She had rarely felt so safe as she did during the winter of 1572 and the spring of the next year. Navarre and young Condé had become Catholics—Navarre cynically, Condé shamefully. The stock of these two Princes stood very low throughout the country, although most Huguenots who remained alive were resolute, more determined than ever. They seemed to embrace hardship and flourish under persecution. It was always so with fanatics. They had lost Coligny, Téligny and Rochefoucauld. Montgomery had been warned and had been able to fly from Saint-Germain before he could be caught. Navarre had succumbed almost immediately and accepted the Mass. But the Huguenots would not have hoped for much from Navarre. It was the defection of Condé which had been the bitterest blow to them. They were on the defensive now in that stronghold, La Rochelle, and were bent on making trouble; they had, however, suffered a severe blow and were temporarily helpless. As for Catherine, she was now recognized as the woman who planned the whole massacre.

Cynically she disguised herself and mingled with the people of Paris that she might hear what was said about her. She knew that it was their guilty consciences which made them so critical of her. They enumeratedher crimes, often accusing her of murders in which she had had no hand.

‘Who is this murderess, this poisoner, this Italian who rules France?’ one merchant demanded of her as she stood by his stall, her shawl over her head, her soiled petticoat trailing below her shabby gown. ‘She is not royal. She is the daughter of merchants. Ah, I knew what evils would come to France when she married the son of King Francis.’

‘It is not fitting, Monsieur,’ she agreed, ‘to take a foreign upstart and make her Queen of France. For this Italian woman rules France, Monsieur. Make no mistake about that.’

‘She rules France indeed. Our poor mad Charles would not be so bad without her to guide him . . . so they say. But he is no King. It is she who rules. She poisoned the Cardinal of Châtillon and the Sieur d’Andelot; she poisoned the Queen of Navarre. She is responsible for the death of Monsieur de Coligny,’ went on the merchant. ‘She is responsible for this bloody business. They say that she killed her son, Francis the Second . . . that he died before he should have done. And Monsieur d’Alençon was ill with fever, and they say that was her work. Do you remember the Duke of Bouillon, who was poisoned at Sedan? His doctor was hanged for that crime, but we know whose was the real guilt. Monsieur de Longueville, the Prince of Poitien, Monsieur Lignerolles . . . There is no end to the list, Madame; and then add to it all those who died at her command at the St Bartholo-mew. It is a long list of murders, Madame, for one woman to answer for.’

‘Even for an Italian woman,’ she admitted.

‘Ah, Madame, you have spoken truly. I hope that one day there will be slipped into her wine that morceau Italianizé. That is what I wish, Madame. It is the wish of all Paris.’

She came away smiling. Better to win their hatred than their indifference. She wanted to laugh aloud. The Queen Mother ruled France. She was glad they realized that.

They were singing a song about her in the streets of Paris now. It was insolently sung even under the windows of the Louvre itself.

‘Pour bien sçavoir la consonance

De Catherine et Jhésabel,

L’une, ruyne d’Israel,

L’autre, ruyne de la France:

‘Jhésabel maintenoit l’idolle

Contraire à la saincte parolle,

L’autre maintient la papaulté

Par trahison et cruaulté:

‘Par rune furent massacrez

Les prophètes à Dieu sacrez,

Et l’autre a faict mourir cent mille

De ceux qui suyvent l’Evangille.

‘L’une pour se ayder du bien,

Fist mourir un homme de bien,

L’autre n’est pas assouvie

S’elle n’a les biens et la vie:

‘En fin le jugement fut tel

Que les chiens mengent Jhésabel

Par une vengeance divine;

Mais la charongne de Catherine

Sera différente en ce point,

Car les chiens ne la vouldront point.’

