Discourse V Marguerite, Queen of France and of Navarre, Sole Daughter Now Remaining of the Noble House of France12
When I consider the miseries and ill-adventures of that beautiful Queen of Scotland of whom I have heretofore spoken, and of other princesses and ladies whom I shall not name, fearing by such digression to impair my discourse on the Queen of Navarre, of whom I now speak, not being as yet Queen of France, I cannot think otherwise than that Fortune, omnipotent goddess of weal and woe, is the opposing enemy of human beauty; for if ever there was in the world a being of perfect beauty it is the Queen of Navarre, and yet she has been little favoured by Fortune, so far; so that one may indeed say that Fortune was so jealous of Nature for having made this princess beautiful that she wished to run counter in fate. However that may be, her beauty is such that the blows of said Fortune have no ascendency upon her, for the generous courage she drew at birth from so many brave and valorous kings, her father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and their ancestors, has enabled her hitherto to make a brave resistance.
To speak now of the beauty of this rare princess: I think that all those who are, will be, or ever have been beside it are plain, and cannot have beauty; for the fire of hers so burns the wings of others that they dare not hover, or even appear, around it. If there be any unbeliever so chary of faith as not to give credence to the miracles of God and Nature, let him contemplate her fine face, so nobly formed, and become converted, and say that Mother Nature, that perfect workwoman, has put all her rarest and subtlest wits to the making of her. For whether she shows herself smiling or grave, the sight of her serves to enkindle every one; so beauteous are her features, so well defined her lineaments, so transparent and agreeable her eyes that they pass description; and, what is more, that beautiful face rests on a body still more beautiful, superb, and rich,—of a port and majesty more like to a goddess of heaven than a princess of earth; for it is believed, on the word of several, that no goddess was ever seen more beautiful; so that, in order to duly proclaim her beauty, virtues, and merit, God must lengthen the earth and heighten the sky beyond where they now are, for space in the airs and on the land is lacking for the flight of her perfection and renown.
Those are the beauties of body and mind in this fair princess, which I at this time represent, like a good painter, after nature and without art. I speak of those to be seen externally; for those that are secret and hidden beneath white linen and rich accoutrements cannot be here depicted or judged except as being very beautiful and rare; but this must be by faith, presumption, and credence, for sight is interdicted. Great hardship truly to be forced to see so beautiful a picture, made by the hand of a divine workman, in the half only of its perfection; but modesty and laudable shamefacedness thus ordain it—for they lodge among princesses and great ladies as they do among commoner folk.
To bring a few examples to show how the beauty of this queen was admired and held for rare: I remember that when the Polish ambassadors came to France, to announce to our King Henri [then Duc d’Anjou] his election to the kingdom of Poland, and to render him homage and obedience, after they had made their reverence to King Charles, to the queen-mother, and to their king, they made it, very particularly, and for several days, to Monsieur, and to the King and Queen of Navarre; but the day when they made it to the said Queen of Navarre she seemed to them so beautiful and so superbly and richly accoutred and adorned, and with such great majesty and grace that they were speechless at such beauty. Among others, there was Lasqui, the chief of the embassy, whom I heard say, as he retired, overcome by the sight: “No, never do I wish to see such beauty again. Willingly would I do as do the Turks, pilgrims to Mecca, where the sepulchre of their prophet Mahomet is, and where they stand speechless, ravished, and so transfixed at the sight of that superb mosque that they wish to see nothing more and burn their eyes out with hot irons till they lose their sight, so subtly is it done; saying that nothing more could be seen as fine, and therefore would they see nothing.” Thus said that Pole about the beauty of our princess. And if the Poles were won to admiration, so were others. I instance here Don Juan of Austria, who (as I have said elsewhere), passing through France as stilly as he could, and reaching Paris, knowing that that night a solemn ball was given at the Louvre, went there disguised, as much to see Queen Marguerite of Navarre as for any other purpose. He there had means and leisure to see her at his ease, dancing, and led by the king, her brother, as was usual. He gazed upon her long, admired her, and then proclaimed her high above the beauties of Spain and Italy (two regions, nevertheless, most fertile in beauty), saying these words in Spanish: “Though the beauty of that queen is more divine than human, she is made to damn and ruin men rather than to save them.”
Shortly after, he saw her again as she went to the baths of Liège, Don Juan being then at Namur, where she had to pass; the which crowned all his hopes to enjoy so fine a sight, and he went to meet her with great and splendid Spanish magnificence, receiving her as though she were the Queen Élisabeth, her sister, in the latter’s lifetime his queen, and Queen of Spain. And though he was most enchanted with the beauty of her body, he was the same with that of her mind, as I hope to show in its proper place. But it was not Don Juan alone who praised and delighted to praise her, but all his great and brave Spanish captains did the same, and even the very soldiers of those far-famed bands, who went about saying among themselves, in soldierly chorus, that “the conquest of such beauty was better than that of a kingdom, and happy would be the soldiers who, to serve her, would die beneath her banner.”
It is not surprising that such people, well-born and noble, should think this princess beautiful, but I have seen Turks coming on an embassy to the king her brother, barbarians that they were, lose themselves in gazing at her, and say that the pomp of their Grand Signior in going to his mosque or marching with his army was not so fine to see as the beauty of this queen.
In short, I have seen an infinity of other strangers who have come to France and to the Court expressly to behold her whose fame had gone from end to end of Europe, so they said.
I once saw a gallant Neapolitan knight, who, having come to Paris and the Court, and not finding the said queen, delayed his return two months in order to see her, and having seen her he said these words: “In other days, the Princess of Salerno bore the like reputation for beauty in our city of Naples, so that a foreigner who had gone there and had not seen her, when he returned and related his visit, and was asked had he seen that princess, and answered no, was told that in that case he had not seen Naples. Thus I, if on my return without seeing this beautiful princess I were asked had I seen France and the Court, could scarcely say I had, for she is its ornament and enrichment. But now, having seen and contemplated her so well, I can say that I have seen the greatest beauty in the world, and that our Princess of Salerno is as nothing to her. Now I am well content to go, having enjoyed so fine a sight. I leave you Frenchmen to think how happy you should be to see at your ease and daily her fine face; and to approach that flame divine, which can warm and kindle frigid hearts from afar more than the beauty of our most beauteous dames near-by.” Such were the words said to me one day by that charming Neapolitan knight.
An honourable French gentleman, whom I could name, seeing her one evening, in her finest lustre and most stately majesty in a ball-room, said to me these words: “Ah! if the Sieur des Essarts, who, in his books of ‘Amadis’ forced himself with such pains to well and richly describe to the world the beautiful Nicquée and her glory, had seen this queen in his day he would not have needed to borrow so many rich and noble words to depict and set forth Nicquée’s beauty; ’t would have sufficed him to declare she was the semblance and image of the Queen of Navarre, unique in this world; and thus the beauteous Nicquée would have been better pictured than she has been, and without superfluity of words.”
Therefore, M. de Ronsard had good reason to compose that glorious elegy found among his works in honour of this beautiful Princess Marguerite of France, then not married, in which he has introduced the goddess Venus asking her son whether in his rambles here below, seeing the ladies of the Court of France, he had found a beauty that surpassed her own. “Yes, mother,” Love replied, “I have found one on whom the glory of the finest sky is shed since ever she was born.” Venus flushed red and would not credit it, but sent a messenger, one of her Charites, to earth to examine that beauty and make a just report. On which we read in the elegy a rich and fine description of the charms of that accomplished princess, in the mouth of the Charite Pasithea, the reading of which cannot fail to please the world. But M. de Ronsard, as a very honourable and able lady said to me, stopped short and lacked a little something, in that he should have told how Pasithea returned to heaven, and there, discharging her commission, said to Venus that her son had only told the half; the which so saddened and provoked the goddess into jealousy, making her blame Jupiter for the wrong he did to form on earth a beauty that shamed those of heaven (and principally hers, the rarest of them all), that henceforth she wore mourning and made abstinence from pleasures and delights; for there is nothing so vexatious to a beautiful and perfect lady as to tell her she has her equal, or that another can surpass her.
Now, we must note that if our queen was beauteous in herself and in her nature, also she knew well how to array herself; and so carefully and richly was she dressed, both for her body and her head, that nothing lacked to give her full perfection.
