CHAPTER XXVI
A QUATRAIN
On the evening of Jan. 12, 1558, Queen Catherine de Médicis was holding at the Louvre one of the periodical receptions of which we have previously spoken, at which all the princes and nobles of the realm were wont to assemble.
This particular occasion was an exceptionally brilliant and lively one, although a large part of the nobility were absent at the seat of war, in the north, with the Duc de Guise's army.
Among the ladies present besides Catherine, the queen de jure, were Madame Diane de Poitiers, the queen de facto, the young queen-dauphine, Mary Stuart, and the melancholy Élisabeth, afterward Queen of Spain, whose very beauty, already so admired, was fated to cause her so much misery.
The distinguished assembly included the man who was at that time the head of the House of Bourbon, Antoine, the titular king of Navarre,—a weak and vacillating prince, who had been sent to the French court by his virile-hearted wife, Jeanne d'Albret, to try and obtain by the intervention of Henri II. the restitution of his kingdom of Navarre, which had been confiscated by Spain.
But Antoine de Navarre was already inclining to the Calvinistic doctrines, and was not looked upon with a very favorable eye at a court which was in the habit of burning heretics at the stake.
His brother, Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, was likewise present. His was a character to inspire more respect if not more affection. He was, however, a more pronounced Calvinist than the King of Navarre, and was generally considered to be the secret leader of the rebellious spirits. He possessed the power to make himself a great favorite with the people, being not only a bold rider but very skilful with the sword and dagger, although in stature he was quite short, and had decidedly disproportionate shoulders. Besides, he was a great gallant, very clever, and passionately devoted to the ladies. A popular chanson of the day spoke thus of him:—
"Ce petit homme tant joli,
Toujours cause et toujours rit,
Et toujours baise sa mignonne.
Dieu gard' de mal le petit homme."[2]
The gentlemen who, openly or secretly, advocated the principles of the Reformed religion were naturally grouped around the King of Navarre and the Prince de Condé,—among them being Admiral de Coligny, La Renaudie, and the Baron de Castelnau, who, having but recently arrived from Touraine, his native province, had been presented at court that day for the first time.
The assemblage, despite the absence of many great seigneurs, was numerous and distinguished; but amid all the confusion, excitement, and enjoyment, two men remained absorbed by grave and apparently unpleasant reflections.
These two men, whose abstraction was caused by widely different reasons, were the king and the Constable de Montmorency.
Henri II. was at the Louvre corporeally, but his thoughts were all at Calais.
During the three weeks since the departure of the Duc de Guise, he had been thinking unceasingly, night and day, of that perilous expedition, the object of which was to drive the English out of the kingdom forever, but which was quite as likely to seriously endanger the welfare of France.
Henri had more than once blamed himself for having allowed Monsieur de Guise to attempt so hazardous a stroke.
If the undertaking should prove abortive, what a disgrace for France in the eyes of all Europe! what superhuman efforts must be made to repair such a failure! The disastrous day of St. Laurent would be a mere bagatelle beside that. The constable had undergone defeat, but François de Lorraine had actually gone in search of it.
The king, who had had no intelligence from the besieging army for three days, was preoccupied with gloomy forebodings, and paid but little heed to the encouraging assurances of the Cardinal de Lorraine, who, standing near the king's couch, was vainly trying to restore his courage.
Diane de Poitiers was quick to remark the gloomy humor of her royal lover; but as she observed Monsieur de Montmorency in another part of the room, apparently in quite as great dejection as the king, she directed her steps toward him.
It was the siege of Calais which was the cause of his downheartedness, but, as we have said, for a very different reason.
The king was afraid of failure, while the constable dreaded success much more.
For success in that enterprise would definitely establish the Duc de Guise in the first rank, and relegate him to the second. The salvation of France would be the ruin of the poor constable, and we must confess that his selfishness had always taken precedence of his patriotism.
So he was very uncourteous to the beautiful favorite who advanced smilingly toward him.
Our readers will remember the inexplicable and depraved passion which the mistress of the most courtly and gallant king in Christendom entertained for this brutal veteran.
"What is the trouble with my old soldier to-day?" she asked in her most winning tones.
"Ah, so you mock me too, do you, Madame?" said Montmorency, sharply.
"I mock you, my friend! You don't realize what you are saying."
"I was thinking of what you said yourself," rejoined the constable, with a muttered curse. "You called me your old soldier. Old? yes, that is true; I am no longer a beau of twenty years. Soldier? no. You can see plainly that I am no longer considered good for anything except to show myself with my parade sword in the halls of the Louvre."
