He began to write.
‘That is well,’ she said. ‘Now we can remedy your rash act. Oh, my son, I know you do this out of the kindness of your heart, but always remember that I am here to love and advise you. Never decide such weighty matters without first consulting your mother, whose one thought is to make you happy and’ – her face came closer to his – ‘and … safe. Why, Charles, my dear son, what you have done might let loose civil war. And what if your enemies should be triumphant? Eh, what then? What if they took you prisoner? You would not relish lying in a dank dungeon … close to the torture-rooms … the rats your companions … until …’
‘Pray cease,’ whimpered the King. ‘You are right. You are always right. Navarre must not go. I have signed it. You will stop his going. You will stop it.’
She nodded. ‘That,’ she said, ‘is my wise little King.’
But Jeanne was not so easy to handle as Charles had been. The two women faced each other, and each felt that overwhelming hatred between them which had always been there, and yet at times was greater than at others.
‘My dear cousin, I cannot allow you to take the boy away, I look upon him as my own. Moreover, if he is to marry my daughter, he must be brought up with her. You know it has always been our wish to let the young people get fond of each other … as these two are doing. It does my heart good to see them together.’
‘Madame,’ Jeanne replied, ‘all that you say is true. But my son has spent so much time at the court, and it is well that he should be reminded of his own kingdom.’
‘We will see that he does not forget that. No, Madame. I love the boy too well to let him go.’
‘I also love him,’ insisted his mother, ‘and, but for the fact that I feel he should be allowed to visit his dominions, I should be delighted to leave him in your care.’
Catherine smiled. ‘I am going to keep him because, Madame, I know what is best for him. You have only recently come to Paris, and therefore you do not see as clearly as I do what is happening here. I know that it is best for little Henry that he stays with his cousins and learns the manners of our court. I must confess that when he first came to us I was a little astonished. He had the manners of a barbarian. Now there is a great improvement in him. I should not like to see him turned into a country lout.’
Catherine watched the angry colour flood Jeanne’s face.
Jeanne said: ‘Madame, you need have no qualms on that score. My son would have the best tutors available.’
‘But these are more easily obtainable in Paris than in Béarn. My dearest cousin, I insist on his remaining here.’
But Jeanne was wily, and did not allow the matter to rest there.
Later, when Charles and Catherine were surrounded by members of the court, she had the effrontery to bring the matter up again.
‘I cannot believe,’ she said, ‘that any obstacle will be put in the way of my taking my son with me.’
Catherine answered coolly: ‘But that, Madame, is a matter which we have settled.’
‘The King,’ Jeanne persisted, ‘graciously promised that my son should accompany me when I left Paris. Many will bear witness to that. I feel sure, Madame, that when you said this promise was cancelled, your Majesty was joking, for I know that it would bring too great a discredit on His Majesty to suppose him capable of breaking his word.’
The King flushed slightly. He felt bold now, surrounded by so many courtiers.
‘You are right, Madame,’ he said. ‘The promise shall be fulfilled, for I made it and it must be so.’
Catherine, for once, had the humiliation of seeing herself defeated. Nor could she protest in such company. She would have liked to kill Jeanne and Charles as they stood there. Instead she smiled calmly.
‘So be it,’ she said. ‘The King has spoken. Madame, I rely on you to ensure that the peace and repose of France shall not be put in danger.’
Jeanne bowed. ‘Your Majesty honours me by asking my cooperation in maintaining such a state of affairs. I shall never fail in my devotion to my sovereign.’ She paused; then she added: ‘Only the peril or destruction of my own house could make me change those sentiments.’
And the next day Jeanne set out from Paris, and riding with her was her son.
Catherine proved herself to have been right when she had explained to her son what a foolish thing he had done in giving up to Jeanne their most precious hostage. Civil war had broken out once more in France.
At one time the King and his court had to fly from Meaux to Paris for fear of Condé’s troops; Catherine was more shaken by this event than by any that had happened for months. The killing of French Protestants by Catholics and Catholics by Protestants merely made her shrug her shoulders, but the thought of the royal House of Valois in danger always terrified her. Coligny’s plan, she knew, had been to kidnap the King and set Condé up in his place.
Those were bitter days for Catherine. The Queen of England, the Duke of Savoy, and the Marquis of Brandenburg sent money and men to Condé’s aid. In despair, Catherine appealed to Spain, but although that country was willing to give aid, Spain never gave anything without taking something in exchange; and Catherine feared Philip more than she feared Condé. Therefore she arranged the Peace of Langjumeaux. But Catherine could not forget her fears of what might have happened if the Huguenots had been successful in capturing the King; and in spite of the new peace there began plots and counter-plots. Catherine plotted to capture Condé and young Henry of Navarre. Condé – now married again – narrowly escaped capture, and orders were given that he should be pursued and that the Catholics should be incited to fresh massacres of Huguenots. The wars started once more; and Jeanne, with her son, Condé and Coligny, had made their headquarters in the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle.
There was one great happiness which Catherine enjoyed at this time, and that was due to the reputation her son Henry was gaining on the battlefield. It was the more gratifying because it was so unexpected. Who would have thought that Henry, with his dandyism, his love of fine jewels and garments, always surrounded by those handsome and effeminate young men, would be the one to distinguish himself as a soldier!
Henry was clever. Even his enemies admitted that. He was witty and a devotee of the fine arts. He was very good-looking, though in a way which the French called ‘foreign’. His long dark eyes showed clearly his Italian origins; his white, perfectly formed hands were the most beautiful at court, and it was his great delight to set them off with sparkling jewels. And this effeminate Henry was becoming a great general! He was also becoming very ambitious, and already he was waiting impatiently for the throne. He was, like his mother, calculating how long young Charles could be expected to live.
Catherine had suffered a loss recently in the death of her daughter Elisabeth, who had died in childbirth. She had not loved Elisabeth as she loved Henry, but she had been proud of her daughter’s position in the world, and it had given her pleasure to contemplate Elisabeth on the throne of Spain. But Henry, that beloved son, compensated her for all else. It was the delight of her life to find that he listened to her as he listened to no other, that he brought all his plans to her and that he rarely acted without consulting her. In all her trials, in all her fears, there was Henry to be a comfort to her.
The mother of Henry of Navarre surveyed her son with nothing like the same complacency. He was just fourteen, but those years he had spent at the French court had, it seemed, already made a man of him. He was popular enough; the citizens of La Rochelle cheered him wherever he went. They could smile at those very qualities which alarmed his mother.