Francis had been an enlightened monarch. Under his rule, in 1534 seven gifted university students formed the Jesuit order. Now de Poitiers is pressuring Henry to reverse his father’s humanist policies; to stifle the dissemination of knowledge by banning the sale or import of all unapproved texts; and to persecute the Huguenots, many of whom Henry now orders burned at the stake. These radical decisions infuriates Catherine. She thinks it unwise to punish men who worship in private and never take up arms against France. The queen conceals her political opinions, however, and focuses her considerable energy and attention on maternal duties.
To serve as tutors, she’d beckoned a variety of intellectual luminaries to Paris, eminent scientists, authors, and doctors. One provincial healer, who had protected her family from the plague, made a particularly strong impression. Catherine had him designated royal counselor and physician. It is this man whom she seeks now.
Catherine passes through the majestic library that King Francis had so greatly expanded. In 1537, his Ordonnance de Montpellier required that the royal collection receive one copy of every book sold in France. Francis appointed the noted humanist Guillaume Budé his chief librarian and summoned the Italian master Leonardo da Vinci from Rome to serve as Paintre du Roi. At Francis’s request, French agents had scoured the monasteries of Europe and amassed a wealth of rare books and manuscripts. Later, Francis shocked Parisian society by opening his library to scholars of all nationalities, facilitating the general diffusion of knowledge.
Catherine exits the main gallery via a concealed doorway. She enters a musty, forgotten chamber that has once housed the king’s personal library. As a younger woman she’d often escaped here. In this hidden room she was free to explore, read forbidden books, and avoid the disagreeable courtiers’ incessant barbs. Peeking around a bookshelf, the queen observes Michel at his labors. The doctor is seated at a writing desk, not far from a mechanical lion Leonardo gave King Francis in 1515. Classical volumes by Livy, Suetonius, and Plutarch as well as the medieval chroniclers Villehardouin and Froissart were arrayed around him. Scribbling diligently by candlelight, the doctor appears to be translating the ancient writings into French.
“What wicked secrets have you unveiled?” she whispers to him.
The physician, startled, jumps to his feet, bumping a candlestick and almost scorching an irreplaceable manuscript.
“Oh, your Highness! My manners are unforgivable. I sincerely apologize. I did not hear you enter, I was so immersed in my research.”
She smiles. “You are forgiven. What are you reading? Galen again? Hippocrates?”
“No, my lady. Today I’m translating prophetic works of great antiquity.”
“What manner of prophecy?”
“Just… arcane eschatological matters, nothing of practical significance,” he says.
Intrigued, by his obvious embarrassment, the queen commands, “Doctor, read aloud what you have translated.”
Michel gulps.
“‘At that time the prince of iniquity, who will be called Antichrist, shall arise from the tribe of Dan. He will be the son of perdition, the head of pride, the master of error, the fullness of malice who will overturn the world through dissimulation. He will delude many by magic art, and fire will seem to come down from heaven. When the Roman city is attacked, the Antichrist is revealed.’”
“The Antichrist?”
“Yes, Highness. He is an evil force or being who threatens humanity’s future. This volume describes the invasion of Gog and Magog and the tribulations that precede the end of days.”
She nods thoughtfully. “I have something that might interest you,” she says.
The queen crosses the chamber and pulls a tattered portfolio from the alcove where she found it, quite by accident, more than a decade earlier. It must have sat undisturbed for years. The reign of Louis XI ended long before Catherine’s time. Befouled by a century’s accumulated dust and rat droppings, and with the Spider King’s royal seal broken, the packet appeared worthless, but its contents were intact. Opening the folder, Catherine withdraws seven sheets of fragile vellum and passed them to the curious doctor. He is amazed to behold a bizarre ancient apocalypse. Someone had translated the prophetic text from Old Syriac into Latin and organized it into quatrains. As Catherine has anticipated, the physician is enraptured. Eagerly, Michel de Nostradamus spread the vellum across his desk and begins to read.