"Do not speak so," said the favorite, with an affectionate smile. "Are you not still the constable?"
"What does a constable amount to, when there is a lieutenant-general of the kingdom?"
"The latter title expires with the circumstances which called it into existence, while yours, being attached, with no power of revocation, to the highest military dignity in the kingdom, will last as long as your life."
"But I am already dead and buried," said the constable, with a bitter laugh.
"Why do you say that, my friend?" replied Madame de Poitiers. "You have not ceased to be as powerful and as formidable to the nation's enemies without as to your personal enemies within."
"Let us talk seriously, Diane, and not try to flatter or deceive each other with empty words."
"If I deceive you, it is only because I myself am deceived," Diane rejoined. "Give me proofs that I am wrong, and I will not only acknowledge my error on the spot, but I will do all I can to rectify it."
"Very well," said the constable; "in the first place, you speak of the enemies without trembling before me. Those are very comforting words; but, in reality, who is sent against these enemies?—a general who is younger and doubtless more fortunate than myself, but who may some day turn this good fortune of his to his own private advantage."
"What makes you think that the Duc de Guise will succeed?" asked Diane, with most subtle flattery.
"His failure," replied the constable, hypocritically, "would be a terrible misfortune for France, which I should bitterly deplore for my country's sake; but his success would perhaps be an even more terrible misfortune, which I should dread for the sake of my sovereign."
"Do you believe then," said Diane, "that the ambition of Monsieur de Guise—"
"I have probed it, and it is very deep," replied the jealous courtier. "If by any chance there should be a change of reign, have you considered what that ambition, assisted by the influence of Mary Stuart, might be able to effect upon the mind of a young and inexperienced king! My devotion to your interests has completely alienated Queen Catherine from me. The Guises will be more sovereign than the sovereign himself."
"Such a catastrophe is, thank God, very improbable and very far distant," returned Diane, who could not avoid the reflection that her friend of sixty years was rather free with his conjectures as to the prospects of the early demise of a king who was but forty.
"There are other chances against us much nearer at hand and almost as terrible," said Montmorency, shaking his head very gravely.
"What are they, my friend?"
"Have you lost your memory, Diane, or do you only pretend to forget who went to Calais with the Duc de Guise; who, apparently, was the one who first breathed a suggestion of this foolhardy enterprise into his ear, and who will return in triumph with him, if he does triumph, and will no doubt succeed in receiving credit for some share in the victory?"
"Are you speaking of Vicomte d'Exmès?" asked Diane.
"Of whom else, Madame? Even though you may have forgotten his extravagant undertaking, he will remember it, never fear! And more than that, fortune is so capricious that he is quite capable of having kept his promise, and of loudly calling upon the king to redeem his."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Diane.
"What is it that seems impossible to you, Madame,—that Monsieur d'Exmès should keep his word, or that the king should be true to his?"
"Either supposition is absurd and insane, and the second even more so than the first."
"If, however, the first should be realized, it may very well be that the second will follow; for the king is very weak on these questions of honor, and he would be quite capable, Madame, of priding himself upon his chivalrous loyalty, and of disclosing his secret and ours to a common foe."
"Once more I say it is a wild, impossible dream," cried Diane, turning pale, nevertheless.
"But, Diane, suppose you were to see this dream with your eyes, and touch it with your hands, what would you do!"
"Indeed I do not know, my good constable," said Madame de Valentinois; "we should have to consult and look around, and then act. Anything rather than that extremity! If the king abandons us, why, then, we must get along without him; and confidently anticipating that he will never dare to disavow what we have done after the event, we must exercise our own power and our personal influence and credit to the utmost."
"Ah, that is just what I expected you would say!" said the constable. "Our power! our personal influence! Speak of your own, Madame; but as for mine, it has sunk so low that in truth I look upon it as dead and gone. My enemies within, for whom just now you expressed so much pity, might have very pretty sport with me at this time. There is no gentleman at this court who hasn't more power than this pitiful constable. You can see yourself how I am avoided. It is very simple; for who would care to pay his court to a fallen star! It will be much safer, therefore, Madame, for you not to rely hereafter upon the support of a discredited, disgraced old servant, friendless and without influence, yes, even penniless."
"Penniless!" Diane echoed incredulously.