To the Queen Isabella of Bavaria, wife of King Charles VI., belongs the praise of having brought to France the pomps and gorgeousness that henceforth clothed most splendidly and gorgeously the ladies;13 for in the old tapestries of that period in the houses of our kings we see portrayed the ladies attired as they then were, in nought but drolleries, slovenliness, and vulgarities, in place of the beautiful, superb fashions, dainty headgear, inventions, and ornaments of our queen; from which the ladies of the Court and France take pattern, so that ever since, appearing in her modes, they are now great ladies instead of simple madams, and so a hundredfold more charming and desirable. It is to our Queen Marguerite that ladies owe this obligation.
I remember (for I was there) that when the queen-mother took this queen, her daughter, to the King of Navarre, her husband, she passed through Coignac and made some stay. While they were there, came various grand and honourable ladies of the region to see them and do them reverence, who were all amazed at the beauty of the princess, and could not surfeit themselves in praising her to her mother, she being lost in joy. Wherefore she begged her daughter to array herself one day most gorgeously in the fine and superb apparel that she wore at Court for great and magnificent pomps and festivals, in order to give pleasure to these worthy dames. Which she did, to obey so good a mother; appearing robed superbly in a gown of silver tissue and dove-colour, à la bolonnoise [bouillonnée—with puffs?], and hanging sleeves, a rich head-dress with a white veil, neither too large nor yet too small; the whole accompanied with so noble a majesty and good grace that she seemed more a goddess of heaven than a queen of earth. The queen-mother said to her: “My daughter, you look well.” To which she answered: “Madame, I begin early to wear and to wear out my gowns and the fashions I have brought from Court, because when I return I shall bring nothing with me only scissors and stuffs to dress me then according to current fashions.” The queen-mother asked her: “What do you mean by that, my daughter? Is it not you yourself who invent and produce these fashions of dress? Wherever you go the Court will take them from you, not you from the Court.” Which was true; for after she returned she was always in advance of the Court, so well did she know how to invent in her dainty mind all sorts of charming things.
But the beauteous queen in whatsoever fashion she dressed, were it à la française with her tall head-dress, or in a simple coif, with her grand veil, or merely in a cap, could never prove which of these fashions became her most and made her most beautiful, admirable, and lovable; for she well knew how to adapt herself to every mode, adjusting each new device in a way not common and quite inimitable. So that if other ladies took her pattern to form it for themselves they could not rival her, as I have noticed a hundred times. I have seen her dressed in a robe of white satin that shimmered much, a trifle of rose-colour mingling in it, with a veil of tan crêpe or Roman gauze flung carelessly round her head; yet nothing was ever more beautiful; and whatever may be said of the goddesses of the olden time and the empresses as we see them on ancient coins, they look, though splendidly accoutred, like chambermaids beside her.
I have often heard our courtiers dispute as to which attire became and embellished her the most, about which each had his own opinion. For my part, the most becoming array in which I ever saw her was, as I think, and so did others, on the day when the queen-mother made a fête at the Tuileries for the Poles. She was robed in a velvet gown of Spanish rose, covered with spangles, with a cap of the same velvet, adorned with plumes and jewels of such splendour as never was. She looked so beautiful in this attire, as many told her, that she wore it often and was painted in it; so that among her various portraits this one carries the day over all others, as the eyes of good judges will tell, for there are plenty of her pictures to judge by.
When she appeared, thus dressed, at the Tuileries, I said to M. de Ronsard, who stood next to me: “Tell the truth, monsieur, do you not think that beautiful queen thus apparelled is like Aurora, as she comes at dawn with her fair white face surrounded with those rosy tints?—for face and gown have much in sympathy and likeness.” M. de Ronsard avowed that I was right; and on this my comparison, thinking it fine, he made a sonnet, which I would fain have now, to insert it here.
I also saw this our great queen at the first States-general at Blois on the day the king, her brother, made his harangue. She was dressed in a robe of orange and black (the ground being black with many spangles) and her great veil of ceremony; and being seated according to her rank she appeared so beautiful and admirable that I heard more than three hundred persons in that assembly say they were better instructed and delighted by the contemplation of such divine beauty than by listening to the grave and noble words of the king, her brother, though he spoke and harangued his best. I have also seen her dressed in her natural hair without any artifice or peruke; and though her hair was very black (having derived that from her father, King Henri), she knew so well how to curl and twist and arrange it after the fashion of her sister, the Queen of Spain, who wore none but her own hair, that such coiffure and adornment became her as well as, or better than, any other. That is what it is to have beauties by nature, which surpasses all artifice, no matter what it may be. And yet she did not like the fashion much and seldom used it, but preferred perukes most daintily fashioned.
In short, I should never have done did I try to describe all her adornments and forms of attire in which she was ever more and more beauteous; for she changed them often, and all were so becoming and appropriate, as though Nature and Art were striving to outdo each other in making her beautiful. But this is not all; for her fine accoutrements and adornments never ventured to cover her beautiful throat or her lovely bosom, fearing to wrong the eyes of all the world that roved upon so fine an object; for never was there seen the like in form and whiteness, and so full and plump that often the courtiers died with envy when they saw the ladies, as I have seen them, those who were her intimates, have license to kiss her with great delight.
I remember that a worthy gentleman, newly arrived at Court, who had never seen her, when he beheld her said to me these words: “I am not surprised that all you gentlemen should like the Court; for if you had no other pleasure than daily to see that princess, you have as much as though you lived in a terrestrial paradise.”
Roman emperors of the olden time, to please the people and give them pleasure, exhibited games and combats in their theatres; but to give pleasure to the people of France and gain their friendship, it was enough to let them often see Queen Marguerite, and enjoy the contemplation of so divine a face, which she never hid behind a mask like other ladies of our Court, for nearly all the time she went uncovered; and once, on a flowery Easter Day at Blois, still being Madame, sister of the king (although her marriage was then being treated of), I saw her appear in the procession more beautiful than ever, because, besides the beauty of her face and form, she was most superbly adorned and apparelled; her pure white face, resembling the skies in their serenity, was adorned about the head with quantities of pearls and jewels, especially brilliant diamonds, worn in the form of stars, so that the calm of the face and the sparkling jewels made one think of the heavens when starry. Her beautiful body with its full, tall form was robed in a gown of crinkled cloth of gold, the richest and most beautiful ever seen in France. This stuff was a gift made by the Grand Signior to M. de Grand-Champ, our ambassador, on his departure from Constantinople,—it being the Grand Signior’s custom to present to those who are sent to him a piece of the said stuff amounting to fifteen ells, which, so Grand-Champ told me, cost one hundred crowns the ell; for it was indeed a masterpiece. He, on coming to France and not knowing how to employ more worthily the gift of so rich a stuff, gave it to Madame, the sister of the king, who made a gown of it, and wore it first on the said occasion, when it became her well—for from one grandeur to another there is only a hand’s breadth. She wore it all that day, although its weight was heavy; but her beautiful, rich, strong figure supported it well and served it to advantage; for had she been a little shrimp of a princess, or a dame only elbow-high (as I have seen some), she would surely have died of the weight, or else have been forced to change her gown and take another.
That is not all: being in the precession and walking in her rank, her visage uncovered, not to deprive the people of so good a feast, she seemed more beautiful still by holding and bearing in her hand her palm (as our queens of all time have done) with royal majesty and a grace half proud half sweet, and a manner little common and so different from all the rest that whoso had seen her would have said: “Here is a princess who goes above the run of all things in the world.” And we courtiers went about saying, with one voice boldly, that she did well to bear a palm in her hand, for she bore it away from others; surpassing them all in beauty, in grace, and in perfection. And I swear to you that in that procession we forgot our devotions, and did not make them while contemplating and admiring that divine princess, who ravished us more than divine service; and yet we thought we committed no sin; for whoso contemplates divinity on earth does not offend the divinity of heaven; inasmuch as He made her such.
