Margot at that time, deeply involved with Turenne, had no great wish to give him up for the handsome Champvallon, who would leave the court of Nérac with Anjou; but she wrote to him frequently and in a more hyberbolic style than she usually employed, even in her love letters. ‘Farewell, my beautiful sun, she wrote, ‘you beautiful miracle of nature. I kiss you a million times on that loving, beautiful mouth.’ Such letters did not always find their way direct to the one for whom they were intended, and Margot’s passion for Champvallon was known to others besides themselves.

Now, having tired a little of Monsieur de Turenne, Margot looked forward to reunion with Champvallon in Paris.

Arriving at the capital. Margot was warmly welcomed by Champvallon, but less warmly by the King and her mother. She saw now that they had asked her to come so that they might keep her under surveillance, and that they had no intention of altering their attitude towards her.

Margot was unperturbed. She was in her beloved Paris; she was at the court of France where she belonged; she took an immense delight in her surroundings and many of the courtiers were declaring that the sun had come back to shine once more upon them. She was the centre of all balls, masques, and entertainments; she was the leader of fashion; and as she was by this time passionately in love with Champvallon, she was enjoying life.

Sometimes she encountered Henry of Guise, and these meetings never failed to excite her. He was still the lover of Madame de Sauves, but Margot knew that his dreams of his future greatness occupied him far more than any mistress ever could. The League, under his guidance, was spreading across the land. There were occasions when she longed to ask him to tell her of the League’s activities, of his plans which, had they all gone as she had once so ardently desired, would have been her plans, her dreams, her hopes.

But there was Champvallon to remind her that she had done with the old passion for Henry of Guise. Why fret about it when there was a new one, and when there had been many in between, and would be many more to follow.

Catherine was urging Margot to persuade her husband to come to Paris, but Navarre sent continuous refusals. Catherine knew that as soon as Margot had arrived at court she had begun to act as her husband’s spy, but that had been expected and provided little occasion for anxiety, for Catherine believed she intercepted all their correspondence.

Margot had been some months at court when an incident occurred which aroused the King’s wrath to such an extent that he determined on revenge.

His beloved mignon, Joyeuse, had desired to become the Archbishop of Narbonne and envoy to the Holy See, and although this young man was not yet twenty-one years of age and was completely lacking in the necessary qualifications, he had so charmingly begged for the honour that the King had been unable to resist throwing it to him as though it were a sugared plum—even though it meant that the darling must absent himself from court for a while to visit Rome. While Joyeuse was in Rome, Henry sent dispatches to him, but the royal courier had been waylaid and shot, and these dispatches were stolen.

The King was furious, half suspecting his mother, for this smacked of her methods, yet he decided he would blame his sister, for he was looking for a charge to trump up against her.

He wished to take his revenge in a manner which would bring her the greatest shame, and, acting without consulting his mother, but taking instead the advice of his darlings, he chose the state ball as the occasion.

Margot looked as striking as ever that night; she wore her hair loose about her shoulders and adorned with diamonds; her dress was of scarlet velvet.

She was dancing when the King gave a sign to the musicians to stop. The dancers stood silent, wondering what was wrong. The King then strode to that spot where his sister stood.

‘Behold!’ he cried, addressing the assembly. ‘Behold this wanton! My friends, I am ashamed to own her as my sister. I could not begin to enumerate her crimes to you. There are too many, and I, mercifully, am unaware of them all. I might name forty men who have been her lovers . . . but, my friends, that would by no means complete the list. There is one Champvallon. Do you know that she bore his son recently here in Paris? This is so. With wicked secrecy she endeavoured to keep this from us, but we are not foolish, nor so blind as she thinks.’

Margot’s eyes blazed. ‘You . . .’ she cried. ‘You . . . with your painted mignons . . . to call me immoral . .

The King’s eyes narrowed, and Margot was aware that two of his mignons had taken their stand on either side of her. Beware! mocked their eyes. No one speaks to the King of France as you have . . . and lives!

