When Margot received this letter she was furious. She could not believe that anyone, whom she had selected for a lover, could refuse her. Impetuously, without waiting to consider the justice due to Pybrac, she wrote to him:

‘There is no use to excuse yourself on the score of illness for not answering my letter. I suspect that this illness and the responsibility of handling my seals, have damaged your health. I, my dear Pybrac, am as concerned for your health as you for mine, so I am asking you to return my seals.’

After that rebuff Margot was a little subdued; she wondered whether she was going to enjoy her new life; she was already thinking regretfully of the Paris court where men’s manners were as elegant as their clothes; she thought of her boorish husband and she thought of Henry of Guise.

Then she wept a little and looked through her tears at the magnificence of her litter.

‘If they had let me marry the man I loved,’ she muttered, ‘what a different life mine wquld have been! As it is, I am the most unfortunate Princess that ever lived!’


* * *

Navarre was exhilarated by the prospect of seeing Margot again. Trouble-maker she certainly was, but she never failed to amuse him. He was fully aware that the object of this visit was to spy upon him, and so he was not unprepared for that.

Margot herself was not so eager for the meeting. She had agitated for it when she was in Paris because she was always driven by a desire to make things happen, and a journey through France had seemed an exciting project. But now that it was all but completed, she was wondering again and again how she was going to adjust herself to the humbler court of her husband when she was already beginning to feel homesick for the French court. She was still suffering from the slight which her ex-Chancellor had given her, and she was realizing that she bad been foolish to demand his resignation from office, because it was generally known for what reason the efficient young man had been dismissed.

She was feeling indisposed, she said when they were nearing Toulouse, and not well enough to accompany her mother to the meeting-place; she would, therefore, take a short rest, and, with her attendants, come along afterwards.

Navarre looked for her in vain, while Catherine embraced him and congratulated him on his healthy looks. In his blunt Bearnais way he told her that she was not looking as well as when he had last seen her, and he trusted that the journey had not been too strenuous for her. He looked at her with that shrewd twinkle in his eyes and added that he greatly appreciated the honour of her coming, but he feared the journey might have taxed her strength and he hoped that she would not undertake too much during her stay in his dominions.

‘Ah,’ responded Catherine, ‘I have come merely to chaperone my daughter and to admire your scenery, which is superb.’

He then asked for his wife and was told of Margot’s indisposition.

‘Then, Madame,’ he said, ‘you will forgive me if I ride to her. I long to see her.’

Catherine gave her permission, for she guessed that if she did not he would ride off without it.

He came unceremoniously to Margot’s lodgings and found her with her women, trying on a new gown.

He picked her up and gave her two noisy kisses. Margot wrinkled her nose; he smelt none too sweet, and she saw at once that a certain deterioration had taken place in his ap- pearance and manners since he had left the French court.

I was not expecting you,’ she said coldly. ‘Did you not hear that I was indisposed?’

Your indisposition would be blooming health to most, my dear wife. I doubted not that the indisposition was some new-fashioned Paris custom.’

She was aware of the old resentment; yet with it was mingled a faint attraction; his bluntness was piquant after the meaningless compliments of court gallants.

‘More beautiful than ever!’ he cried. ‘I have thought a good deal of you, Margot.’

‘And of others. We at court hear of the doings at Béarn, you know.’

‘Wherever I go there is news! Thus it is to be a King.’ ‘Wherever you go there is scandal.’

‘Not a quarrel already! Come, I will ride with you to Toulouse.’

She was not really displeased; it flattered her to think that he had ridden to meet her.

‘You must have behaved in a most ungallant manner to my mother,’ she said.

‘It was you I came to meet, not your mother.’

But later she was not so pleased with him. To see him in his native setting was to discover that while he had been at the court of France, he had been behaving, according to his lights; in a most elegant fashion. Now that he was in his own country he felt that he could be natural and proceeded to be so, to the horror of Margot and her mother and those accustomed to the Paris court. In some ways he had become like a Bearnais peasant; he mingled with the humble people of his towns and villages; he used coarse oaths; and it seemed that he had nothing to recommend him to a fastidious Princess but his wit and his shrewdness.