When the queen, her mother, took her from Court to meet her husband in Gascoigne, I saw how all the courtiers grieved at her departure as though a great calamity had fallen on their heads. Some said: “The Court is widowed of her beauty;” others: “The Court is gloomy, it has lost its sun;” others again: “How dark it is; we have no torch.” And some cried out: “Why should Gascoigne come here gascoigning to steal our beauty, destined to adorn all France and the Court, Fontainebleau, Saint-Germain, the hôtel du Louvre, and all the other noble places of our kings, to lodge her at Pau and Nérac, places so unlike the others?” But many said: “The deed is done; the Court and France have lost the loveliest flower of their garland.”
In short, on all sides did we hear resound such little speeches upon this departure,—half in vexed anger, half in sadness,—although Queen Louise de Lorraine remained behind, who was a very handsome and wise princess, and virtuous (of whom I hope to speak more worthily in her place); but for so long the Court had been accustomed to that beauteous sight it could not keep from grieving and proffering such words. Some there were who would have liked to kill M. de Duras, who came from his master the King of Navarre to obtain her; and this I know.
Once there came news to Court that she was dead in Auvergne some eight days. On which a person whom I met said to me: “That cannot be, for since that time the sky is clear and fine; if she were dead we should have seen eclipse of sun, because of the great sympathy two suns must have, and nothing could be seen but gloom and clouds.”
Enough has now been said, methinks, upon the beauty of her body, though the subject is so ample that it deserves a decade. I hope to speak of it again, but at present I must say something of her noble soul, which is lodged so well in that noble body. If it was born thus noble within her she has known how to keep it and maintain it so; for she loves letters much and reading. While young, she was, for her age, quite perfect in them; so that we could say of her: This princess is truly the most eloquent and best-speaking lady in the world, with the finest style of speech and the most agreeable to be found. When the Poles, as I have said before, came to do her reverence they brought with them the Bishop of Cracovie, the chief and head of the embassy, who made the harangue in Latin, he being a learned and accomplished prelate. The queen replied so pertinently and eloquently without the help of an interpreter, having well understood and comprehended the harangue, that all were struck with admiration, calling her with one voice a second Minerva, goddess of eloquence.
When the queen her mother took her to the king her husband, as I have said, she made her entry to Bordeaux, as was proper, being daughter and sister of a king, and wife of the King of Navarre, first prince of the blood, and governor of Guyenne. The queen her mother willed it so, for she loved and esteemed her much. This entry was fine; not so much for the sumptuous magnificence there made and displayed, as for the triumph of this most beautiful and accomplished queen of the world, mounted on a fine white horse superbly caparisoned; she herself dressed all in orange and spangles, so sumptuously as never was; so that none could get their surfeit of looking at her, admiring and lauding her to the skies.
Before she entered, the State assembly of the town came to do reverence and offer their means and powers, and to harangue her at the Chartreux, as is customary. M. de Bordeaux [the bishop] spoke for the clergy; M. le Maréchal de Biron, as mayor, wearing his robes of office, for the town, and for himself as lieutenant-general afterwards; also M. Largebaston, chief president for the courts of law. She answered them all, one after the other (for I heard her, being close beside her on the scaffold, by her command), so eloquently, so wisely and promptly and with such grace and majesty, even changing her words to each, without reiterating the first or the second, although upon the same subject (which is a thing to be remarked upon), that when I saw that evening the said president he said to me, and to others in the queen’s chamber, that he had never in his life heard better speech from any one; and that he understood such matters, having had the honour to hear the two queens, Marguerite and Jeanne, her predecessors, speak at the like ceremonies,—they having had in their day the most golden-speaking lips in France (those were the words he used to me); and yet they were but novices and apprentices compared to her, who truly was her mother’s daughter.
I repeated to the queen, her mother, this that the president had said to me, of which she was glad as never was; and told me that he had reason to think and say so, for, though she was her daughter, she could call her, without falsehood, the most accomplished princess in the world, able to say exactly what she wished to say the best. And in like manner I have heard and seen ambassadors, and great foreign seigneurs, after they had spoken with her, depart confounded by her noble speech.
I have often heard her make such fine discourse, so grave and so sententious, that could I put it clearly and correctly here in writing I should delight and amaze the world; but it is not possible; nor could any one transcribe her words, so inimitable are they.
But if she is grave, and full of majesty and eloquence in her high and serious discourses, she is just as full of charming grace in gay and witty speech; jesting so prettily, with give and take, that her company is most agreeable; for, though she pricks and banters others, ’tis all so à propos and excellently said that no one can be vexed, but only glad of it.
But further: if she knows how to speak, she knows also how to write; and the beautiful letters we have seen from her attest it. They are the finest, the best couched, whether they be serious or familiar, and such that the greatest writers of the past and present may hide their heads and not produce their own when hers appear; for theirs are trifles near to hers. No one, having read them, would fail to laugh at Cicero with his familiar letters. And whoso would collect Queen Marguerite’s letters, together with her discourses, would make a school and training for the world; and no one should feel surprised at this, for, in herself, her mind is sound and quick, with great information, wise and solid. She is a queen in all things, and deserves to rule a mighty kingdom, even an empire,—about which I shall make the following digression, all the more because it has to do with the present subject.
When her marriage was granted at Blois to the King of Navarre, difficulties were made by Queen Jeanne [d’Albret, Henri IV.’s mother], very different then from what she wrote to my mother, who was her lady of honour, and at this time sick in her own house. I have read the letter, writ by her own hand, in the archives of our house; it says thus:—
“I write you this, my great friend, to rejoice and give you health with the good news my husband sends me. He having had the boldness to ask of the king Madame, his young daughter, for our son, the king has done him the honour to grant it; for which I cannot tell you the happiness I have.”
There is much to be said thereon. At this time there was at our Court a lady whom I shall not name, as silly as she could be. Being with the queen-mother one evening at her coucher, the queen inquired of her ladies if they had seen her daughter, and whether she seemed joyful at the granting of her marriage. This silly lady, who did not yet know her Court, answered first and said: “How, madame, should she not be joyful at such a marriage, inasmuch as it will lead to the crown and make her some day Queen of France, when it falls to her future husband, as it well may do in time.” The queen, hearing so strange a speech, replied: “Ma mie, you are a great fool. I would rather die a thousand deaths than see your foolish prophecy accomplished; for I hope and wish long life and good prosperity to the king, my son, and all my other children.” On which a very great lady, one of her intimates, inquired: “But, madame, in case that great misfortune—from which God keep us!—happens, would you not be very glad to see your daughter Queen of France, inasmuch as the crown would fall to her by right through that of her husband?” To which the queen made answer: “Much as I love this daughter, I think, if that should happen, we should see France much tried with evils and misfortunes. I would rather die (as she did in fact) than see her in that position; for I do not believe that France would obey the King of Navarre as it does my sons, for many reasons which I do not tell.”
Behold two prophecies accomplished: one, that of the foolish lady, the other, but only till her death, that of the able princess. The latter prophecy has failed to-day, by the grace which God has given our king [Henri IV.], and by the force of his good sword and the valour of his brave heart, which have made him so great, so victorious, so feared, and so absolute a king as he is to-day after too many toils and hindrances. May God preserve him by His holy grace in such prosperity, for we need him much, we his poor subjects.
The queen said further: “If by the abolition of the Salic law, the kingdom should come to my daughter in her own right, as other kingdoms have fallen to the distaff, certainly my daughter is as capable of reigning, or more so, as most men and kings whom I have known; and I think that her reign would be a fine one, equal to that of the king her grandfather and that of the king her father, for she has a great mind and great virtues for doing that thing.” And thereupon she went on to say how great an abuse was the Salic law, and that she had heard M. le Cardinal de Lorraine say that when he arranged the peace between the two kings with the other deputies in the abbey of Cercan, a dispute came up on a point of the Salic law touching the succession of women to the kingdom of France; and M. le Cardinal de Grandvelle, otherwise called d’Arras, rebuked the said Cardinal de Lorraine, declaring that the Salic law was a veritable abuse, which old dreamers and chroniclers had written down, without knowing why, and so made it accepted; although, in fact, it was never made or decreed in France, and was only a custom that Frenchmen had given each other from hand to hand, and so introduced; whereas it was not just, and, consequently, was violable.
