CHAPTER IV
A KING'S MISTRESS
It is the 20th of May, and we ask our readers to go with us to the Louvre at Paris, and to the apartments of the wife of the Great Seneschal, Madame de Brézé, Duchesse de Valentinois, commonly called Diane de Poitiers. Nine o'clock in the morning has just struck on the great clock of the château. Madame Diane, all in white, in a decidedly coquettish negligé, is leaning or half reclining on a bed covered with black velvet. King Henri, already dressed in a magnificent costume, is sitting on a chair at her side.
Let us glance a moment at the scene and the dramatis personæ.
The apartment of Diane de Poitiers was resplendent with all the magnificence and taste which that fair dawning of art called the Renaissance had had the skill to lavish upon a king's chamber. Paintings signed "Le Primatice" represented various incidents of the hunting field, wherein the Huntress Diane, goddess of woods and forests, naturally figured as the principal heroine. The gilded and colored medallions and panels repeated on all sides the intertwined armorial bearings of François I. and Henri II. In like manner were memories of father and son intertwined in the heart of the fair Diane. The emblems were no less historical and full of meaning, and in twenty places was to be seen the crescent of Phœbus-Diane, between the Salamander of the conqueror of Marignan, and Bellerophon overthrowing the Chimæra, a device adopted by Henri II. after the taking of Boulogne from the English. This fickle crescent appeared in a thousand different forms and combinations which did great credit to the decorators of the time: here the royal crown was placed above it, and there four H's, four fleurs de lis, and four crowns together made a superb setting for it; again it was threefold, and then shaped like a star. The mottoes were no less varied, and most of them were written in Latin. "Diana regum venatrix" (Diana, huntress of kings),—was that a piece of impertinence or of flattery? "Donec totum impleat orbem" can be translated in two ways,—"The crescent is to become a full moon," or "The king's glory will fill the whole world." "Cum plena est, fit æmula solis," can be freely translated, "Beauty and royalty are sisters." And the lovely arabesques which enclosed devices and mottoes, and the superb furnishings on which they were reproduced,—all these, if we should attempt to describe them, would not only put our magnificence of the present day to the blush, but would lose too much in the description.
Now let us cast our eyes upon the king.
History tells us that he was tall, supple, and strong. He had to resort to regular diet and daily exercise to combat a certain tendency to stoutness; and yet in the chase he left the swiftest far behind, and carried away the palm from the strongest at the jousts and tourneys. His hair and beard were black, and his complexion very dark, which gave him so much more animation, if we may believe contemporary memoirs. He wore, at the time we make his acquaintance, as indeed he always did, the colors of the Duchesse de Valentinois,—a coat of green satin slashed with white, glistening with pearls and diamonds; a double chain of gold, to which was suspended the medal of the order of Saint Michael; a sword chased by Benvenuto; a collar of white point de Venise; a velvet cloak dotted with golden lilies hung gracefully from his shoulders. It was a costume of singular richness, and suitable to a cavalier of exquisite elegance.
We have said in brief that Diane was clad in a simple white peignoir of a singularly thin and transparent stuff. To paint her divine loveliness would not be so easy a matter; and it would be hard to say whether the black velvet cushion on which her head lay, or the dress, startling in its purity, by which her form was enveloped, served best to set off the snows and lilies of her complexion. And surely it was such a perfect combination of delicate outlines as to drive Jean Goujon himself to despair. There is no more perfect piece of antique statuary; and this statue was alive, and very much alive too, if common report is to be believed. As for the graceful motion with which these lovely limbs were instinct, we must not attempt to describe it. It can no more be reproduced than can a ray of sunlight. As for age, she had none. In this point, as in so many others, she was like the immortals; but by her side the youngest and most blooming seemed old and wrinkled. The Protestants babbled about philters and potions, to which they said that she had recourse to enable her to remain always sixteen. The Catholics replied that all she did was to take a cold bath every day, and wash her face in ice water even in winter. Her prescription has been preserved; but if it be true that Jean Goujon's "Diane au Cerf" was carved from this royal model, that prescription has no longer the same effect.
Thus was she a worthy object of the affection of the two kings whom one after the other her beauty had dazzled. For if the story of the favor obtained by Monsieur Saint-Vallier, thanks to his fine brown eyes, seems apocryphal, it is almost conclusively proved that Diane was François's mistress before she became Henri's.
"It is said," chronicles Le Laboureur, "that King François, who was the first lover of Diane de Poitiers, having expressed to her one day, after the death of François the dauphin, some dissatisfaction at the lack of animation exhibited by Prince Henri, she told him that he needed to have a love affair, and that she would make him fall in love with her."
What woman wills, God wills; and Diane was for twenty years the dearly and only beloved of Henri.
But now that we have examined the king and the favorite, is it not time to hear what they are saying?
