Читать книгу The Queens and the Hive - Edith Sitwell - Страница 28
ОглавлениеChapter Seventeen
In the French Court, the Queen of Scotland was exposed to a more unwholesome atmosphere, more dangerous morally, than any to be found in her native country. In this she spent her childhood and early youth.
Her father-in-law, King Henri the Second, had been married at the age of fourteen to a child-bride, Catherine de’ Medici, the daughter of a marriage in which there was a second bridegroom, ‘Mounseer Dry-Bone, the Frenchman’,* who took to himself the bride fifteen days after the birth of her child, and his rival bridegroom six days after that, and who was to be the shadow of all the children born to the child of that marriage—following them in the light of the sun, changing their aspect to his own.
For years, that shadow would allow her no children; yet at length, by some supreme effort of will, they were born. But they were his for all their short lifetime.
Catherine’s husband—as hard of heart as he was weak of will—was so backward mentally that he seemed to be of the vegetable nature. ‘Monsieur d’Orléans, a large round face [but not like the large round face of the sun], who does nothing but give blows, and whom no man can master.’ So said a contemporary.
In after years, the face which had been round lengthened; from that malignant face, which showed both the hardness of his heart and the weakness of his will, two cunning eyes were constantly at watch. The moustache round his mean, thin mouth, and his beard, were equally thin and weak.
He and his deceased elder brother had been hostages in Spain, and the thought of this captivity remained ever with him. He was never seen to smile.
It must be said of him that he had great physical courage.
He became an all-too-willing prisoner, at the age of nineteen, in the toils of Diane de Poictiers (widow of the Grand Sénéchale of Normandy, and afterwards Duchesse de Valentinois), who was, at the time when she took possession of him, and of the kingdom, aged thirty-eight. It is said that she was beautiful, but her portrait gives no indication of this—showing a reddish nose with a fat tip, thin expressionless lips, and pale meaningless eyes, like holes in a canvas shrouding nothingness. The only thing to be gathered from that face is that she was cautious. During the lifetime of her elderly husband, she had lived virtuously, and on this she prided herself. The greed for possessions was, perhaps, her only passion, if we exclude that for outward respectability.
Unfortunately the King, while furthering the first passion, disregarded the second. Having fallen under this enchantment, he was tireless in insulting his wife—his otherwise inactive brain showing an extraordinary fertility in inventing new ways of doing so.
When the Queen was ill, this woman remained at her bedside; when the royal children permitted her by the Grande Sénéchale were born, this fleshly shadow of the King was present. The mistress chose the persons who were to educate the King’s legitimate children. They were, in all but the fact of birth, her children, not the Queen’s.
On the Progresses made by the King and Queen, every possible affront was offered to the long-suffering woman who was, in name only, Queen of France. The hangings of the canopies bore the interlaced letters H and D (Henri and Diane). The nobles of the cities visited, paraded first before the King, then before the mistress, then (as an afterthought, presumably) before the Queen. At galas, the Sénéchale sat beside the Queen, cloaked with ermine as if she were Queen of France, and wearing the Crown jewels, given her by the King.
The unremarkable face (more French in character than Italian) of that most remarkable woman who bore the title of Queen, and whose protruding myopic eyes saw everything, betrayed nothing. It is doubtful if that inexpressive face was given as much as a glance by the mistress, who was occupied with her own beauty and her triumph.
With this faisandée old lady, the little Dauphine was allowed to hold daily, familiar intercourse; the child’s instruction in manners was placed in her hands. And as part of this instruction, she was trained to speak insolently of the Queen, and of her descent from Florentine merchants.
The Queen of France, perhaps influenced by her daughter-in-law’s friendship with Madame de Valentinois, never held her in affection. Catherine was, it may be supposed, frozen at heart by the treatment she had received, and, withdrawing from ordinary humanity, was surrounded (finding in them, perhaps, some relaxation from the public façade of indifference, of nullity she was forced to assume) by mental and physical deformities, misshapen from birth, as she had been misshapen by the years,—by dwarfs, by fools (one, named La Jardinière, was a particular favourite, and had, as companion, a parrot and an ape ‘dont la main velue porte bonheur’[1]), and by necromancers and astrologers, chief of whom was Nostradamus.