Thus said the queen-mother. And, when all is said, it was Pharamond, as most people hold, who brought it from his own country and introduced it in France; and we certainly ought not to observe it, because he was a pagan; and to keep so strictly among us Christians the laws of a pagan is an offence against God. It is true that most of our laws come from pagan emperors; but those which are holy, just, and equitable (and truly there are many), we ourselves have ruled by them. But the Salic law of Pharamond is unjust and contrary to the law of God, for it is written in the Old Testament, in the twenty-seventh chapter of Numbers: “If a man die and have no son ye shall cause his inheritance to pass to his daughter.” This sacred law demands, therefore, that females shall inherit after males. Besides, if Scripture were taken at its word on this Salic law, there would be no such great harm done, as I have heard great personages say, for they speak thus: “So long as there be males, females can neither inherit nor reign. Consequently, in default of males, females should do so. And, inasmuch as it is legal in Spain, Navarre, England, Scotland, Hungary, Naples, and Sicily that females should reign, why should it not be the same in France? For what is right in one place is right everywhere and in all places; places do not make the justice of the law.”
In all the fiefs we have in France, duchies, counties, baronies, and other honourable lordships, which are nearly and even greatly royal in their rights and privileges, many women, married and unmarried, have succeeded; as in Bourbon, Vendôme, Montpensier, Nevers, Rhétel, Flandres, Eu, Bourgogne, Artois, Zellande, Bretaigne; and even like Mathilde, who was Duchesse de Normandie; Eléonore, Duchesse de Guyenne, who enriched Henry II., King of England; Béatrix, Comtesse de Provence, who brought that province to King Louis, her husband; the only daughter of Raimond, Comtesse de Thoulouse, who brought Thoulouse to Alfonse, brother of Saint-Louis; also Anne, Duchesse de Bretaigne, and others. Why, therefore, should not the kingdom of France call to itself in like manner the daughters of France?
Did not the beautiful Galatea rule in Gaul when Hercules married her after his conquest of Spain?—from which marriage issued our brave, valiant, generous Gauls, who in the olden time made themselves laudable.
Why should the daughters of dukes in this kingdom be more capable of governing a duchy or a county and administering justice (which is the duty of kings) than the daughters of kings to rule the kingdom of France? As if the daughters of France were not as capable and fitted to command and reign as those of other kingdoms and fiefs that I have named!
For still greater proof of the iniquity of the Salic law it is enough to show that so many chroniclers, writers, and praters, who have all written about it, have never yet agreed among themselves as to its etymology and definition. Some, like Postel, consider that it takes its ancient name and origin from the Gauls, and is only called Salic instead of Gallic because of the proximity and likeness in old type between the letter S and the letter G. But Postel is as visionary in that (as a great personage said to me) as he is in other things.
Jean Ceval, Bishop of Avranches, a great searcher into the antiquities of Gaul and France, tried to trace it to the word salle, because this law was ordained only for salles and royal palaces.
Claude Seissel thinks, rather inappropriately, that it comes from the word sal in Latin, as a law full of salt, that of sapience, wisdom, a metaphor drawn from salt.
A doctor of laws, named Ferrarius Montanus, will have it that Pharamond was otherwise called Salicq. Others derive it from Sallogast, one of the principal councillors of Pharamond.
Others again, wishing to be still more subtle, say that the derivation is taken from the frequent sections in the said law beginning with the words: si aliquis, si aliqua. But some say it comes from François Saliens; and it is so mentioned in Marcellin.14
So here are many puzzles and musings; and it is not to be wondered at that the Bishop of Arras disputed the matter with the Cardinal de Lorraine: just as those of his nation in their jests and jugglings, supposing that this law was a new invention, called Philippe de Valois le roi trouvé, as if, by a new right never recognized before in France, he had made himself king. On which was founded that, the county of Flanders having fallen to a distaff, King Charles V. of France did not claim any right or title to it; on the contrary, he portioned his brother Philippe with Bourgogne in order to make his marriage with the Countess of Flanders; not wishing to take her for himself, thinking her less beautiful, though far more rich, than her of Bourbon. Which is a great proof and assurance that the Salic law was not observed except as to the crown. And it cannot be doubted that women, could they come to the throne, beautiful, honourable, and virtuous as the one of whom I here speak, would draw to them the hearts of their subjects by their beauty and sweetness far more than men do by their strength.
M. du Tillet says that Queen Clotilde made France accept the Christian religion, and since then no queen has ever wandered from it; which is a great honour to queens, for it was not so with the kings after Clovis; Chilperic I. was stained with Arian error, and was checked only by the firm resistance of two prelates of the Gallican church, according to the statement of Grégoire de Tours.
Moreover, was not Catherine, daughter of Charles VI., ordained Queen of France by the king, her father, and his council [in 1420]?
Du Tillet further says that the daughters of France were held in such honour that although they were married to less than kings they nevertheless kept their royal titles and were called queens with their proper names; an honour which was given them for life to demonstrate forever that they were daughters of the kings of France. This ancient custom shows dumbly that the daughters of France can be sovereigns as well as the sons.
In the days of the King Saint-Louis it is recorded of a court of peers held by him that the Countess of Flanders was present, taking part with the peers. This shows how the Salic law was not kept, except as to the crown. Let us see still further what M. du Tillet says:—
“By the Salic law, written for all subjects, where there were no sons the daughters inherited the patrimony; and this should rule the crown also, so that Mesdames the daughters of France, in default of sons, should take it; nevertheless, they are perpetually excluded by custom and the private law of the house of France, based on the arrogance of Frenchmen, who cannot endure to be governed by women.” And elsewhere he says: “One cannot help being amazed at the long ignorance that has attributed this custom to the Salic law, which is quite the contrary of it.”
King Charles V., treating of the marriage of Queen Marie of France, his daughter, with Guillaume, Count of Hainault, in the year 1374, stipulated for the renunciation by the said count of all right to the kingdom and to Dauphiné; which is a great point, for see the contradictions!
Certainly if women could handle arms like men they could make themselves accredited; but by way of compensation, they have their beautiful faces; which, however, are not recognized as they deserve; for surely it is better to be governed by beautiful, lovely, and honourable women than by tiresome, conceited, ugly, and sullen men such as I have seen in this France of ours.
I would like to know if this kingdom has found itself any better for an infinitude of conceited, silly, tyrannical, foolish, do-nothing, idiotic, and crazy kings—not meaning to accuse our brave Pharamond, Clodion, Clovis, Pépin, Martel, Charles, Louis, Philippe, Jean, François, Henri, for they are all brave and magnanimous, those kings, and happy they who were under them—than it would have been with an infinitude of the daughters of France, very able, very prudent, and very worthy to govern. I appeal to the regency of the mothers of kings to show this, to wit:—
Frédégonde, how did she administer the affairs of France during the minority of King Clothaire, her son, if not so wisely and dexterously that he found himself before he died monarch of Gaul and of much of Germany?
The like did Mathilde, wife of Dagobert, as to Clovis II., her son; and, long after, Blanche, mother of Saint-Louis, who behaved so wisely, as I have read, that, just as the Roman emperors chose to call themselves “Augustus” in commemoration of the luck and prosperity of Augustus, the great emperor, so the former queen-mothers after the decease of the kings, their husbands, desired each to be called “Reine Blanche,” in honourable memory of the government of that wise princess. Though M. du Tillet contradicts this a little, I have heard it from a very great senator.
And, to come lower down, Isabeau of Bavaria had the regency of her husband, Charles VI. (who lost his good sense), by the advice of the Council; and so had Madame de Bourbon for little King Charles VIII. during his minority; Madame Louise de Savoie for King François I.; and our queen-mother for King Charles IX., her son.
If, therefore, foreign ladies (except Madame de Bourbon, who was daughter of France) were capable of governing France so well, why should not our own ladies do as much, having good zeal and affection, they being born here and suckled here, and the matter touching them so closely?