Henri, holding a parchment in his hand, was reading aloud the following verses, not without some interruptions and by-play which we cannot set down here, because they were part of the setting of the piece.
Douce et belle bouchelette,
Plus fraîche, et plus vermeillette
Que le bouton églantine,
Au matin!
Plus suave et mieux fleurante
Que l'immortelle amarante,
Et plus mignarde cent fois
Que n'est la douce rosée
Dont la terre est arrosée
Goutte à goutte au plus doux mois!
Baise-moi, ma douce amie,
Baise-moi, chère vie,
Baise-moi, mignonnement,
Serrement,
Jusques à tant que je die:
Las! je n'en puis plus, ma mie;
Las! mon Dieu, je n'en puis plus.
Lors ta bouchette retire,
Afin que mort, je soupire,
Puis, me donne le surplus.
Ainsi ma douce guerrière,
Mon cœur, mon tout, ma lumière,
Vivons ensemble, vivons,
Et suivons
Les doux soutiens de jeunesse,
Aussi bien une vieillesse
Nous menace sur le port,
Qui, toute courbe et tremblante,
Nous attraîne, chancelante,
La maladie et la mort.[1]
"And what might be the name of this polite versifier who tells us so well what we are doing?" asked Henri when he had finished his reading.
"He is called Remy Belleau, Sire, and promises to rival Ronsard, it seems to me. Oh, well!" continued the duchess, "do you put the value of this lover's poem at five hundred crowns, as I do?"
"He shall have them, this protégé of yours, my beautiful Diane."
"But we must not allow this to make us forget the earlier ones, Sire. Have you signed the warrant for the pension that I promised in your name to Ronsard, the prince of poets? You have, haven't you? Well, then, I have only one favor more to ask at your hands, and that is the vacant abbey of Recouls for your librarian, Mellin de Saint-Gelais, our French Ovid."
"Ovid shall have his abbey, never fear, my fair Maecenas," said the king.
"Ah, how fortunate are you, Sire, to have the power of disposing of so many benefices and offices at your pleasure! If I could only have your power just for one short hour!"
"Haven't you it always, ingrate?"
"Really, have I, my Lord? But you haven't given me a kiss for two whole minutes! That's right, dear. So you say that your power is always at my command? Don't tempt me, Sire! I warn you that I shall avail myself of it to pay the enormous claim which Philibert Delorme has presented to me, on the ground that my Château d'Anet is finished. It will be the glory of your reign; but how dear it is! Just one kiss, my Henri!"
"And for this kiss, Diane, take for your Delorme the sum produced by the sale of the governorship of Picardy."
"Sire, do you think that I sell my kisses? I give them to you, Henri. This Picardy governorship is worth two hundred thousand livres, I should think, is it not? And then I can take the pearl necklace which has been offered me, and which I was very anxious to wear to-day at the wedding of your dear son François. A hundred thousand livres to Philibert, and a hundred thousand for the necklace; this Picardy matter will do very well."
"Especially as you estimate it at quite double its real worth, Diane."
"What! is it worth only one hundred thousand livres? Well, then, it's a very simple matter for me to let the necklace go."
"Nonsense!" said the king, laughing; "there are three or four vacant companies somewhere which will pay for the necklace, Diane."
"Oh, Sire, you are the most generous of kings, as you are the best beloved of lovers."
"Yes, you do really love me as I love you, do you not, Diane?"
"He really has the face to ask such a question!"
"But I, you see, dear, I adore you more and more every day, because you are every day more beautiful. Ah, what a lovely smile you have, sweetheart, and what a sweet expression! Let me kneel here at your feet. Put your fair hands on my shoulders. Oh, Diane, how lovely you are, and how dearly I love you! I could stay here and just gaze at you for hours, nay, for years. I would forget France, I would forget the whole world."
"And even this formal celebration of Monseigneur the Dauphin's marriage?" said Diane, smiling; "and yet it is to be solemnized this very day and in two hours' time. And even if you are all ready in your magnificence, Sire, I am not ready at all, you see. So go, my dear Lord, for it is time for me to call my women. Ten o'clock will strike in a moment."
"Ten o'clock," said Henri; "and upon my word, I have an appointment at that hour."
"An appointment, Sire? With a lady, perhaps?"
"With a lady."
"Pretty, no doubt?"
"Yes, Diane, very pretty."
"Then it can't be the queen."
"Oh, you wretch! Catherine de Médicis has a certain sort of beauty of her own, a stern and cold style of beauty, but undeniable. However, it is not the queen whom I expect. Can you guess who it is?"
"No, I really cannot, Sire."
"It is another Diane, dear,—the living memento of our young affections, our daughter, our darling daughter."