Well, words could not hurt her. She herself sang the song. ‘It is pleasant to think,’ she said to her women, ‘that the people of Paris have no intention of throwing my flesh to the dogs.’ She laughed loudly. ‘Ah, my friends, these people are really fond of me. They like to think of me. Have you noticed that that wicked old lecher, the Cardinal of Lorraine, is now regarding me with some affection? He never did before. But now, he is not so young, and he is terrified of death, for that man was always a coward. He still wears a suit of mail under his clerical robes. But he looks at me with love because he says to himself: “I cannot live many more years. Soon I must face God.” The Cardinal, my friends, is a very devout man, and when he thinks of the life he has led he trembles. And then he looks at me and says to himself: “Ah, compared with the Queen Mother, I am as innocent as a babe.” And for this reason he grows fond of me. So it is with the people of Paris. Did I ride through the streets brandishing a sword on those August days and nights? No, I did not. But they did. Therefore it is comforting for them to recount my wickedness. They can then say: “Compared with Queen Jhésabel, we are innocent indeed.” ‘

One day Charlotte de Sauves brought a book to Catherine.

‘I think Your Majesty should see it,’ she said, ‘and that those who are guilty should be taken and punished.’

Catherine took the book, which was called The Life of St Catherine, and turned over the leaves. When she discovered that the title was an ironical one and the St Catherine was herself, she began to chuckle. There were hideous caricatures of her, only just recognizable in which she appeared quite gross. In these books were enumerated all the crimes of which the people of France accused her; everything evil that had happened in France since she, a little girl of fifteen, had ridden into the land to marry the King’s son, were, according to the authors of this book, due to her.

Charlotte stood by, waiting for an outburst of wrath, but instead there came a loud guffaw.

Catherine called her women about her and read aloud to them.

‘This is the story of your mistress, my friends. Now listen.’ And she read until she was so overcome by mirth that she had to put the book away from her.

‘It is well,’ she said, ‘that the French should know that they have a strong woman to rule them. Why, had I been given notice that such a book was about to be written, I could have told the authors many things of which they know nothing; I could have reminded them of much which they have forgotten. I could have helped them to make a bigger, finer book.’

Some of the women turned away that she might not see the looks of horror on their faces. They were depraved enough, since they were her creatures, but sometimes she revolted them. They realized that she, this Italian woman, this strange mistress of theirs, was different from others. She cared only for keeping power. She did not think beyond this life. This was why she could kill, and laugh at her killing, even be proud of it; she had no conscience to worry her.

Some of them remembered two boys they had seen among those pilgrims who had gone to look at the remains of Coligny, which had been hung on a gibbet at Montfaucon. One of those boys—he was only about fifteen years old—had broken down suddenly and flung himself on the ground while bitter sobs shook his body. The younger of the boys had stood very still, bewildered and frightened, too numbed by grief to weep as his brother did. When one knew that the fifteen-year-old boy was François de Coligny, and the younger one was his brother Andelot, that was an unforgettable tableau. One remembered too that Jacqueline de Coligny, in spite of her condition, had been carried off from Châtillon and put in a prison at Nice. Such matters haunted the memory. Moreover, these women were beset by superstitious fear. They remembered the miracle of Merlin, about which the Huguenots talked continually. Coligny’s pastor had escaped on that night of terror. He had lain on the roofs after Téligny had been shot, and at length, weary beyond endurance, had clambered down from the roof to find himself beside a barn. Here he hid, and each day a hen came and—by the Grace of God, said the Huguenots—laid an egg beside him. This nourished him and kept him alive until the massacre was over.

Such stories were alarming, for it seemed that God was sometimes on the side of the Huguenots, even though the Virgin had made a hawthorn flower in the Cemetery of the Innocents.

Catherine laughed when she heard the story of Merlin and the eggs. It was she who recalled the flowering of the hawthorn.

‘The good God preserve us from Heaven,’ she cried, ‘if when we get there we are going to find the Huguenots and Catholics still warring with one another.’

It was all very well to joke about such matters under the eye of the Queen Mother; but later came fears.

Catherine went on reading the book. She kept it with her, reading it at odd moments; and she was heard singing in her apartments:

‘L’une ruyne d’Israel,

L’autre, ruyne de la France.’


* * *

After the massacre, Guise and Margot were no longer lovers.

Margot, like so many others, could not forget the massacre. She believed, as did most people, that her mother had inspired it and that, more than any person in France, she was responsible for it; but she could not forget the part her lover had played in it.