I should like to know in what our last kings have surpassed our last three daughters of France, Élisabeth, Claude, and Marguerite; and whether if the latter had come to be queens of France they would not have governed it (I do not wish to accuse the regency, which was very great and very wise) as well as their brothers. I have heard many great personages, well-informed and far-seeing, say that possibly we should not have had the evils we did have, now have, and shall have still; adducing reasons too long to put here. But the common and vulgar fool says: “Must observe the Salic law.” Poor idiot that he is! does he not know that the Germans, from whose stock we issued, were wont to call their women to affairs of State, as we learn from Tacitus? From that, we can see how this Salic law has been corrupted. It is but mere custom; and poor women, unable to enforce their rights by the point of the sword, men have excluded, and driven them from everything. Ah! why have we no more brave and valiant paladins of France,—a Roland, a Renaud, an Ogier, a Deudon, an Olivier, a Graffon, an Yvon, and an infinity of other braves, whose glory and profession it was to succour ladies and support them in the troubles and adversities of their lives, their honour, and their fortunes? Why are they here no longer to maintain the rights of our Queen Marguerite, daughter of France, who barely enjoys an inch of land in France, which she quitted in noble state, though to her, perhaps, the whole belongs by right divine and human? Queen Marguerite, who does not even enjoy her county of Auvergne, which is hers by law and equity as the sole heiress of the queen, her mother, is now withdrawn into the castle of Usson, amid the deserts, rocks, and mountains of Auvergne,—a different habitation, verily, from the great city of Paris, where she ought now to be seated on her throne and place of justice, which belongs to her in her own right as well as by that of her husband. But the misfortune is that they are not there together. If both were again united in body and soul and friendship, as they once were, possibly all would go right once more, and together they would be feared, respected, and known for what they are.
(Since this was written God has willed that they be reconciled, which is indeed great luck.)
I heard M. de Pibrac say on one occasion that these Navarre marriages are fatal, because husband and wife are always at variance,—as was the case with Louis Hutin, King of France and of Navarre, and Marguerite de Bourgogne, daughter of Duc Robert III.; also Philippe le Long, King of France and Navarre, with Jeanne, daughter of Comte Othelin of Bourgogne, who, being found innocent, was vindicated well; also Charles le Bel, King of France and of Navarre, with Blanche, daughter of Othelin, another Comte de Bourgogne; and further, King Henri d’Albret with Marguerite de Valois, who, as I have heard on good authority, treated her very ill, and would have done worse had not King François, her brother, spoken sternly to him and threatened him for honouring his sister so little, considering the rank she held.
The last King Antoine of Navarre died also on ill terms with Queen Jeanne, his wife; and our Queen Marguerite is now in dispute and separation from her husband; but God will some day happily unite them in spite of these evil times.
I have heard a princess say that Queen Marguerite saved her husband’s life on the massacre of Saint-Bartholomew; for indubitably he was proscribed and his name written on the “red paper,” as it was called, because it was necessary, they said, to tear up the roots, namely, the King of Navarre, the Prince de Condé, Amiral de Coligny, and other great personages; but the said Queen Marguerite flung herself on her knees before King Charles, to implore him for the life of her husband and lord.15 King Charles would scarcely grant it to her, although she was his good sister. I relate this for what it is worth, as I know it only by hearsay. But she bore this massacre very impatiently and saved several, among them a Gascon gentleman (I think his name was Léran), who, wounded as he was, took refuge beneath her bed, she being in it, and the murderers pursuing him to the door, from which she drove them; for she was never cruel, but kind, like a daughter of France.
They say that the quarrel between herself and her husband came more from the difference in their religion than from anything else; for they each loved his and her own, and supported it strongly. The queen having gone to Pau, the chief town of Béarn, she caused the mass to be said there; and a certain secretary of the king, her husband, named le Pin, who had formerly belonged to M. l’Amiral, not being able to stomach it, put several of the inhabitants of the town who had been present at the mass into prison. The queen was much displeased; and he, wishing to remonstrate, spoke to her much louder than he should, and very indiscreetly, even before the king, who gave him a good rebuke and dismissed him; for King Henri knows well how to like and respect what he ought; being as brave and generous as his fine and noble actions have always manifested; of which I shall speak at length in his life.
The said le Pin fell back upon the edict which is there made, and to be observed under penalty, namely, that mass shall not be said. The queen, feeling herself insulted, and God knows she was, vowed and declared she would never again set foot in that country because she chose to be free in the exercise of her religion; whereupon she departed, and has ever since kept her oath very carefully.
I have heard it said that nothing lay so heavily on her heart as this indignity of being deprived of the exercise of her religion; for which reason she begged the queen, her good mother, to come and fetch her and take her to France to see the king and Monsieur, his brother, whom she honoured and loved much. Having arrived, she was not received and seen by the king, her brother, as she should have been. Seeing this great change since she had left France, and the rise of many persons she would never have thought of to grandeurs, it irked her much to be forced to pay court to them, as others, her equals, were now doing; and far from doing so herself, she despised them openly, as I well saw, so high was her courage. Alas! too high, certainly, for it caused her misfortunes; had she been willing to restrain herself and lower her courage the least in the world she would not have been thwarted and vexed as she has been.
As to which I shall relate this story: when the king, her brother, went to Poland, he being there, she knew that M. du Gua, much favoured by her brother, had made some remarks to her disadvantage, enough to set brother and sister at variance or enmity. At the end of a certain time M. du Gua returned from Poland and arrived at Court, bearing letters from the king to his sister, which he went to her apartment to give her and kiss hands. This I saw myself. When she beheld him enter she was in great wrath, and as he came to her to present the letter she said to him, with an angry face: “Lucky for you, du Gua, that you come before me with this letter from my brother, which serves you as a safeguard, for I love him much and all who come from him are free from me; but without it, I would teach you to speak about a princess like myself, the sister of your kings, your masters and sovereigns.” M. du Gua answered very humbly: “I should never, madame, have presented myself before you, knowing that you wish me ill, without some good message from the king, my master, who loves you, and whom you love also; or without feeling assured, madame, that for love of him, and because you are good and generous, you would hear me speak.” And then, after making her his excuses and telling his reasons (as he knew well how to do), he denied very positively that he had ever spoken against the sister of his kings otherwise than very reverently. On which she dismissed him with an assurance that she would ever be his cruel enemy,—a promise which she kept until his death.
After a while the king wrote to Mme. de Dampierre and begged her, for the sake of giving him pleasure, to induce the Queen of Navarre to pardon M. du Gua, which Mme. de Dampierre undertook with very great regret, knowing well the nature of the said queen; but because the king loved her and trusted her, she took the errand and went one day to see the said queen in her room. Finding her in pretty good humour, she opened the matter and made the appeal, namely: that to keep the good graces, friendship, and favour of the king, her brother, who was now about to become King of France, she ought to pardon M. du Gua, forget the past, and take him again into favour; for the king loved and favoured him above his other friends; and by thus taking M. du Gua as a friend she would gain through him many pleasures and good offices, inasmuch as he quietly governed the king, his master, and it was much better to have his help than to make him desperate and goad him against her, because he could surely do her much harm; telling her how she had seen in her time during the reign of François I., Mesdames Madeleine and Marguerite, one Queen of Scotland later, the other Duchesse de Savoie, her aunts, although their hearts were as high and lofty as her own, bring down their pride so low as to pay court to M. de Sourdis, who was only master of the wardrobe to the king, their father; yet they even sought him, hoping by his means, to obtain the favour of the king; and thus, taking example by her aunts, she ought to do the same herself in relation to M. du Gua.
The Queen of Navarre, having listened very attentively to Mme. de Dampierre, answered her rather coldly, but with a smiling face, as her manner was: “Madame de Dampierre, what you say to me may be good for you; you need favours, pleasures, and benefits, and were I you the words you say to me might be very suitable and proper to be received and put in practice; but to me, who am the daughter of a king, the sister of kings, and the wife of a king, they have no meaning; because with that high and noble rank I cannot, for my honour’s sake, be a beggar of favours and benefits from the king, my brother; and I hold him to be of too good a nature and too well acquainted with his duty to deny me anything unless I have the favour of a du Gua; if otherwise, he will do great wrong to himself, his honour, and his royalty. And even if he be so unnatural as to forget himself and what he owes to me, I prefer, for my honour’s sake and as my courage tells me, to be deprived of his good graces, because I would not seek du Gua to gain his favours, or be even suspected of gaining them by such means and intercession; and if the king, my brother, feels himself worthy to be king, and to be loved by me and by his people, I feel myself, as his sister, worthy to be queen and loved, not only by him but by all the world. And if my aunts, as you allege, degraded themselves as you say, let them do as they would if such was their humour, but their example is no law to me, nor will I imitate it, or form myself on any model if not my own.” On that she was silent, and Mme. de Dampierre retired; not that the queen was angry with her or showed her ill-will, for she loved her much.