"You said that too loud and too often, Sire," said Diane, frowning, and in a somewhat embarrassed tone. "It was agreed that Madame de Castro should pass for the child of another than myself. I was born to have legitimate children by you. I have been your mistress because I loved you; but I will not put up with your openly declaring me your concubine."
"That shall be as your pride dictates, Diane," was the king's reply; "but you love our child dearly, do you not?"
"I like to have you love her."
"Oh, yes! I love her very much. She is so fascinating, so clever, so sweet! And then, Diane, she reminds me so of my younger days and of the time when I loved you—ah! no more passionately than to-day, God knows, but when I loved you so that I was willing to commit a crime."
The king, who had suddenly fallen into gloomy reflection, raised his head.
"This Montgommery! You didn't care for him, did you, Diane? You didn't care for him?"
"What a foolish question!" said the favorite, with a disdainful smile. "Still so jealous after twenty years!"
"Yes, I am jealous; I am, and shall always be jealous of you, Diane. Surely you didn't love him; but he loved you, the villain,—he dared to love you!"
"Mon Dieu! Sire, you have always lent too willing an ear to the slanders with which these Protestants are always pursuing me. That is not the part of a Catholic king. In any event, whether the man loved me or not, what does it matter, if my heart never for an instant ceased to be wholly yours, for the Comte de Montgommery has been dead many years?"
"Yes, dead!" said the king, in a hollow voice.
"Come, let us not grow mournful over these reminiscences on a day which ought to be a day of rejoicing," said Diane. "Have you seen François and Marie yet? Are they always so lovelorn, these children? Well their terrible impatience will soon be at an end. Think, in two hours they will be made one, and so glad and happy, but still not so delighted as the Guises, whose wishes are fully satisfied by this marriage."
"Yes, but who is in a fury about it?" said the king. "My old Montmorency; and the constable has so much the more reason to lose his head, because I greatly fear that our Diane is not destined for his son."
"But, Sire, didn't you promise him this marriage by way of amends?"
"Certainly I did; but it seems that Madame de Castro has objections—"
"A child of eighteen just out of a convent! What objections can she possibly have?"
"It is to confide them to me that she is probably waiting in my apartments at this very moment."
"Go to her, then, Sire, while I proceed to beautify myself to please you."
"And after the ceremony I shall see you again at the tilting match. I am going to break a lance in your honor once more to-day, and I propose to make you queen of the lists."
"The queen? And who is the other?"
"There is only one, Diane, and you know it very well. Au revoir."
"Au revoir, Sire, and pray don't be rash and careless in this tilting; you make me shudder sometimes."
"There is no danger there, I'm sorry to say; for I could wish that there might be, so that I might seem a little more deserving in your eyes. But time is passing, and my two Dianes are both impatient. Tell me just once more that you love me."
"Sire, I love you as I always have loved you, and as I shall love you forever."
The king, before letting the curtain fall behind him, threw her a last kiss with his hand. "Adieu, my dearly loving and dearly loved Diane," said he. And he left her.
Then a panel hidden by hangings in the opposite wall opened.
"For the love of heaven, have you done enough chattering for to-day?" said the Constable de Montmorency, roughly, as he came into the room.
"My friend," said Diane, rising, "you must have seen that even before ten o'clock, which was the hour of my appointment with you, I did everything I could to send him away. I was quite as uncomfortable as you were, believe me."
"As uncomfortable as I! Pasques-Dieu! no, my dear; and if you flatter yourself that your discourse was either instructive or entertaining—In the first place, what is this new crotchet, of refusing your daughter Diane's hand to my son François, after having solemnly promised it? By the crown of thorns! would one not say that the bastard was conferring a great honor on the Montmorency family by condescending to enter it? The marriage must take place; do you understand, Diane? And you must take measures to see that it does. It is the only means left of restoring the balance between us and the Guises, whom the deuce take! So, Diane, in spite of the king, in spite of the Pope, in spite of everything, I wish that this should come to pass."
"But, my friend—"
"Ah!" cried the constable, "and when I tell you that I wish it so, Pater noster!"
"It shall be as you say, my friend," Diane in her fear of him made haste to say.
Sweet and lovely little mouth,
Fresher and ruddier than bud of eglantine
At morn!
Sweeter and more fragrant than the immortal amaranth,
And a hundred times dearer
Than the gentle dew which waters the earth,
Drop by drop, in the sweetest month!
Kiss me, sweet friend; kiss me, dear life.
Kiss me lovingly, closely, until I say:
Alas, my love, I can bear no more!
Alas, my God, I can bear no more!
Then take away thy little mouth, till dead I sigh;
Then bestow on me the rest.
Thus, sweet warrior, my heart, my light, my all,
Let us live together; let us live
And follow the sweet delights of youth,
Since near the haven old age threatens us,
Which, bowed and trembling, tottering, brings us
Sickness and death.
