CHAPTER XXXIV
ADIEU, FRANCE!
On the 15th of August, 1561, eight months after the demise of François II., Mary Stuart was at Calais, on the point of taking her departure for her Scottish kingdom.
During these eight months she had been engaged in an unceasing struggle, day by day and hour by hour, with Catherine de Médicis and with her uncles as well, who were as impatient as the regent, though for different reasons, to have her well away from France; but Mary found it hard to make up her mind to leave behind her that fair land where she had been a queen, so happy and so well beloved. Even in the sorrowful memories which recalled her premature widowhood, these loved spots held for her a poetic charm which made it difficult for her to tear herself away.
Mary Stuart not only felt that poetic charm, but she herself gave expression to it. She not only wept for the demise of François as a loving wife, but she sang of it like one of the Muses. Brantôme, in his admiration for her, has preserved for us the sweet, plaintive verses which she composed in her tribulation, and which bear comparison with the most notable poetry of that age:
"En mon triste et doux chant,
D'un ton fort lamentable,
Je jette un deuil tranchant
De perte incomparable,
Et en soupirs croissans
Passent mes meilleurs ans.
"Fut-il un tel malheur
De dure destinée,
Ni si triste douleur
De dame fortunée,
Que mon cœur et mon œil
Voient en bière et cercueil!
"Que dans mon doux printemps,
À fleur de ma jeunesse,
Toutes les peines sens
D'une extrême tristesse
Et en rien n'ai plaisir
Qu'en regret et désir.
"Ce qui m'était plaisant
Me devient peine dure!
Le jour le plus luisant
Est pour moi nuit obscure,
Et n'est rien si exquis
Qui de moi soit requis!
"Si en quelque séjour,
Soit en bois, soit en prée,
Soit à l'aube du jour
Ou soit sur la vesprée,
Sans cesse mon cœur sent
Le regret d'un absent.
"Si parfois vers les cieux
Viens à dresser ma vue,
Le doux trait de ses yeux
Je vois en une nue.
Si les baisse vers l'eau,
Vois comme en un tombeau.
"Si je suis en repos
Sommeillant sur ma couche,
J'oy qu'il me tient propos,
Je le sens qui me touche!
En labeur, en recoy,
Toujours est près de moi.
"Mets, chanson, ici fin
À ta triste complainte
Dont sera le refrain:
Amour vraie et sans feinte
Qui pour séparation
N'aura diminution."[10]
It was while at Reims, to which city she at first withdrew with her uncle De Lorraine, that Mary Stuart produced these melodious and touching strains. She remained in Champagne until the end of the spring. Then the religious troubles which had broken out in Scotland urgently demanded her presence in that country. On the other side, the almost passionate admiration which the boy Charles IX. expressed whenever he mentioned his sister-in law disturbed the suspicious regent, Catherine. Therefore it was necessary that Mary Stuart should resign herself to depart.
She came to pay her parting respects to the court at St. Germain in July; and the marks of devotion, of adoration almost, which were showered upon her there, served only to augment, if that were possible, her bitter regret.
Her dowry, charged upon Touraine and Poitou, had been fixed at twenty thousand livres annually; she also carried many superb jewels with her to Scotland, and it was thought that the hope of obtaining such rich treasure might tempt some freebooter. Still more fear was entertained that her safety might be endangered by some act of violence on the part of Élisabeth of England, who already saw in the young Queen of Scots a dangerous rival. Consequently a number of gentlemen proposed to escort Mary to her own dominions; and when she reached Calais, she found herself attended not only by her uncles, but by Messieurs de Damville and de Brantôme,—in fact, by the better part of that splendid, chivalrous court.
She found two galleys awaiting her in the harbor of Calais, ready to set sail as soon as she should give the word; but she remained at Calais six days, so painful was the final parting from those who had accompanied her thus far on her way.
At last the 15th of August, as we have said, was definitely fixed upon for her departure. It was a gloomy, threatening day, but without wind or rain.
Upon the shore, and before setting foot upon the deck of the vessel which was to bear her away, Mary, as a mark of her gratitude to all who had thus escorted her to the utmost verge of their country, gave each of them her hand to kiss as a last farewell.
They all came forward, and kneeling before her one after another pressed their lips upon her beloved hand.
Last of all was a gentleman who had never ceased to follow in Mary's train since she left St. Germain, but had always kept in the background on the road, hidden by his broad hat and the ample folds of his cloak, and had neither made himself known nor spoken to a soul.