Another time, when M. d’Épernon went to Gascoigne after the death of Monsieur (a journey made for various purposes, so they said), he saw the King of Navarre at Pamiers, and they made great cheer and caresses to each other. I speak thus because at that time M. d’Épernon was semi-king of France because of the dissolute favour he had with his master, the King of France. After having caressed and made good cheer together the King of Navarre asked him to go and see him at Nérac when he had been to Toulouse and was on his way back; which he promised to do. The King of Navarre having gone there first to make preparations to feast him well, the Queen of Navarre, who was then at Nérac, and who felt a deadly hatred to M. d’Épernon, said to the king, her husband, that she would leave the place so as not to disturb or hinder the fête, not being able to endure the sight of M. d’Épernon without some scandal or venom of anger which she might disgorge, and so give annoyance to the king, her husband. On which the king begged her, by all the pleasures that she could give him, not to stir, but to help him to receive the said Sieur d’Épernon and to put her rancour against him underfoot for love of him, her husband, and all the more because it greatly concerned both of them and their grandeur.
“Well, monsieur,” replied the queen, “since you are pleased to command it, I will remain and give him good cheer out of respect to you and the obedience that I owe to you.” After which she said to some of her ladies: “But I will answer for it that on the days that man is here I will dress in habiliments I never yet have worn, namely: dissimulation and hypocrisy; I will so mask my face with shams that the king shall see there only good and honest welcome and all gentleness; and likewise I will lay discretion on my lips, so that externally I will make him think my heart internally is kind, which otherwise I would not answer for; I do this being nowise in my own control, but wholly in his,—so lofty is he and full of frankness, unable to bear vileness or the venom of hypocrisy, or to abase himself in any way.”
Therefore, to content the king, her husband, for she honoured him much, as he did her, she disguised her feelings in such a way that, M. d’Épernon being brought to her apartment, she received him in the same manner the king had asked of her and she had promised; so that all present, the chamber being full of persons eager to see the entrance and the interview, marvelled much, while the king and M. d’Épernon were quite content. But the most clear-sighted and those who knew the nature of the queen misdoubted something hidden within; and she herself said afterwards it was a comedy in which she played a part unwillingly.
These are two tales by which to see the lofty courage of this queen, the which was such, as I have heard the queen, her mother, say (discoursing of this topic), that she resembled in this her father; and that she, the queen-mother, had no other child so like him, as much in ways, humours, lineaments, and features of the face as in courage and generosity; telling also how she had seen King Henri during King François’ lifetime unable for a kingdom to pay his court and cringe to Cardinal de Tournon or to Amiral d’Annebault, the favourites of King François, even though he might often have had peace with Emperor Charles had he been willing so to do; but his honour could not submit to such attentions. And so, like father, like daughter. Nevertheless, all that injured her much. I remember an infinite number of annoyances and indignities she received at Court, which I shall not relate, they are too odious; until at last she was sent away, with great affront and yet most innocent of what they put upon her; the proofs of which were known to many, as I know myself; also the king, her husband, was convinced of it, so that he brought King Henri to account, which was very good of him, and henceforth there resulted between the two brothers [-in-law] a certain hatred and contention.
The war of the League happened soon after; and because the Queen of Navarre feared some evil at Court, being a strong Catholic, she retired to Agen, which had been given to her with the region about it by her brothers, as an appanage and gift for life. As the Catholic religion was concerned, which it was necessary to maintain, and also to exterminate the other, she wished to fortify her side as best she could and repress the other side. But in this she was ill-served by means of Mme. de Duras, who governed her much, and made, in her name, great exactions and extortions. The people of the town were embittered, and covertly sought their freedom and a means to drive away their lady and her bailiffs. On which disturbance the Maréchal de Matignon took occasion to make enterprise against the town, as the king, having learned the state of things, commanded him with great joy to do in order to aggravate his sister, whom he did not love, to more and more displeasure. This enterprise, which failed at first, was led the second time so dexterously by the said marshal and the inhabitants, that the town was taken by force with such rapidity and alarm that the poor queen, in spite of all she could do, was forced to mount in pillion behind a gentleman, and Mme. de Duras behind another, and escape as quickly as they could, riding a dozen leagues without stopping, and the next day as much more, to find safety in the strongest fortress of France, which is Carlat. Being there, and thinking herself in safety, she was, by the manœuvres of the king, her brother (who was a very clever and very subtle king, if ever there was one), betrayed by persons of that country and the fortress, so that when she fled she became a prisoner in the hands of the Marquis de Canillac, governor of Auvergne, and was taken to the castle of Usson, a very strong fortress also, almost impregnable, which that good and sly fox Louis XI. had made such, in order to lodge his prisoners in a hundred-fold more security than at Loches, Bois de Vincennes, or Lusignan.
Here, then, was this poor princess a prisoner, and treated not as a daughter of France or the great princess that she was. But, at any rate, if her body was captive, her brave heart was not, and it never failed her, but helped her well and did not let her yield to her affliction. See what a great heart can do, led by great beauty! For he who held her prisoner became her prisoner in time, brave and valiant though he was. Poor man! what else could he expect? Did he think to hold subject and captive in his prison one whose eyes and beauteous face could subject the whole world to her bonds and chains like galley-slaves!
So here was the marquis ravished and taken by her beauty; but she, not dreaming of the delights of love, only of her honour and her liberty, played her game so shrewdly that she soon became the stronger, seized the fort, and drove away the marquis, much dumfounded at such surprise and military tactics.
There she has now been six or seven years,16 not, however, with all the pleasures of life, being despoiled of the county of Auvergne by M. le Grand Prieur de France, whom the king induced the queen-mother to institute count and heir in her will; regretting much that she could not leave the queen, her good daughter, anything of her own, so great was the hatred that the king bore her. Alas! what mutation was this from the time when, as I saw myself, they loved each other much, and were one in body, soul, and will! Ah! how often was it fine to see them discourse together; for, whether they were grave or gay, nothing could be finer than to see and hear them, for both could say what they wished to say. Ah! how changed the times are since we saw them in that great ball-room, dancing together in such beautiful accord of dance and will! The king always led her to the dance at the great balls. If one had a noble majesty the other had none the less; the eyes of all were never surfeited or delighted enough by so agreeable a sight; for the sets were so well danced, the steps so correctly performed, the stops so finely made that we knew not which to admire most, their beautiful fashion of dancing or their majesty in pausing; representing now a gay demeanour and next a noble, crave disdain; for no one ever saw them in the dance that did not say they had seen no dance so fine with grace and majesty as this of the king-brother and the queen-sister. As for me, I am of that opinion; and yet I have seen the Queen of Spain and the Queen of Scotland dance most beautifully.
Also I have seen them dance the Italian pazzemeno [the minuet, menu pas], now advancing with grave port and majesty, doing their steps so gravely and so well; next gliding only; and anon making most fine and dainty and grave passages, that none, princes or others, could approach, nor ladies, because of the majesty that was not lacking. Wherefore this queen took infinite pleasure in these grave dances on account of her grace and dignity and majesty, which she displayed the better in these than in others like bransles, and volts, and courants. The latter she did not like, although she danced them well, because they were not worthy of her majesty, though very proper for the common graces of other ladies.
I have seen her sometimes like to dance the bransle by torchlight. I remember that once, being at Lyon, on the return of the king from Poland, at the marriage of Besne (one of her maids of honour) she danced the bransle before many foreigners from Savoie, Piedmont, Italy, and elsewhere, who declared they had never seen anything so fine as this queen, a grave and noble lady, as indeed she is. One of them there was who went about declaring that she needed not, like other ladies, the torch she carried in her hand; for the light within her eyes, which could not be extinguished like the other, was sufficient; the which had other virtue than leading men to dance, for it inflamed all those about her, yet could not be put out like the one she had in hand, but lit the night amid the darkness and the day beneath the sun.