"Why yes, Madame,—penniless, by the Mass!" said the constable a second time, and angrily. "That is perhaps the most grievous part of it, at my age, and after all the services I have rendered. The last war ruined me; for my ransom and those of several of my people exhausted my last pecuniary resources. Those who abandon me know it very well. I shall be reduced one of these days to going about the streets asking for alms, like Belisarius, the Carthaginian general, I think it was, whom I have heard my nephew, the admiral, speak of."
"What! have your friends all left you, my constable?" asked Diane, smiling at her old lover's erudition, as well as at his covetousness.
"Yes," said the constable: "I have no friends, I tell you." He added, most pathetically,—"The unfortunate never have friends."
"I propose to prove you in the wrong," said Diane. "I can clearly see now the source of this sullen humor which has gained control of you. But why did you not tell me in the first place? Do you lack confidence in me, pray? It is sad, indeed, if you do. But no matter! I only intend to be revenged in a friendly way. Tell me, did not the king impose a new tax last week?"
"Yes, dear Diane," replied the constable, who had grown much calmer under the influence of Diane's words; "a very just tax, too, and heavy enough to defray all the expenses of the war."
"That will do very well," said Diane; "and I will show you that even a woman may be able to do more than repair fortune's cruel blows to such men as you. Henri seems to me to be in a very ill-humor to-day. But never mind! I will speak with him forthwith; and you will soon be forced to agree that I am a kind friend and faithful ally."
"Ah, Diane, you are as kind and good as you are beautiful! That I will always maintain," said Montmorency, gallantly.
"But when I have replenished the springs from which your influence and your favor flow, you will not abandon me, will you, my old lion? And you will not talk any more to your devoted friend of your powerlessness against her enemies and yours?"
"Why, my dear Diane, are not all that I am and all that I have at your service?" said the constable; "and if I sometimes grieve at the loss of my influence, is it not because I fear thereby to be less powerful to serve my beautiful sovereign mistress?"
"Very good!" said Diane, with her most seductive smile. She gave her lovely white hand to her superannuated lover, who imprinted upon it a tender kiss with his bearded lips; then, with a last encouraging glance, she moved away from him toward the king.
The Cardinal de Lorraine was still at Henri's side, watching over the interests of his absent brother, and doing his utmost to remove the king's fears as to the issue of the ill-considered expedition against Calais.
But Henri was paying more attention to his unquiet thoughts than to the cardinal's consoling words.
It was at this moment that Madame Diane approached them.
"I'll undertake to say, Messire," she began, addressing the cardinal with much warmth, "that your Eminence is saying to the king something unkind about poor Monsieur de Montmorency."
"Oh, Madame," retorted Charles de Lorraine, bewildered by this unexpected attack, "I venture to ask his Majesty to bear me witness that the name of Monsieur le Connétable has not been once uttered during our interview."
"That is true," said the king, carelessly.
"That is merely another way of doing him a disservice."
"But if I can neither speak nor keep silent about him, what am I to do, Madame, I beg?"
"You should say pleasant things about him," replied Diane.
"Very well, then," retorted the wily cardinal; "if I must do that, I will say (for the commands of beauty have never found me lacking in dutiful submission) that Monsieur de Montmorency is a great commander; that he won the battle of St. Laurent, and retrieved the fortunes of France; and that just at this time, to put the finishing touch to his work, he has assumed the offensive against our enemies, and is now engaged in attempting a memorable and glorious achievement under the walls of Calais."
"Calais! Calais!—ah, who will bring me news of Calais?" murmured the king, who had heard only that name in this war of words between the minister and the favorite.
"You have an admirable and Christian-like manner of awarding praise, Monsieur le Cardinal," Diane rejoined; "and I congratulate you upon your mastery of ironical compliment."
"Well, Madame," said Charles de Lorraine, "in truth, I do not see how else I could award praise to this poor Monsieur de Montmorency, as you called him just now."
"You are not honest in your search, Messire," replied Diane. "Might you not, for instance, do more justice to the zeal with which the constable organized means of defence at Paris, and brought the few troops who were left here to a state of efficiency, while others were jeopardizing and compromising the vital forces of the kingdom in rash and foolhardy enterprises?"
"Oh-ho!" exclaimed the cardinal.
"Alas!" sighed the king, who heard nothing except what bore directly upon the subject of his solicitude.
"Might we not say, further," added Diane, "that although chance has not been friendly to Monsieur de Montmorency's magnificent efforts, and fortune has declared against him, he is at least entirely without personal ambition; he recognizes no other interest save that of his country, in whose cause he has sacrificed everything,—his life, which he was among the first to put in jeopardy; his liberty, of which he was so long deprived; and his property, which is all gone."
