While he wept for his dying friend, the King swore revenge on the man he knew to be behind the affray. His mother begged him to keep such threats to himself.

‘Are you a supporter of Guise then, Madame?’ demanded the King.

‘I support one man and one man only, as you should know; and it is in my fear for him that I beg him to be silent. Take your revenge on the remaining Guisard, this d’Entragues, if you must; but as you value your life, do not suggest for one moment that Henry of Guise was behind this affair. Do not talk recklessly of what you will do to that man.’

‘So then I must stand aside and let him plot to kill my friends?’

‘My dear son, have you not yet learned, in spite of all that I have told you, that when you plot against the great you must do it in secret?’

‘Madame, I swear to you that I will never forgive the man responsible for this.’

‘I understand, my son; but remember, I beg of you, who that man is. Remember the position he holds in this country—particularly in Paris—and keep your thoughts to yourself. We are one, my darling. Your good is my good, your wishes mine.’

Believing her to speak the truth, he embraced her warmly.

‘Mother,’ he said, ‘I could not reign without you.’

Then there were real tears in Catherine’s eyes, for this was one of the rare, happy moments of her life.

Caylus died and the King tenderly took from his darling’s ears those earrings which he himself had given him; he had the hair cut from his dead friend’s head and put with that of Maugiron in a jewelled case, that he might, he said, look at it in the years to come when he mourned the friends he would never forget.

A month or so later another of the mignons, Saint-Mesgrin, was assassinated by masked men as he left the Louvre and night.

The fury of the King was intense. He wept in his mother’s arms. Guise was suspected of arranging this murder, but at length Catherine persuaded the King to give no sign of his suspicions that this was so.

About this time yet another assassination took place. This happened during a ball and in full view of the guests. The murderer on this occasion was Villequier, a man who had once been a great favourite of the King’s—one of the mignons who had accompanied him to Poland. Catherine herself- had removed Villequier from the King by marrying him to a member of her Escadron Volant, who had received orders to lure her husband from the King’s side. This the lady had done so successfully that—as it was necessary for her as a member of Catherine’s band to continue the duties such membership demanded—her husband had become jealous; and there, before the whole court, he plunged his dagger into her breast.

There was hardly a day when a duel was not fought in the streets of Paris. Travellers were more unsafe on the roads than they had been a few years previously. Life had become cheaper as food became dearer. Catherine became faintly disturbed that others should hold life as cheaply as she had always done.


* * *

Anjou’s promises to the Flemings had come to nothing. Philip of Spain had countered those fine promises of the arrogant little Duke by sending into Flanders Alexander Farnese, the great Duke of Parma, with an avenging army. Since Anjou had been looking for easy victory, he had no desire to face Parma; he therefore decided to let the Flemings look after themselves, and, assuring himself that he had won the laurels of a great general already and could be content with that, he returned to France.

Catherine now had the King’s confidence once more. The mignons who remained seemed once again more interested in clothes, jewels, cosmetics and lap-dogs than in politics. The Guisards had done their work well.

There had been one or two risings in different parts of the country; Margot was once more agitating for permission to return to her husband; Navarre had said he would receive her and her mother; and it seemed desirable that Catherine should travel to Nérac, ostensibly to return her daughter to her husband, but in reality to quell any rebellion in the provinces through which she would seize the opportunity to travel; at the same time she could interrogate Navarre himself and ascertain, in the King’s name, how matters stood in Béarn.

Margot, delighted at the prospect of a journey which should prove exciting, made her preparations with zest; Catherine made hers with less enthusiasm, but with equal care. She decided that she would take Charlotte de Sauves with her in case it was necessary to revive that old passion; but since she must have a spy in close contact with Navarre, and it might well be that he would not wish to renew that old liaison, she also took among her women a charming girl known as La Belle Dayelle. This girl was a Greek who, with her brother, had managed to escape from Cyprus eight or nine years before, when Cyprus had been taken from the Venetians by the Turks. Catherine had been struck by the girl’s charm and had arranged for her brother to be taken into the service of the Duke of Anjou—Alençon, as he had been at that time—while she took Dayelle into hers. With her beautiful almond-shaped eyes, this girl was enchanting, and her exotic beauty set her apart from the French women. A good reserve, thought Catherine, for Navarre—just in case he was tired of his old love.