For this reason must we say that Fortune has been to us as great an enemy as to her, in that we see no longer that bright torch, or rather that fine sun which lighted us, now hidden among those hills and mountains of Auvergne. If only that light had placed itself in some fine port or haven near the sea, where passing mariners might be guided, safe from wreck and peril, by its beacon, her dwelling would be nobler, more profitable, more honourable for herself and us. Ah! people of Provence, you ought to beg her to dwell upon your seacoasts or within your ports; then would she make them more famous than they are, more inhabited and richer; from all sides men in galleys, ships, and vessels would flock to see this wonder of the world, as in old times to that of Rhodes, that they might see its glorious and far-shining pharos. Instead of which, begirt by barriers of mountains, she is hidden and unknown to all our eyes, except that we have still her lovely memory. Ah! beautiful and ancient town of Marseille, happy would you be if your port were honoured by the flame and beacon of her splendid eyes! For the county of Provence belongs to her, as do several other provinces in France. Cursèd be the unhappy obstinacy of this kingdom which does not seek to bring her hither with the king, her husband, to be received, honoured and welcomed as they should be. (This I wrote at the very height of the Wars of the League.)
Were she a bad, malicious, miserly, or tyrannical princess (as there have been a plenty in times past in France, and will be, possibly, again), I should say nothing in her favour; but she is good, most splendid, liberal, giving all to others, keeping little for herself, most charitable, and giving freely to the poor. The great she made ashamed with liberalities; for I have seen her make presents to all the Court on New Year’s Day such as the kings, her brothers, could not equal. On one occasion she gave Queen Louise de Lorraine a fan made of mother-of-pearl enriched with precious stones and pearls of price, so beautiful and rich that it was called a masterpiece and valued at more than fifteen thousand crowns. The other, to return the present, sent her sister those long aiguillettes which Spaniards call puntas, enriched with certain stones and pearls, that might have cost a hundred crowns; and with these she paid for that fine New Year’s gift, which was, certainly, most dissimilar.
In short, this queen is in all things royal and liberal, honourable and magnificent, and, let it not displease the empresses of long past days, their splendours described by Suetonius, Pliny, and others, do not approach her own in any way, either in Court or city, or in her journeys through the open country; witness her gilded litters so superbly covered and painted with fine devices, her coaches and carriages the same, and her horses so fine and so richly caparisoned.
Those who have seen, as I have, these splendid appurtenances know what I say. And must she now be deprived of all this, so that for seven years she has not stirred from that stern, unpleasant castle?—in which, however, she takes patience; such virtue has she of self-command, one of the greatest, as many wise philosophers have said!
To speak once more of her kindness: it is such, so noble, so frank, that, as I believe, it has done her harm; for though she has had great grounds and great means to be revenged upon her enemies and injure them, she has often withheld her hand when, had she employed those means or caused them to be employed, and commanded others, who were ready enough, to chastise those enemies with her consent, they would have done so wisely and discreetly; but she resigned all vengeances to God.
This is what M. du Gua said to her once when she threatened him: “Madame, you are so kind and generous that I never heard it said you did harm to any one; and I do not think you will begin with me, who am your very humble servitor.” And, in fact, although he greatly injured her, she never returned him the same in vengeance. It is true that when he was killed and they came to tell her, she merely said, being ill: “I am sorry I am not well enough to celebrate his death with joy.” She had also this other kindness in her: that when others had humbled themselves and asked her pardon and favour, she forgave and pardoned, with the generosity of a lion which never does harm to those who are humble to him.
I remember that when M. le Maréchal de Biron was lieutenant of the king in Guyenne, war having broken out around him (possibly with his knowledge and intent), he went one day before Nérac, where the King and Queen of Navarre were living at that time. The marshal prepared his arquebusiers to attack, beginning with a skirmish. The King of Navarre brought out his own in person, and, in a doublet like any captain of adventurers, he held his ground so well that, having the best marksmen, nothing could prevail against him. By way of bravado the marshal let fly some cannon against the town, so that the queen, who had gone upon the ramparts to see the pastime, came near having her share in it, for a ball flew right beside her; which incensed her greatly, as much for the little respect Maréchal de Biron showed in braving her to her face, as because he had a special command from the king not to approach the war nearer than five hundred leagues to the Queen of Navarre, wherever she might be. The which command he did not observe on this occasion; for which she felt resentment and revenge against the marshal.
About a year and a half later she came to Court, where was the marshal, whom the king had recalled from Guyenne, fearing further disturbance; for the King of Navarre had threatened to make trouble if he were not recalled. The Queen of Navarre, resentful to the said marshal, took no notice of him, but disdained him, speaking everywhere very ill of him and of the insult he had offered her. At last, the marshal, dreading the hatred of the daughter and sister of his masters, and knowing the nature of the princess, determined to seek her pardon by making excuses and humbling himself; on which, generous as she was, she did not contradict him, but took him into favour and friendship and forgot the past. I knew a gentleman by acquaintance who came to Court about this time, and seeing the good cheer the queen bestowed upon the marshal was much astonished; and so, as he sometimes had the honour of being listened to by the queen, he said to her that he was much amazed at the change and at her good welcome, in which he could not have believed, in view of the affront and injury. To which she answered that as the marshal had owned his fault and made his excuses and sought her pardon humbly, she had granted it for that reason, and did not desire further talk about his bravado at Nérac. See how little vindictive this good princess is,—not imitating in this respect her grandmother, Queen Anne, towards the Maréchal de Gié, as I have heretofore related.
I might give many other examples of her kindness in her reconciliations and forgivenesses.
Rebours, one of her maids of honour, who died at Chenonceaux, displeased her on one occasion very much. She did not treat her harshly, but when she was very ill she went to see her, and as she was about to die admonished her, and then said: “This poor girl has done great harm, but she has suffered much. May God pardon her as I have pardoned her.” That was the vengeance and the harm she did her. Through her generosity she was slow to revenge, and in all things kind.
Alfonso, the great King of Naples, who was subtle in loving the beauties of women, used to say that beauty is the sign manual of kindness and gentle goodness, as the beautiful flower is that of a good fruit. As to that it cannot be doubted that if our queen had been ugly and not composed of her great beauty, she would have been very bad in view of the great causes to be so that were given her. Thus said the late Queen Isabella of Castile, that wise and virtuous and very Catholic princess: “The fruit of clemency in a queen of great beauty and lofty heart, covetous of honour, is sweeter far than any vengeance whatever, even though it be undertaken for just claims and reason.”
This queen most sacredly observes that rule, striving to conform to the commandments of her God, whom she has always loved and feared and served devotedly. Now that the world has abandoned her and made war upon her, she takes her sole resource in God, whom she serves daily, as I am told by those who have seen her in her affliction; for never does she miss a mass, taking the communion often and reading much in Holy Scripture, finding there her peace and consolation.
She is most eager to obtain the fine new books that are composed, as much on sacred subjects as on human; and when she undertakes to read a book, however large and long it be, she never stops or quits it until she sees the end, and often loses sleep and food in doing so. She herself composes, both in prose and verse. As to which no one can think otherwise than that her compositions are learned, beautiful, and pleasing, for she knows the art; and could we bring them to the light, the world would draw great pleasure and great profit from them. Often she makes very beautiful verses and stanzas, that are sung to her by choir-boys whom she keeps, and which she sings herself (for her voice is beautiful and pleasant) to a lute, playing it charmingly. And thus she spends her time and wears away her luckless days,—offending none, and living that tranquil life she chooses as the best.
She has done me the honour to write me often in her adversity, I being so presumptuous as to send for news of her. But is she not the daughter and sister of my kings, and must I not wish to know her health, and be glad and happy when I hear ’tis good? In her first letter she writes thus:—
“By the remembrance you have of me, which is not less new than pleasant to me, I see that you have well preserved the affection you have always shown to our family and to the few now left of its sad wreck, so that I, in whatever state I be, shall ever be disposed to serve you; feeling most happy that ill fortune has not effaced my name from the remembrance of my oldest friends, of whom you are. I know that you have chosen, like myself, a tranquil life; and I count those happy who can maintain it, as God has given me the grace to do these five years, He having brought me to an ark of safety, where the storms of all these troubles cannot, I thank God, hurt me; so that if there remain to me some means to serve my friends, and you particularly, you will find me wholly so disposed with right good will.”