When she reached the court of Nérac, Margot soon learned that her husband’s favourite mistress was a certain Fleurette, the daughter of one of his gardeners. This girl was brought into the palace when he required her; he could be heard coarsely whistling to her from a window, or seen indulging in horseplay in the gardens. Such conduct was extremely shocking to both Catherine and her daughter. He knew this, and it amused him to think of fresh ways of shocking them. He developed a passion—or pretended to—for Margot’s chambermaid; and he would stroll to the bakery in the town for a tender tête-à-tête with the boulangère, Pictone Pancoussaire.

Margot was so angry that she wanted to return to Paris at once. Indeed, this behaviour on the part of Navarre seemed as good an excuse as any. She knew that she would continue to feel out of place in this little court, which seemed barbaric when compared with the ceremonious state observed at the Louvre, Blois or Chenonceaux. But Catherine calmed her, refraining with an effort from reminding her daughter that this journey had not been made solely for Margot’s pleasure.

Catherine surveyed her band of ladies; they would very soon do their work. In the meantime let the boor of Béarn show them that he cared nothing for Paris manners and Paris ways. Let him frolic awhile with his little Fleurette and Picotine. It would not be for long. Dayelle had already lifted in admiration those beautiful almond-shaped eyes to the King of Navarre; and although he had pretended to be completely absorbed in his humble mistresses, he cast an occasional glance at the beautiful Greek. He was, Catherine reasoned, the son of Antoine de Bourbon and Jeanne of Navarre, so there must be some good taste in him. Catherine was confident that Dayelle—or, failing Dayelle, Madame de Sauves or one of her women—would lure the King away from his humble playmates in due course.

Catherine directed Margot’s attention to a man whom the latter had favoured a year or so before, when they were in Paris together. This was a handsome nobleman named du Luc. Margot was pleased to be entertained by this gentleman; and this, thought Catherine, would keep her satisfied at Nérac for a little while.

And Margot did become absorbed. She amazed her subjects, and it was only a few of the most puritanical who looked upon her as a wicked, brazen woman. Her delight in living captivated most of them, and now that she had a lover who satisfied her temporarily, this love of living was apparent to all. What did she care for the puritans? She cared only for those who admired her. She appeared in public dressed in gowns designed by herself—gowns which would have startled even the court of France. She appeared in red wigs, blonde wigs, and sometimes without a wig, showing her abundant dark hair, which was more beautiful than any wig. She danced in white satin, in purple velvet, in cloth of gold and silver; she favoured Spanish velvet the colour of carnations and had one gown of this material and colour which was weighed down with sequins. She adorned herself with jewels and plumes. She was the magnificent, the fantastic Queen of Navarre. Once she appeared at a function in a robe which had needed fifteen ells of fine gold material, while about her neck hung a rope of four hundred pearls. Diamonds sparkled in her hair, which was decorated with white feathers. She would put on a different personality with each dress. In the gold-thread gown she was all regal dignity; in carnation velvet she would dance madly and recklessly, sometimes with amorous glances at du Luc, sometimes with speculative ones at the handsome Henri de la Tour, the Vicomte de Turenne, who was beginning to interest her. She sang romantic ballads composed by herself; she showed the people of Nérac how to dance those dances which were fashionable in Paris—the Spanish pavana and the Italian corrente.

Her mother looked on, watching her daughter as well as Dayelle and Navarre.

Navarre himself was reluctantly fascinated by his wife. She could have used her influence with her husband had she wished. Ah, thought Catherine, if only she would obey me. If only she were a member of my Squadron! But Margot’s weakness in her mother’s eyes was her lack of any motive beyond the gratification of her sexual desires.

It was when Margot was in her apartments after that ball at which she had enchanted many in her carnation-coloured Spanish velvet, that Navarre came to her. She now seemed to him more attractive than any woman at his court. He was amused by Dayelle, who was obviously at the Queen Mother’s command, just waiting for him to notice her; but this wife of his, with her elegance, her arrogance and her sharp wit, he had to admit—while the most infuriating—was the most fascinating person he had ever met.