‘They are aware of your sympathy, Madame,’ said Coligny earnestly.
Then she spoke to him of what she had mentioned to the ladies; of plots with England, of plots with Calvin. He in his turn assured her of his loyalty to the Crown; and when Coligny spoke of loyalty she must believe him.
‘Madame,’ said Coligny, ‘you are on your way to Rheims. A meeting could be arranged there … or somewhere near. There is much which should be discussed with you.’
‘What would be discussed with me, Admiral?’
‘We shall ask for the dismissal of the Guises, who hold so many offices; we shall ask for the redistribution of offices; the convocation of the States General. All this would be in the true interest of the Crown.’
‘Ah, Monsieur l’Amiral, when I see poor people burned at the stake, not for murder or theft, but for holding their own opinions, I am deeply moved. And when I see the manner in which they bear these afflictions, I believe there is something in their faith which rises above reason.’
‘Our people look to you for help, Madame,’ pleaded Coligny. Madame de Mailly cried out: ‘Oh, Madame, do not pollute the young King’s reign with bloodshed. That which has already been shed calls loudly to God for vengeance.’
Catherine looked at Madame de Mailly coldly. ‘Do you refer to what took place when my husband was on the throne?’
Madame de Mailly fell on her knees and begged the pardon of the Queen Mother.
Catherine looked from Madame de Mailly to Coligny. ‘I think,’ she said slowly, ‘your meaning is this: many suffered at my husband’s command, and you think that because of this a terrible death overtook him.’ Catherine laughed bitterly. ‘You would warn me, would you not, that if there are more deaths, more suffering, I may suffer? Ah, Madame, Monsieur l’Amiral, God has taken from me him whom I loved and prized more dearly than my life. What more could He do to me?’
Then she wept, for it pleased her to appear before Coligny as a weak woman, and both the Admiral and Madame de Mailly comforted her. But as she wept Catherine was asking herself whether or not it would be wise to agree to this meeting with the Protestants. She decided that it would, for she need commit herself to nothing while she learned their secrets.
So she promised that she would see any minister whom the Reformed Church cared to send to her; and Coligny and Madame de Mailly retired very well satisfied with the interview.
When Catherine was alone she thought continually of the Protestants; that led her to Condé; she contemplated his attractiveness, and his weakness. She thought of Antoine and Jeanne; Condé and his Eléonore. And when her women came in for her coucher she thought how lovely some of them were. There were two among them of outstanding beauty; one was Louise de la Limaudière and the other Isabelle de Limeuil.
She said, when she had dismissed all but the most beautiful of her attendants: ‘Do you remember how in the days of my father-in-law Francis the First, there was a band of ladies, all charming, all good company, great riders, witty, the pick of the court?’
They had heard of Francis’s Petite Bande, and they said so.
‘I have such a band in mind. I shall gather about me ladies of charm and elegance, ladies who will do as much for me as Francis’s did for him. Beauty, daring, wit, these shall be the qualifications; and it shall be deemed as great an honour for a lady to enter my Escadron Volant as it was to be a member of Francis’s Petite Bande.’
The court had moved to the Castle of Blois on the advice of Ambroise Paré, the King’s surgeon. Francis’s poison of the blood was particularly severe at this time, and it was thought that the climate of Blois, milder than that of Paris, might be good for the King.
During these uneasy days, Catherine felt herself to be most unsafe. The meeting with the Protestant ministers which she had planned had not taken place, for the arrangements had come to the ears of the Cardinal of Lorraine and he, in his arrogant way, together with his brother, the Duke of Guise, had made it very clear to Catherine that she could not serve two masters. If she wished to throw in her lot with Coligny and the Protestants, she would immediately and automatically become the enemy of the Guisards. And Catherine – with Francis on the throne, and Francis’s wife, subject to those uncles of hers, in command of the King – could not afford to offend these men.
If the matter had ended there it would not have been important, but the persecutions of the Protestants had increased. The terrible sentence that he should be burned at the stake had been carried out on du Bourg, and many had watched him die in the Place des Grèves.
The Protestants were murmuring against Catherine for having failed to keep her promise. The French, of whatever class or party, were always ready to blame the Italian woman.
Catherine chafed against her inability to get what she wanted; but the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise had followed the court to Blois. They were on the alert. Catherine knew they watched her closely.
Only the children seemed unaware of the tension. The King knew nothing of what was going on about him. He was only concerned with his happiness in his married life. Mary was happy too, as long as she could dance and chatter and be admired; it seemed wonderful to her to be the most beautiful of all the Queens of France, to be courted and petted by her two formidable uncles.
Charles was not happy, but then how could he be? His tutors bewildered him by the strange things they taught him. He still longed to be with Mary, the Queen and wife of his brother; he wanted to write poetry to her and play his lute to her all day long.
Henry was happy with his dogs and those members of his own sex whom he chose for his playmates; these were all the pretty little boys of the court, not the big, blustering ones, like Henry of Guise, who were always talking of fighting and what they would do when they were grown up; Henry’s friends were clever boys who wrote poetry and read poetry and liked fine pictures and beautiful things.
Margot was happy because Henry of Guise was at Blois. They would wander together along the banks of the Loire and talk of their future; they were determined that one day they would marry.
‘If they should try to marry me to anyone else,’ said Margot, ‘I shall go with you to Lorraine and we will rule there together; and perhaps we shall one day take the whole of France and I will make you King.’
But Henry scoffed at the idea of there being any opposition to their marriage.
‘Say nothing of this to anyone yet, dearest Margot, but I have already spoken to my father.’
Margot stared at him. ‘About us?’
He nodded. ‘My father thinks it would be a good plan for us to marry.’
‘But Henry, what if the King … ?’
‘My father is the greatest man in France. If he says we shall marry, then we shall.’
Margot thought of Henry’s father, the mighty Duke of Guise, Le Balafré, with the scar on his face which somehow made him more attractive because he had received it in battle. There would be many who would agree with his son that Francis of Guise was the greatest man in France; and if he could give her his son Henry in marriage, Margot herself was prepared to believe it.
And so the little lovers wandered through the castle grounds, talking of the future and the day when they would marry, swearing fidelity, assuring each other that no one should be allowed to stand in the way of their ultimate marriage.