Margot lay back in the litter which she had designed herself. Such a litter had never been seen before; but Margot was determined to impress her subjects who had never before seen her. The pillars were covered with scarlet velvet, and the lining decorated with gold embroidery. Devices in Italian and Spanish had been cut on the glass and worked on the lining; these dealt with the sun and its powers, for Margot had not forgotten that one of the court poets, who had been enamoured of her, had likened her, in her beauty, her wit and her charm, to the sun of the court of France.

But Margot was not merely content to lie in her litter and think of the effect her beauty and magnificence would have on her subjects. She must amuse herself during the journey. She considered the men who were accompanying her and her mother: the Cardinal of Bourbon and the Duke of Montpensier, both kinsmen of her husband’s; the one was, too old, the other too fanatically Catholic to make a good lover. There was Gui de Faur and the Sieur de Pybrac. She stopped there, for although Pybrac was a serious young man, he was quite handsome. He was perhaps too serious to contemplate becoming Margot’s lover, but why should she not enthral him, lure him from his seriousness? It was absurd for such a young man—when he was tolerably handsome—to think that nothing’existed beyond his work as her Chancellor.

It was always a delight to have a pen in her hand, so she wrote to him immediately, purely on state matters, for she realized that she must go slowly with Monsieur de Pybrac.

Catherine in her litter was a little sad. The rigours of such a journey brought home to her the fact that she was growing too old for such an undertaking. Completely unsympathetic with the sufferings of others, she determined to master her own. Previously she had been able to ignore her minor ailments; but it was not so easy now. Her rheumatism came regularly with the winter, and she could not laugh at it as she had once done. ‘Oh, that,’ she had said. ‘That is my rente. It comes regularly with the first cold winds.’ But now it compelled her attention, and it was often too painful to allow her to walk, so that sometimes she must ride on a mule. This made her laugh, for she knew that, being far too fat and heavy for the creature, she made a comic figure; but she was always ready to laugh at herself. ‘I look like fat old Marechal de Cossé now,’ she declared. ‘I wish my son, the King, could see me, for there is nothing in the world I should like to hear so much as his laughter.’

She worried about Henry. What was he doing now? She longed to see him. Had she been wise to leave him? What was Henry of Guise planning? Was that League of his becoming too powerful? She did not trust her son-in-law. She had with her a goodly band of men, all of whom would work for her son, she was sure. She had several members of her Escadron with her, whom she could use to good purpose. If only she could trust her daughter to work for her! But how could one trust Margot? She seemed to have little desire but to intrigue with her lovers. She was doubtless planning a campaign of love at this moment.

And that indeed was the case. Margot had received a fulsome note from Pybrac in which he declared that his one desire was to serve his mistress.

That letter was a delight to Margot. She wrote back telling him how she admired him. She hinted that he might become something more personal to her than her Chancellor if he cared to do so.

When Pybrac received this letter that modest young man was terrified. He had heard many tales of his wayward mistress, but he had not believed that such a brilliant creature could look his way. That letter which he had written to the Queen, he had written as a servant, not as a lover. He remembered what had happened to another lover of Margot’s, the Comte de la Mole. It was not for such as himself to venture so far into that dangerous orbit.

He therefore did not answer that warm, inviting letter of hers, and when she demanded to know why, he wrote that he had not intended his letter to be taken as a love letter; he had written in an exaggerated manner, it was true, but he explained that the fashion in letter-writing was exaggerated, and he merely followed the style of the day. When he had said he loved her, it was as his Queen; when he said he had wished to serve her, it was purely in the role of Chancellor. He craved her pardon for not replying at once to her letter, but he had been ill and unable to do so.