•••••
In July 1559, preparations were being made for the marriage, by proxy, of the King of Spain with the French King’s daughter; and the canopy of the thrones, the hangings of the galleries, the sleeves of the heralds, were embroidered with the arms of England.
Among the other celebrations, a great tournament was to be held, in which King Henri, insulting, as usual, his Queen, carried on his lance the colours of Madame de Valentinois.
The tournament began at nine in the morning, to the sound of trumpets. The Queen, sitting with Madame de Valentinois in her near neighbourhood, was, naturally, ignored. But if anyone had had the time to cast her a casual glance, it would have been seen that her normally ruddy face was white.
At the time of her marriage she had been told by the astrologer and mathematician Luc Gauric that a duel would end her husband’s reign and life. Even the manner of wound from which he would die was foretold, and she was warned that, especially between his fortieth and forty-first year, he must avoid taking the field in single combat, for a wound in his head would lead to death.
Nostradamus had prophesied:
Le lion jeune, le vieux surmontera,
En champ bellique, par singulier duelle,
Dans cage d’or les yeux lui crevera....
The forty-year-old King entered the lists.
The third passage of arms, against the tall, powerful young Comte Gabriel de Montgomery, Seigneur de Lorges, should have been the last in which the King would take part. The combat ended, the Queen, whose face had grown even whiter, sponged her forehead, and the colour returned to her face. The prophecies had been false.
Then, to the astonishment of the Court, when Monsieur de Vieilleville, who was to take the King’s place in the lists, advanced, fully armed, the King told him that he wished to break a further lance with the Comte de Montgomery, nor would he listen to any remonstrances. To the Queen’s message, imploring him, for love of her, to desist, he answered—ironically—‘Tell the Queen that it is precisely for love of her that I am breaking the lance’.
Monsieur de Vieilleville, in grave tones, said, ‘Sire, I swear before the living God that for more than three nights I have dreamt that some misfortune would befall you, and that this last day is fatal’.
At this, the Comte de Montgomery felt fear rise in his heart. ‘I implore Your Majesty’, he said, ‘not to persist.’ To which the King replied, in irritation, ‘Make ready to enter the lists against me’.
The combat began.... The Comte de Montgomery galloped towards the King, almost obscured by a cloud of dust. His lance clashed against the King’s vizor with an extraordinary violence, broke, and pierced the King’s right eye, issuing through his ear.
The King reeled, then slumped over the pommel of his saddle.
The Queen gave a piercing shriek, then she, her son, and daughter-in-law, fainted. The Cardinal, the Duc de Guise, and their enemy the Constable, bearing the weight of the King’s sagging body, still upright on his feet, helped him to his bed. As he reached it, he felt for it as if he were already blind, pitched on to his back, and with an effort placing his hands together, began to pray.
During the eleven days of torment he was to know before his death, the Queen, the Duc de Savoie, the Duc de Guise, the Cardinal of Lorraine watched, in turns, by the bedside.
But one person was absent—the omnipotent figurehead of vice and hypocrisy who had reigned over the kingdom for so many years. Her daring, her insolence, had deserted her, and she was alone. ‘Is the King dead?’ she asked again and again of her servants. For while he lived, nobody would risk touching her. But she was soon to know what lay behind the inexpressive face at which she had never troubled to spare a glance. Just before the King’s death, the Queen sent a message addressed to ‘la mère Poictiers’, ordering her to leave the Palace and retire to her house, to relinquish the Crown jewels and all other properties given her by the King, with the exception of one house.
Her reign was over; and so, the glories of this world having been snatched from her greedy hands, she made an attempt to seize those of the next, and, until her death seven years later, the priest in charge of ‘les filles repenties’ would exhort his flock, at every Mass, to ‘pray to God for Diane de Poictiers’.
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AGED SIXTEEN
The King’s last words as, blinded, he groped for his son’s hand, were: ‘My son, you are about to lose your father, but not his blessing. I pray God that he make you happier than I have been.’
Strange and affecting farewell! Perhaps, in the midst of all the pain he had inflicted, he, too, had suffered.
