingdom had come. She was no more the Dauphin’s mistress; she was the first lady in the land.

At Saint-Germain, the new King came, after leaving Rambouillet, to make arrangements for the ceremonies that must precede his father’s burial, Catherine sat in her apartments, thinking of the change this event would bring into her life.

She was pregnant with her third child, but this fact could for some time be hidden from Henry.

She had a son and a daughter; another child was coming; she was the Queen of France. How pleased with her would Clement have been if he could have lived to see this day!

She was safe on the throne of France. That was a matter for the utmost rejoicing; yet there was so much needed to make her happiness complete.

She perfumed herself; she dressed with care; and she waited.

But he did not come, and when she knew that she could no longer hope for him that night, she locked her door and moved the desk and looked down into the chamber below.

Catherine watched them together, saw their embrace, listened to their whispering tenderness, witnessed their passion.

This day she had been raised to the height of her ambition, and yet she must torture herself by spying on her husband and his mistress. Ambition gratified, power would surely one day be hers. It should be her happy fate to bear kings and queens.

And yet, watching her husband with the woman he loved, the Queen of France wept bitterly.

THE TWO QUEENS

QUEEN OF FRANCE! Yet how was her position changed? It was Diane, not Catherine de’ Medici, who had, in effect, mounted the throne of France.

Everywhere now could be seen the King’s initial intwined, not with that of his wife, as etiquette asked, but with that of his mistress. Two D s overlapping (one reversed) with a horizontal stroke binding them to form an H, . They were worked into the masonry, they were embroidered on banners; and even on his clothes, Henry wore them as an ornament.

Catherine continued to smile and none would have guessed that within her burned a desire to deface those entwined letters whenever she saw them. She pretended, as did the more kindly people who surrounded her, that the letters were two C s and an H, not two D s. It made it less humiliating that this could be assumed.

So she went about the court graciously, giving no sign of misery in her heart. She had her own circle now, and she saw that it was conducted with the utmost decorum. All the ladies and gentlemen who surrounded her went in awe of her. She was an enigma. It was not easy to understand how one, continually subjected to humiliation, could preserve such dignity. At times she would seem almost prim; any sign of misconduct in her women would be immediately and drastically dealt with; and yet there were occasions when a coarse jest could bring forth that loud and sudden laughter. The Queen of France was a foreigner; no one could forget that, and no one could love her. She knew this, and she told herself she did not care. There was only one person in the world whose affection she cared about and she had come to believe that patience would bring her that.