"Indeed!" said Charles de Lorraine, with an air of amazement.
"Yes, your Eminence," Diane repeated; "there is no doubt about that,—Monsieur de Montmorency is ruined."
"Ruined! Do you mean it?" said the cardinal.
"He is so entirely without means," continued the unblushing favorite, "that I was just on the point of appealing to his Majesty to aid this loyal servant in his distress."
The king made no reply, so absorbed was he.
"Yes, Sire," Diane said, addressing him directly in order to attract his attention, "I most earnestly beg you to come to the assistance of your faithful constable, whose pecuniary resources have been exhausted to the last sou by the price of his ransom and the great expense of the war contracted in your Majesty's service. Sire, are you listening to me?"
"Excuse me, Madame," said Henri; "I seem hardly able this evening to fix my attention upon any subject. The thought of a possible disaster at Calais occupies my mind entirely, as you can well understand."
"That is just the reason," Diane replied, "why your Majesty, in my opinion, ought to treat gently and befriend the man who has done his best beforehand to minimize the effects of this calamity, if it must befall."
"But we are as much in need of money ourselves as the constable," said the king.
"How about this new tax which has been levied?" asked Diane.
"The funds produced by that," said the cardinal, "are to be appropriated to the payment and maintenance of the troops."
"In that event," was Diane's rejoinder, "the better part of them should go to the leader of the troops."
"Very well, the leader is at Calais?" replied the cardinal.
"No, indeed, he is here in Paris, at the Louvre," retorted Diane.
"Pray, Madame, do you desire that failure and defeat should be rewarded?"
"That would be much better, Monsieur le Cardinal, than that mad recklessness should be encouraged."
"Enough of this!" the king interposed; "do you not see that your quarrelling tires and annoys me? Do you know, Madame, and Monsieur de Lorraine, the quatrain which I came across recently in my book of Hours?"
"A quatrain?" Diane and Charles de Lorraine repeated with one breath.
"If my memory serves me," said Henri, "it was this:—"
"Sire, si vous laissez, comme Charles desire,
Comme Diane fait, par trop vous gouverner,
Fondre, pétrir, mollir, refondre et retourner,
Sire, vous n'êtes plus, vous n'êtes plus que cire.'"[3]
Diane did not lose her self-possession in the least.
"A pretty piece of foolery," said she; "but it credits me with much more influence over his Majesty's mind than I possess, alas!"
"Ah, Madame," rejoined the king, "you ought not to make a bad use of that influence just because you know that you possess it."
"But do I really possess it, Sire?" said Diane, in her most winning tones. "If it be so, your Majesty will grant what I ask in behalf of the constable."
"Very well," said the king, impatiently; "now I trust you will leave me to my gloomy forebodings and my anxiety."
The cardinal, in the face of such weakness, could only raise his eyes imploringly to heaven. Diane darted a triumphant glance at him.
"Thanks, your Majesty," she said to the king. "I obey you and withdraw; but pray dismiss your anxiety and dread, Sire, for victory loves the generous-hearted, and I firmly believe that you will be victorious."
"Ah, I accept the augury, Diane," replied Henri. "With what transports of joy would I receive information to that effect! For a long time I have not slept; I have hardly existed. Mon Dieu, how slight after all is the power of kings! To think that I have at this moment no means of knowing what is transpiring at Calais! You may well say, Monsieur le Cardinal, that your brother's silence is most alarming. Ah, for news from Calais! Who will bring it to me? In God's name, who?"
An usher entered, and bowing low before the king as the last word fell from his lips, announced in a loud voice,—
"A messenger from Monsieur de Guise has arrived from Calais, and solicits the honor of an audience of his Majesty."
"A messenger from Calais!" echoed the king, rising to his feet, with gleaming eye, and almost beside himself.
"At last!" said the cardinal, trembling between joy and fear.
"Introduce Monsieur de Guise's messenger; introduce him at once," added the king, eagerly.
It need not be said that every voice was hushed, every heart beating high, and that all eyes were turned toward the door.
Gabriel entered amid a profound silence.
"He's such a bewitching little man.
And he's talking and laughing the livelong day,
And kissing his sweetheart whene'er he can.
God keep little Louis from all harm's way!"
"Oh, Sire, be careful; for if you allow,
As Charles ever longs to, and Diane does now,
The one or the other, or both, to derange you,
To shape you and work you, remodel and change you,
By yielding too freely to all their demands,
Soon you'll be like the softest of wax in their hands.”