Margot’s fear was greater than her fury. Never before had she realized the depth of her brother’s hatred. She had been foolish to plague his mignons, to show her enmity towards them. She saw now how right her husband had been when he had refused to walk into the trap by coming to Paris. She was sure this was a prelude to her arrest.

She looked appealingly at her mother.

Catherine stood silently watching. She was sick at heart. These children of hers, with their folly, were wrecking all that she had worked for. This story would be told all over the streets of Paris, distorted, enlarged; and the sum of the iniquities of the house of Valois would be totted up afresh, with the result that there would be a bigger total for the discontented to grumble over.

‘Brother,’ said Margot, ‘you have been listening to lies. I have no child.’

Her mother whispered to her: ‘Say nothing. Depart at once. Go to your apartments. It is your only chance if you would escape your brother’s anger.’

Margot bowed and, holding her head high, walked out while the assembly, in silence, made way for her.

Her women gathered round her in her apartments. What now? they asked each other.

Margot lay on her bed, apprehensive, yet enjoying, as usual, a dangerous situation; and, although the King had accused her of having an illegitimate child, and that news would soon be all over Paris, all over France, she was not entirely displeased. Her sterility—the result of the sins of her grandfathers—was deeply regretted by her; so, if she could not bear children, it was a little gratifying to be suspected of having done so.

Nothing more happened that night, but when she awakened it was to find sixty archers in her bedchamber. This was a meaningless indignity put on her by the King, for they had not come to arrest her, but merely to bring a message from him commanding her to ‘deliver the city of her presence without delay’.

As Champvallon, when informed of the scene in the ballroom during which his name had been mentioned, had fled to Germany fearing the vengeance of the King, Margot decided to obey her brother without delay, and accordingly set out that very day for Gascony.

The King came delightedly to his mother. ‘There, you see! I have rid our court of that spy, and done it promptly. As Ep. ernon said from the first, it was a mistake to bring her here.’

Catherine shook her head. ‘My son, how I wish that you would take my advice before you act rashly. It is far better to have such a dangerous person under our eyes than far away. And I greatly fear that your manner of dismissing her was most unwise.’

‘I am a man,’ said the King, ‘who, once he has made up his mind, acts promptly.’

‘Sometimes it is wiser to ponder awhile,’ said Catherine. ‘We shall see whether you were right or whether you should have taken my advice and acted more cautiously.’

Henry soon did see. Navarre, having heard of the King’s attack on Margot, sent dispatches to the King telling him that he could not be expected to take back a wife whom the King of France—her own brother—had so publicly slandered.

The fact was that Corisanda was pregnant and, being very eager to possess a son and heir to his dominions, the King of Navarre contemplated marrying her. He said in his dispatches that he thought he should receive reparation for the royal family’s having married him to such a woman. He wanted a divorce. What would Christendom say, he demanded, if he received a woman on whom the great King of France had inflicted such public scandal before banishing her from his court!

Catherine raised expressionless eyes to her son’s face; but the King ignored her and refused to admit that he had been wrong.

‘A curse on Navarre!’ he cried. ‘A curse on his harlot wife! There will be no peace for this realm while either of them live.’

‘She must go back to her husband,’ said Catherine. ‘What is done cannot be altered. My dearest son, those friends of yours advised you to behave as you did, not for the good of France, but on account of their own petty jealousy. You must not allow personal feelings to enter into the government of a country.’

He frowned. That was the most she dared say against his mignons. Meanwhile, she wondered how she could rid herself of those two, Epernon and Joyeuse, the most dangerous of them all. But so many of his mignons had died that she feared he would be suspicious of her if any further accidents overtook them; and she could not bear to lose that little affection, that little respect which he still had for her.

But she should rejoice. Such matters as this should prove to him that his mignons only led him into folly. It proved something else; it showed up clearly the growing shrewdness of Navarre.

Envoys were being sent back and forth between the courts of Paris and Nérac. The King of France was placating the King of Navarre. He was now weakly declaring that he had not meant what he had said regarding his sister, and that he had been misinformed; it was a fact, he realized, that very often virtuous Princesses were not exempt from slander.