The King turned to Margot and said: ‘She dreams of the battle. She has thought of nothing else since she knew my brother was to fight to-day.’
Margot watched her mother without pity, without love. There was no pity nor love in Margot; there was only perpetual bitterness, a poignant memory, and a deep longing for the man she had vowed to hate.
‘Is the end near?’ asked the King.
None was sure, but all looked grave.
The end of Catherine de’ Medici, the end of the Italian woman! What changes would that bring to France?
But in the morning Catherine was better; and when, a few days later, news of the Battle of Jarnac was brought to Metz, it was thought that to hear of her son’s victory would cheer her and help her through her convalescence.
She was sleeping lightly and Charles, with Margot and others, stood at her bedside.
‘Mother,’ said Charles gently, ‘the battle is won. This is another victory for Henry. Condé is dead.’
She smiled serenely; she was her old self now, rapidly recovering from her fever.
‘And why should you be so tedious as to awaken me and tell me that?’ she demanded. ‘Did I not know? Did I not tell you … as it was happening?’
Those in the room with Charles and Margot exchanged glances. Margot paled; Charles trembled. This woman, their mother, was no ordinary woman, no ordinary Queen; she had strange powers not given to others.
It was small wonder that she could terrify them as no one else on Earth had power to do.
After the great news of the victory of Jarnac, a strange gloom fell on the court. The King, more jealous of his brother than of any living person, was thrown into melancholy. ‘Now,’ he told his little Marie, ‘my mother will glorify him more than ever. She longs to see him on the throne. Oh, Marie, I am frightened, because she is no ordinary woman, and what she desires comes to pass. She wishes me dead, and it is said that when my mother wishes a person dead, then he is as good as dead.’
But Marie took the King into her arms and assured him that this was not so. He must be calm and brave and not think of death. He must remember he was the King.
Charles tried; but he hated his brother. He refused to let him have the cannon he asked for, which was foolish and could only lead to trouble; and he knew that if he made trouble like that, matters would be brought to a head and that vague danger which haunted him all the time would come nearer to him.
Margot was anxious. Henry of Guise was fighting with the Catholic army, and she dreaded that what had happened to Condé might happen to Henry of Guise. When he was not at court, it was safe to admit to herself that her passion for him was as strong as ever. If Henry died, she would not wish to live. She prayed hourly that he might come safely home, if only to his wife.
Catherine had her difficulties. She was quite well now, but she was being tormented by Alava, the Spanish envoy; he reproached her bitterly. She had not followed up her advantages; she had been too lenient towards the Huguenots. His Most Catholic Majesty was not pleased with the Queen Mother.
‘My lord,’ said Catherine, in mock despair, ‘what could I do? I no longer have the power that I had. My sons are becoming men, and I am just a weak woman.’
‘Madame, you rule your sons, and it is you who have given Coligny the leisure to get an army together.’
‘But, my lord, what can I do? I am as good a Catholic as you … as your master … but what can I do?’
‘Have you forgotten, Madame, the conversation you had with the Duke of Alva at Bayonne?’
‘Not a word of that, I beg of you. Such a plan would be useless if bruited abroad.’
‘It must be carried out, and it must be soon. Kill the leaders … every one. Coligny must die. The Queen of Navarre must die. They cannot be allowed to live. Madame, I hear you have means at your disposal. You have a known reputation in this art of removal. And yet the most dangerous man and woman in your kingdom – the most dangerous to yourself and your throne – are allowed to live and to build up an army to fight against you.’
‘But, my lord, Coligny is not here. He is in camp. The Queen of Navarre would not come if I asked her. I have despatched Coligny’s two brothers – Odet and Andelot – the latter in England. Was not that subtle? He dies suddenly, in that austere land. Of what – very few know. I had my friends in his suite.’
‘That was well done. But what use destroying the minnows when the salmon flourishes?’
‘We shall get our salmon, my friend, but in good time.’
‘His Most Catholic Majesty would ask, Madame, when is good time? When your kingdom has been wrested from you?’
She put her head close to that of the Spaniard. ‘My son Henry is on his way to me. I will give him something … something which I know how to prepare myself. He shall have his spies in the Admiral’s camp, and before long, my lord, you will have heard the last of Monsieur de Coligny.’
‘I trust so, Madame.’
After that conversation and another with her son Henry, Catherine waited to hear news of the Admiral’s death. She had given her son a subtle poison which would produce death a few days after it was administered. Her son’s Captain of the Guard had been brought into the plot, for he was on good terms with Coligny’s valet. A satisfactory bribe – and the deed would be done.
She waited now for one of her visions. She wished to see Coligny’s death as she had seen that of Condé. But she waited in vain.
Later she heard that the plot had been discovered.
Coligny was a man of wide popularity, adored by too many; it was not easy to remove such a man.
Catherine began to grow terrified of Coligny. She did not understand him. He fought with such earnestness; he drew men to him. He had some quality which was quite outside Catherine’s understanding; and for that reason she wished to have peace with him. And so she arranged for the Peace of Saint-Germain, in which, so that she might be at peace with this man whose righteousness was so alien to her, she gave way to many of his demands. She had to grant liberty of worship in all towns that were already Protestant; Protestants were to be admitted to office with Catholics, and on equal terms; four towns were to be handed over to Coligny as security for Catholic good faith – Montaban and Cognac as a bastion in the south, La Charité in the centre, and La Rochelle to guard the sea.
The Huguenots rejoiced at all they had won, and Catherine felt at peace temporarily, so that she might turn her mind to domestic matters.
Negotiations for the marriage of Charles were now in progress. That farcical attempt to make a marriage between Elizabeth of England and Charles was at an end, but Catherine did not abandon altogether the idea of a union with England. She would substitute another of her sons as suitor to the Virgin Queen in Charles’s place, and as no satisfactory arrangement had been made for Charles with Elizabeth of England, he should have Elisabeth of Austria.
Charles studied the pictures of his bride-to-be, liking the pale beauty, the meekness of expression.
‘I doubt that such a one will give me much cause for anxiety,’ he said.
The marriage gave Catherine little cause for anxiety also. It seemed very clear now that Charles would never produce healthy children; nor would marriage and its attendant excitements tend to lengthen the life of such a hysterical and unbalanced creature as this son; and so, on a misty November day in the year 1570, Charles the Ninth of France was married to Elisabeth of Austria.
In the town of La Rochelle another but very romantic wedding was taking place. Jeanne of Navarre, preparing herself for the ceremony, thought with friendly envy of her dear friend Gaspard de Coligny, and prayed that he might acquire that rich happiness which he deserved. And he would, she was sure. He was made for such happiness. His first marriage had been ideal. His wife had worshipped him; and Coligny had been one of those husbands of whom women like Jeanne dreamed.