The claim of Alexandre Dumas to be considered first among historical romancists, past or present, can hardly be disputed; and his magic pen finds abundant, rich material for the historical setting of the tale told in the following pages. The period in which the action of "The Two Dianas" is supposed to take place, covers the later years of Henri II. and the brief and melancholy reign of his oldest son, François II., the ill-fated husband of Mary Stuart, whose later history has caused her brief occupancy of the throne of France to be lost sight of. This period saw the germination and early maturity, if not the actual sowing, of the spirit of the Reformation in France. It was during these years that the name of John Calvin acquired the celebrity which has never waned, and that his devoted followers, La Renaudie, Théodore de Bèze, Ambroise Paré, the famous surgeon, and the immortal Coligny began the crusade for freedom of worship which was steadily maintained, unchecked by Tumult of Amboise, or Massacre of St. Bartholomew, until Henri of Navarre put the crown upon their heroic labors, and gave them respite for a time with the famous "Edict of Nantes," made more famous still by its "Revocation" a century later under the auspices of Madame de Maintenon, at the instigation of her Jesuit allies. Those portions of the story which introduce us to the councils of the Reformers are none the less interesting because the characters introduced are actual historical personages, nor can it fail to add interest to the encounter between La Renaudie and Pardaillan to know that it really took place, and that the two men had previously been to each other almost nearer than brothers. It was but one of innumerable heart-rending incidents, inseparable from all civil and religious conflicts, but in which those presided over by the Florentine mother of three Valois kings of France were prolific beyond belief.
How closely the author has adhered to historical fact for the groundwork of his tale, will appear by comparing it with one of Balzac's Études Philosophiques, entitled "Sur Catherine de Médicis," the first part of which covers the same period as "The Two Dianas," and describes many of the same events; the variations are of the slightest.
The patient forbearance of Catherine de Médicis, under the neglect of her husband, and the arrogant presumption of Diane de Poitiers, abetted by the Constable de Montmorency; her swift and speedy vengeance upon them as soon as she was left a widow with her large brood of possible kings; her jealous fear of the influence of the Duc de Guise and his brother the Cardinal de Lorraine, which led her to desire the death of her eldest son, the unfortunate François, because his queen was the niece of the powerful and ambitious brothers, and which also led her to oppose their influence by a combination with two such incongruous elements as the Constable Montmorency and the Protestant Bourbon princes of Navarre, remaining all the while the bitterest foe that the reformed religion ever had,—all these, as described in the following pages, are strictly in conformity with historical fact So, too, is the story of the defence of St. Quentin in its main details, and of the siege of Calais, where the Duc de Guise did receive the terrible wound which caused the sobriquet of Le Balafré to be applied to him, and was cured by the skilful hand of Master Ambroise Paré. So of the Tumult of Amboise, and the painful scenes attending the execution of the victims; and so, finally, of the scene at the death-bed of François II., the controversy between the shrinking conservatism of the King's regular medical advisers, and the daring eclecticism of Paré, proposing to perform the "new operation" of trepanning. It may, perhaps, be said that the Chancellor de l'Hôpital is made to appear in too unfavorable a light; he certainly was something far above the mere bond-slave of Catherine de Médicis.
Dumas himself tells us what basis of truth there is for the sometimes amusing, sometimes serious, but always intensely interesting confusion between Martin-Guerre and his unscrupulous double.
Nowhere, it may be said, in history or romance, is there to be found so touching a glimpse as this of poor Mary Stuart. Here we see naught save the lovely and lovable side of the unfortunate queen, without a hint of the fatal weakness which, as it developed in the stormy later years of her life, made her marvellous beauty and charm the instruments of her ruin.
So much for those portions of "The Two Dianas" which rest upon a basis of fact. History records further that Henri II. was accidentally killed in friendly jousting by the Comte de Montgommery; but with that history ends and romance begins. The personage whom Monsieur Dumas presents to us under that title perhaps never existed; but let the reader be the judge, after reading of the pure and sacred but unhappy love of Gabriel de Montgommery and Diane de Castro, if a lovelier gem of fiction was ever enclosed in an historical setting.