Such deference was pleasing, but she had quickly realised that it was not so flattering as it seemed.
How unfortunate it was that Henry and Diane should have married Francis to the Scottish girl! That girl now dominated Catherine’s dreams, for Mary made Francis obey her in all things; and her uncles, the Guises, cunningly saw that she obeyed them.
How I dislike undutiful children! thought Catherine; and, for all his words, Francis was an undutiful son, since he did not obey his mother, but the Guises.
Catherine hated the Guises, and they terrified her. Very clearly the arrogant Duke Francis and the sly Cardinal of Lorraine had shown her that they were the masters. She had tried to placate them while wondering how she could destroy them. She had vowed friendship for them; she had insisted that Francis issue a statement commanding obedience to the Duke and the Cardinal; and as she had done so, she had wondered how she could betray them. Longingly she thought, as she had thought in the days when Diane had occupied her mind, of the poison closet at Blois; but the people whom she wished to remove were so important, so well guarded, that she had to bide her time. She could only use the contents of her closet, and the fine art which she had gradually mastered, on those who were less significant. At the moment she must go warily, for if she were plotting against the Guises, she could be sure they were watching her very closely, and one false move on her part would be disastrous to her.
She had already, she saw now, made a mistake by too prompt action. She had brought about the disgrace of her old enemy, the Constable Montmorency, insisting that the young King take from him the seals of office, and, thinking to ingratiate herself with the Guises, had suggested that they be given to them. Francis told the Constable that, in view of his years, these offices were too great a strain on him, but that he should remain a member of the Privy Council. The Constable had retorted hotly: ‘Being old and half in my dotage, my counsel can be of little use to you.’ And in great rage he had retired to the château of Chantilly. Catherine realised that she had made a dangerous enemy and that the course the ex-Constable would probably take would be to ally himself with the Bourbons.
She could not make up her mind whether or not to make the Bourbons her friends at the expense of the Guises. She had chosen the Guises because Antoine de Bourbon had not been at court when she might have sounded him and thrown in her lot with him. She did not doubt that his prolonged absence might have been engineered by the Guises, but that did not endear him to her; she knew him for a weak and vacillating creature who could not make up his mind on such a simple thing as a journey to court. The Prince of Condé was gallant and attractive; she had always had a pleasant feeling for him; but she did not know enough of him to trust him as an ally in this dangerous game of politics which she was now about to play. Meanwhile, the Guises were at hand, and they seemed all-powerful; and through their niece, Mary of Scotland, they insisted that the young King should take their advice instead of that of his mother. And so, for the moment, Catherine had been forced to take the Guises as her allies.
She drew aside the heavy curtains and looked out on the gardens. The young people were down there, and as she stood watching them, she drew from the observation that delight which watching others, when they thought themselves unobserved, always gave her.
She frowned at those children of hers. There was Francis walking about the enclosed garden with his arm about his wife. Every now and then he would stop to kiss her passionately. He looked like a little old man from this distance. She laughed suddenly, reflecting that he was wearing himself out with the exertions of sport and being a husband. Well, when Francis had worn himself out there would be an end to the easy power of Messieurs the Duke and Cardinal. They would not find it so easy with young Charles. Or would they? But there should be no sly little wife to lure Charles from his mother. She would make sure that over Charles she would have complete domination.
Now there was Charles, sidling up to Mary, trying to take her hand, looking at her in that wild, passionate way of his – his heart in his eyes. Silly Charles! He was no doubt begging that he might be allowed to play his lute to her or read some poem he had written about her. Catherine must stop this folly of her second son; by the look of young Francis, it might be that he was not long for this world, and, if he were not, Charles would have other things to think about than pursuing Francis’s widow. Francis’s widow should never become Charles’s wife.
She must watch these children of hers, for they were very important. Now that her husband was dead, they were all-important. In them lay her future and all that she could hope for in this land of her adoption.
Margot caught her eye. Margot was sprawling on the grass, and on one side of her was the little Prince of Joinville, son of the Duke of Guise, and on the other the Marquis of Beaupréau, the son of the Prince of Roche-sur-Yon. Margot’s wayward eyes went from the dark head of Beaupréau to the fair one of young Guise; and there they rested with a most unchildlike longing. Margot was talking; Margot was always talking, except in her mother’s presence. She jumped up suddenly and danced on the grass, lifting the skirts of her dress too high for decorum, while the two Princes tried to catch her and dance with her.
Then into her apartment came her darling Henry, and with him was little Hercule. Hercule had lost his beauty since his attack of smallpox, for his skin was badly pitted; he would never again be known as ‘Pretty Hercule’. But Henry in contrast was growing more and more beautiful every day.
She could not repress a fond smile at the sight of him. He had decked himself out in the most brilliant colours; but these colours, though dazzlingly bright, mingled perfectly, for her Henry was an artist. In his ears were sapphire earrings and it was these that he had come to show her. He was nine years old now, and those wonderful dark eyes of his were pure Medici. How ordinary the others seemed in comparison with Henry! They had no subtlety. Francis was foolish; Charles was hysterical; Elisabeth and Claude had been quite obedient girls; Margot, nearly eight years old now, was wild and in constant need of restraint; Hercule without his beauty was a petulant little boy, but Henry, her darling, was perfect. She thought even now as she looked at him: Oh, why was this one not my first-born!
He had come to show her his new earrings. Were they not beautiful, and did she not think that sapphires suited him better than emeralds?
‘My darling,’ she said, ‘they are most becoming. But do you think little boys should wear earrings?’
He pouted. Hercule watched him in that astonishment which was apparent on all the children’s faces when they saw the behaviour of Henry towards the mother whom the rest of them feared.
‘But I like earrings, Maman; and if I like earrings I shall wear earrings.’
‘Of course you shall, my pet; and I will tell you that if the other gentlemen do not wear them, the more fools they, for they are most becoming.’
He embraced her. He would like a necklace of sapphires, he said, to match the earrings.
‘You are a vain creature,’ she told him. ‘And you have been perfuming yourself from my bottles, have you not?’
Henry was excited. ‘This perfume of yours is the best you have ever had, Maman. This smell of musk enchants me. Could Cosmo or René make some for me?’
Catherine said she would consider that, in a way which he took for consent. He began to dance round the room, not boisterously as Margot danced, but gracefully, and with the utmost charm. After that he wished to recite to her the latest poem he had composed; and when she heard it, it seemed to Catherine that it compared very favourably with the best of Ronsard.