But when he came in turn to kneel before the queen, hat in hand, Mary recognized Gabriel de Montgommery.
"Ah, is it you, Count?" said she. "I am indeed happy to see you once more, my faithful friend, who wept with me for my poor dead king. But why have you never spoken to me, if you were with these other gentlemen?"
"I felt that I must see you without being seen, Madame," replied Gabriel. "In my loneliness I could better collect my remembrances, and enjoy more fully the pleasure that it gave me to perform so grateful a duty."
"Thanks once more for this final proof of your attachment, Monsieur le Comte," said Mary. "I should be glad if I might show my gratitude otherwise than by mere words. I can do nothing more, unless it please you to accompany me to my poor Scotland with Messieurs Damville and Brantôme—"
"Ah, that would be my most devout wish, Madame!" cried Gabriel; "but another duty binds me to France. One who is dearer to me than life, and consecrated in my eyes, and whom I have not seen for more than two years, is expecting me at this moment."
"Do you mean Diane de Castro?" asked Mary, eagerly.
"Yes, Madame," said Gabriel. "By a letter I received last month she requested me to be at St. Quentin to-day, August 15. I shall not be with her until to-morrow; but whatever may have been her motive in summoning me, she will forgive me, I am sure, when she learns that I did not desire to leave you until you were actually leaving France."
"Dear Diane!" remarked Mary, pensively; "yes, she also loved me well, was like a sister to me. Hold, Monsieur de Montgommery; take this ring to her as a remembrance from me, and go to her as quickly as you can. She may need your help; and when her welfare is concerned, I do not wish to detain you. Adieu! adieu, all my dear friends! They wait for me, and I must go,—alas! I must."
She tore herself away from the arms of those who would still have held her, stepped aboard the small boat, and was at once transferred to Monsieur de Mévillon's galley, followed by the envied gentlemen who were to go with her to Scotland.
But even as Scotland could not supply the void left by France in Mary's heart, so those who accompanied her could not make her forget those she had left behind; indeed, she seemed to love the latter the more dearly. Standing at the stern of the galley, she never ceased to wave her handkerchief, wet with tears, to the kinsfolk and friends whom she left upon the shore.
At last they were in the open sea: and Mary's eyes were drawn in spite of herself toward a vessel which was just entering the harbor she had quitted, and which her gaze followed longingly in envy of its destination. Suddenly the vessel pitched forward, as if she had struck beneath the water-line; and trembling from stem to stern, she began to sink, amid the piercing shrieks of her crew. It was all done so rapidly that she was out of sight before Monsieur de Mévillon had time to send a skiff to her assistance. For an instant a few heads could be seen struggling in the water near the spot where the vessel had gone down, but they disappeared one by one before they could be reached, although the men pulled lustily; and the skiff returned without having saved a single one of the poor wretches.
"Oh, Lord! oh, my God! what a fearful omen for my voyage is this!" cried Mary Stuart.
Meanwhile the wind had freshened; and the galley began to attain some speed, so that the crew had an opportunity to rest. Mary, seeing that she was rapidly leaving the shore behind her, leaned against the bulwarks with her eyes fixed upon the harbor, her sight dimmed by great tears, and repeated again and again,—
"Adieu, France! adieu, France!"
She remained in that position nearly five hours,—that is to say, until night fell; indeed, she would probably not have thought of leaving the deck even then, had not Brantôme come to inform her that her presence was awaited at supper.
Thereupon, weeping and sobbing more bitterly than before,—
"Now, dear France," she cried, "I lose thee indeed; since Night, jealous of my last happiness, pulls her dark veil before my eyes to deprive me of my pleasure in gazing at thee. So adieu, dear France! I shall never see thee more!"
Then with a sign to Brantôme that she would follow him at once, she drew forth her tablets, seated herself upon a bench, and wrote these familiar lines by the last rays of daylight,—
"Adieu, plaisant pays de France!
O ma patrie
La plus chérie,
Qui a nourri ma jeune enfance!
Adieu, France! adieu, mes beaux jours!
La nef qui disjoint nos amours
N'a eu de moi que la moitié:
Une part te reste, elle est tienne.
Je la fie à ton amitié,
Pour que de l'autre il te souvienne."[11]
At last she went below, and said as she joined her shipmates who were awaiting her,—
"I have done just the opposite of what the Queen of Carthage did; for Dido, when Æneas left her, gazed ceaselessly at the waves, while I find it hard to take my eyes from the land."
They urged her to be seated, and to sup with them; but she could eat nothing, and withdrew at once to her cabin, charging the helmsman to arouse her at break of day if the land were still in sight.
