Antoine bowed his head. He tried to shut out the picture of a martyred Jeanne. He tried to see himself received triumphantly into Heaven. There would be a good place for him, an honoured place, for he had embraced the true faith, and all would be forgiven once a straying sheep had returned to the fold.
‘Then we are all agreed that a warrant must be issued for the arrest of Jeanne of Navarre,’ said the Duke of Guise.
Antoine did not speak, and his silence was taken as agreement.
‘On a charge of heresy,’ added the Cardinal. He then embraced Antoine. ‘This, Monseigneur, is an act worthy of you,’ he declared. ‘May God give you a good and long life.’
‘So be it!’ said the Duke.
The session was at an end.
Antoine left the council chamber, trying to reassure himself; that was not easy, for he felt like Judas.
It was not long before Jeanne heard that a warrant was being issued for her arrest, for she had many friends at court. Overcome by this fresh evidence of the perfidy of the man she loved – for she knew that such an order would come through the Triumvirate, of which Antoine was now a member – Jeanne was glad that there was need for immediate action which would prevent her brooding.
‘Fly at once,’ she was warned, ‘for there is not an hour to be lost. You will not be safe until you are in your own dominions. And if you are caught – apart from all the horrors which would await you – what a blow this would be to the Huguenot cause!’
She realised the truth of this and, taking her little four-year-old daughter, set out at once with her attendants.
Since that occasion when her son Henry had defended her against his father, the boy had been taken from her and kept in his father’s apartments at Saint-Germain; and as she could not go without Henry, she must journey first to Saint-Germain to see him and, if possible, to take him away with her.
As she rode there her thoughts were bitter. Not content with taking her son from her, Antoine had been callous enough to put him in the care of Vincent Lauro, the Jesuit. Her enemies were determined to rob her of her son as well as her husband.
Her friends had warned her that it was folly to think of calling at Saint-Germain, for she would not be allowed to take the boy; she could depend upon it that he was well guarded, and she would merely imperil her own safety. But Jeanne would not listen. She must see Henry. She must – even if she could not take him with her – have a few words with him, to remind him of his obligations to her and to his faith.
She forced her way to him past his new tutors and the attendants, who were really guards. The little boy ran to her and embraced her warmly.
‘Oh, my mother, have you come to take me home to Béarn?’
Antoine, who had immediately been warned of her coming, burst into the apartment; he stood, his arms folded, while he surveyed his wife with cold dislike, his son with sternness.
‘You must stay here with me,’ said Antoine, answering the boy’s question. ‘I am your father and you are under my control.’
‘But I wish to go with my mother!’ cried the bold little boy.
‘Try to be sensible,’ said Antoine. ‘I do not wish to have you punished more than you have been already.’
‘Mother, must I stay?’
She nodded, for she knew that guards were in the palace and she could not risk any injury to her son. He was bold and he would, she knew, try to fight them; but he would obey his mother.
‘I fear so.’ She held him against her breast. ‘Henry, my dearest son.’
‘Oh, Mother … dearest Mother.’
She whispered to him: ‘Never forget my counsels, darling. Be true to me always and true to the faith.’
He whispered back: ‘Mother, I will. I swear it.’
‘Soon all will be well and we shall be together.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘But just for a little while we must be separated.’
He nodded.
‘Darling son, never attend mass. No matter what they do … always refuse. If you did not refuse, you could not be my son.’
‘I know,’ he said.
‘Then you will be true and strong, my dearest boy?’
‘Yes, Mother, I will be true and strong. I am a Huguenot. I will never forget it, no matter what they do to me. I will never forget you and that one day I shall be with you.’
It was so sad to leave him. Again and again they kissed each other. Antoine watched them with some emotion. He had no wish to hurt either of them. He did not forget for a moment his relationship to them both. This was all Jeanne’s fault. Why could she not become a good Catholic and set everything to rights?
He rang for the boy’s tutor, and Henry, now weeping bitterly, was led away.
Antoine then spoke to Jeanne: ‘Do not waste more time here, I beg of you. They are about to arrest you. Fly, I implore you. I beg of you. Your safest way is to make for Béarn via Vendôme. You can rest awhile at my château at Vendôme … but do not stay too long. It is your only hope of safety.’
Jeanne stared at him in amazement. ‘But you are on their side. Should you not detain me … arrest me?’
‘Go!’ cried Antoine. ‘Go before you drive me to it … as you have driven me to so much. Your sharp tongue is intolerable. Do not let it drive me to this.’
She said: ‘Poor Antoine! That is your great failing. You are never able to make up your mind whose side you are on.’
She took a last look at him, so elegant, so glittering in his fashionable garments. What bitterness was hers that she should still love him … even now that he had betrayed her!
She hurried away from Saint-Germain, and at the Paris hotel in which she stayed the night while preparations for her flight went on, the Huguenots gathered under her window, so that those who had been sent to arrest her dared do nothing, with the result that she was able to leave the capital.
But it was not intended that she should reach safety. The Guises, noting the hesitancy of Antoine, suggested that he should be the one to give orders to the citizens of Vendôme to arrest Jeanne when she arrived in their town, for it had not taken them long to draw from him the fact that Jeanne had arranged to call at his château in that town before making the rigorous journey south.
After many days of hardship, tired out with the journey, Jeanne came to Vendôme. In the great château which had belonged to her husband’s ancestors, she rested and made plans for continuing the journey as soon as possible.
Her little daughter Catherine was a great comfort to her. The child was only four years of age, but old for her years, able to understand that her mother was unhappy and to try to comfort her. Jeanne felt that if only she could have had young Henry with her, she would not have cared very much about anything else. How could she go on loving a husband who had so betrayed her? This was not just a momentary infidelity with La Belle Rouet, not just a passing love affair. That she supposed she could, in time, have forgiven. But that he could make himself a party to this plan to destroy her, to take her kingdom, and worse still subject her to the possibility of an agonising death, seemed to her so wantonly cruel that she would always remember this against him.
It was while she was resting in her bed with her daughter beside her that one of her attendants asked for a word with her. He was admitted to her presence – a hardy Gascon, a faithful Huguenot, ready to defend her with his sword against any number of the enemy.
He showed great agitation and without formality addressed her. ‘Madame, forgive the intrusion, but we are in acute danger. We have walked into a trap. The King of Navarre has given orders to the citizens that we are not to leave the town, but are to be held captive until forces arrive to take us back to Paris.’