On this point at least fortune smiled upon poor Mary; for the wind died away, and the galley scarcely moved during the night, except with the aid of oars; so that when day broke they were still within sight of France.
The helmsman entered the queen's cabin, as she had ordered him to do; but he found her already awake and seated upon her berth, gazing out through an open porthole at the beloved shore.
However, this pleasure was of short duration; for the wind freshened again, and France was soon lost to sight. Mary had only one hope left: that was that an English fleet would appear in the offing, and they would be obliged to turn back. But that last hope proved futile, like the others; a fog, so dense that they could not see from one end of the vessel to the other, came down upon the ocean,—almost miraculously, as it seemed, being midsummer. They sailed on at hazard, incurring the risk of going astray, but avoiding all danger of being seen by the enemy.
At last, on the third day, the fog lifted; and they found themselves close upon a rocky shore, where the galley would doubtless have gone to pieces if they had sailed two cables' lengths farther. The pilot took an observation, and found that he was off the coast of Scotland, and having skilfully extricated the vessel from the breakers which surrounded her, made the port of Leith, near Edinburgh.
The wits who accompanied Mary said that they had landed in a fog in a mischief-making country of marplots.[12] Mary's coming was entirely unexpected; so that she and her suite were, perforce, content to make their way to Edinburgh upon donkeys, wretchedly equipped, many of which were without saddles, and had nought but cords for reins and stirrups. Mary could not refrain from contrasting these sorry nags with the superb French palfreys which she was accustomed to see caracoling about in the hunting-field, or the lists. She shed a few tears of regret as she compared the fair land she had left with that upon which she now stood. But soon, with her fascinating grace, and struggling to smile through her tears, she said,—
"I must bear my ills in patience, since I have exchanged my paradise for a hell."
In such manner did Mary Stuart arrive on British soil. We have narrated elsewhere ("Les Stuarts") the story of the rest of her life and her demise; and how impious England, the arch-enemy of all that France holds sacred, slew grace in her person, as it had already slain inspiration in that of Jeanne d'Arc, and was subsequently to make an end of genius in the person of Napoleon.
"Sad and plaintive is my song
Of the days now gone forever;
And I mourn the whole day long
The loss of him whom I shall never
More behold. In grief and pain, alas!
The fairest years of my life must pass.
"How pitiless and stern is fate!
That I, to fortune born and pleasure,
Must bend beneath the cruel weight
Of pain and sorrow without measure;
While Destiny thus bounds my whole career
By the dark shadow of the funeral bier.
"In the bright springtime of my life,
Of my youth the very flower,
A melancholy, widowed wife,
I sit and sob the weary hour;
Nor can my heart a taste of joy acquire
In aught save vain regret or vain desire.
"That to me now is bitter pain
Whereat my face was wont to lighten;
And God's bright sunshine seeks in vain
The darkness of my night to brighten:
Nor in my sight is aught so fair or fine
As to arouse a wish that it were mine.
"Wheresoe'er my steps may lead,—
Whether through the forest roaming.
Or perchance by flowery mead,
Or at dawn or in the gloaming,—
Still my fond heart doth ceaselessly deplore,
And mourn the loss of him who is no more.
"If to heaven my eyes I raise,
In some cloud-shape, outlined faintly,
I behold my dear one's face
Smiling with his smile so saintly;
If my glance wanders o'er the ocean's wave,
I seem to see him beckoning from the grave.
"If my eyes in slumber close,
I can hear his dear voice calling;
And my soul with rapture glows
At his soft touch so lightly falling
Upon my cheek. Thus is he near me ever,
Whether I toil or rest; nor can grim Death us sever.
"Have done, O Muse, with thy sad strain!
What boots it to be ever singing?
Yet of my song, this sweet refrain
Is ever in my ears ringing:
The love that's true, with adoration blending,
In absence loseth nought; its growth is never ending."
"Farewell to thee, thou pleasant shore,
The loved, the cherished home to me,
Of infant joy a dream that's o'er!
Farewell, dear France! farewell to thee!
"The sail that wafts me bears away
From thee but half my soul alone:
Its fellow-half will fondly stay,
And back to thee has faithful flown.
"I trust it to thy gentle care;
For all that here remains with me
Lives but to think of all that's there,
To love and to remember thee."
[12]It is impossible to translate this passage so as adequately to convey the meaning of the text, "on avait pris terre par un brouillard dans un pays brouillé et brouillon."—TRANSLATOR.