Those are noble words; and such was the state and resolution of our beautiful princess. That is what it is to be born of a noble house, the greatest in the world, whence she drew her courage by inheritance from many brave and valiant kings, her father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and all their ancestors. And be it, as she says, that from so great a shipwreck she alone remains, not recognized and reverenced as she should be by her people, I believe this people of France has suffered much misery for that reason, and will suffer more for this war of the League. But to-day this is not so;17 for by the valour and wisdom and fine government of our king never was France more flourishing, or more pacific, or better ruled; which is the greatest miracle ever seen, having issued from so vast an abyss of evils and corruptions; by which it seems that God has loved our queen,—He being good and merciful.
Oh! how ill-advised is he who trusts in the people of to-day! Oh! how differently did the Romans recognize the posterity of Augustus Cæsar, who gave them wealth and grandeurs, from the people of France, who received so much from their later kings these hundred years, and even from François I. and Henri II., so that without them France would have been tumbled topsy-turvy by her enemies watching for that chance, and even by the Emperor Charles, that hungry and ambitious man. And thus it is they are so ungrateful, these people, toward Marguerite, sole and only remaining daughter and princess of France! It is easy to foresee the wrath of God upon them, because nothing is to Him so odious as ingratitude, especially to kings and queens, who here below fulfil the place and state of God. And thou, disloyal Fortune, how plainly dost thou show that there are none, however loved by heaven and blessed by nature, who can be sure of thee and of thy favours a single day! Art thou not dishonoured in thus so cruelly affronting her who is all beauty, sweetness, virtue, magnanimity and kindness?
All this I wrote during those wars we had among us for ten years. To make an end, did I not speak elsewhere of this great queen in other discourses I would lengthen this still more and all I could, for on so excellent a subject the longest words are never wearisome; but for a time I now postpone them.
Live, princess, live in spite of Fortune! Never can you be other than immortal upon earth and in heaven, whither your noble virtues bear you in their arms. If public voice and fame had not made common praise of your great merits, or if I were of those of noble speech, I would say further here; for never did there come into the world a figure so celestial.
This queen who should by good right order us
By laws and edicts and above us reign,
Till we behold a reign of pleasure under her,
As in her father’s days, a Star of France,
Fortune hath hindered. Ha! must rightful claim
Be wrongly lost because of Fortune’s spite?
Never did Nature make so fine a thing
As this great unique princess of our France!
Yet Fortune chooses to undo her wholly.
Behold how evil balances with good!
In the sixteenth century there were three Marguerites: one, sister of François I. and Queen of Navarre, celebrated for her intellect, her Tales in the style of Boccaccio, and her verses, which are less interesting; another, Marguerite, niece of the preceding, sister of Henri II., who became Duchesse de Savoie, very witty, also a writer of verses, and, in her youth, the patroness of the new poets at Court; and lastly, the third Marguerite, niece and great-niece of the first two, daughter of Henri II. and Catherine de’ Medici, first wife of Henri IV., and sister of the last Valois. It is of her that I speak to-day as having left behind her most agreeable historical pages and opened in our literature that graceful series of women’s Memoirs which henceforth never ceases, but is continued in later years and lively vein by Mesdames de La Fayette, de Caylus and others. All of these Memoirs are books made without intending it, and the better for that. The following is the reason why Queen Marguerite took the idea of writing those in which she describes herself with so lightsome a pen.
Brantôme, who was making a gallery of illustrious French and foreign ladies, after bringing Marie Stuart into it, bethought him of placing Marguerite beside her as another example of the injustice and cruelty of Fortune. Marguerite, at the period when Brantôme indited his impulsive, enthusiastic portrait of her, flinging upon his paper that eulogy which may truly be called delirious, was confined at the castle of Usson in Auvergne (1593), where she was not so much a prisoner as mistress. Prisoner at first, she soon seduced the man who held her so and took possession of the place, where she passed the period of the League troubles, and beyond it, in an impenetrable haven. The castle of Usson had been fortified by Louis XI., well-versed in precautions, who wanted it as a sure place in which to lodge his prisoners. There Marguerite felt herself safe, not only from sudden attack, but also from the trial of a long siege and repeated assault. Writing to her husband, Henri IV., in October, 1594, she says to him, jokingly, that if he could see the fortress and the way in which she had protected herself within it he would see that God alone could reduce it, and she has good reason to believe that “this hermitage was built to be her ark of safety.”
The castle which she thus compares to Noah’s ark, and which some of her panegyrists, convinced that she who lived there was given to celestial contemplations, compare to Mount Tabor, was regarded as a Caprea and an abominable lair by enemies, who, from afar, plunged eyes of hatred into it. It is very certain, however, that Queen Marguerite lost nothing in that retreat of the delicate nicety of her mind, for it was there that she undertook to write her Memoirs in a few afternoons, in order to come to Brantôme’s assistance and correct him on certain points. We will follow her, using now and then some contemporary information, without relying too much upon either, but endeavouring to draw with simple truth a singular portrait in which there enters much that was enchanting and, towards the end, fantastic.
Marguerite, born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, May 14, 1553, was six years old when her father, Henri II., was killed at that fatal tournament which ruined the fortunes of the house of Valois. She tells us several anecdotes of herself and her childish repartees which prove a precocious mind. She takes great pains to call attention to a matter which in her is really a sign, a distinctive note through all excesses, namely: that as a child and when it was the fashion at Court to be “Huguenot,” and when all those who had intelligence, or wished to pass for having it, had withdrawn from what they called “bigotry,” she resisted that influence. In vain did her brother, d’Anjou, afterward Henri III., fling her Hours into the fire and give her the Psalms and the Huguenot prayers in place of it; she held firm and preserved herself from the mania of Huguenotism, which at that date (1561) was a fancy at Court, a French and mundane fashion, attractive for a time to even those who were soon to turn against it and repress it. Marguerite, in the midst of a life that was little exemplary, will always be found to have kept with sincerity this corner of good Catholicism which she derived from her race, and which made her in this respect and to this degree more of an Italian than a Frenchwoman; however, that which imports us to notice is that she had it.
Still a child when the first religious wars began, she was sent to Amboise with her young brother, d’Alençon. There she found herself in company with several of Brantôme’s female relations: Mme. de Dampierre, his aunt, Mme. de Retz, his cousin; and she began with the elder of these ladies a true friendship; with the younger, the cousin, the affection came later. Marguerite gives the reason for this very prettily:—
“At that time the advanced age of your aunt and my childish youthfulness had more agreement; for it is the nature of old people to love children; and those who are in the perfection of their age, like your cousin, despise and dislike their annoying simplicity.”
Childhood passed, and the first awakening to serious things was given to Marguerite about the time of the battle of Moncontour (1569). She was then sixteen. The Duc d’Anjou, afterwards Henri III., aged eighteen, handsome, brave, and giving promise of a virtue and a prudence he never justified, took his sister aside one day in one of the alleys of the park at Plessis-lez-Tours to tell her of his desire, on starting for the army, to leave her as his confidant and support with their mother, Catherine de’ Medici, during his absence at the wars. He made her a long speech, which she reports in full with some complacency:—
“Sister, the nourishment we have taken together obliges us, not less than proximity, to love each other.... Until now we have naturally been guided to this without design and without the said union being of any utility beyond the pleasure we have had in conversing together. That was good for our childhood; but now it is time to no longer live like children.”
He then points out to her the great and noble duties to which God calls him, in which the queen, their mother, brought him up, and which King Charles IX., their brother, lays upon him. He fears that this king, courageous as he is, may not always be satisfied with hunting, but will become ambitious to put himself at the head of the armies, the command of which has been hitherto left to him. It is this that he wishes to prevent.
“In this apprehension,” he continues, “thinking of some means of remedy, I believe that it is necessary to leave some very faithful person behind me who will maintain my side with the queen, my mother. I know no one as suitable as you, whom I regard as a second myself. You have all the qualities that can be desired,—intelligence, judgment, and fidelity.”
The Duc d’Anjou then proposes to his sister to change her manner of life, to be assiduous towards the queen, their mother, at all hours, at her lever, in her cabinet during the day, at her coucher, and so act that she be treated henceforth, not as a child, but as a person who represents him during his absence. “This language,” she remarks, “was very new to me, having lived until then without purpose, thinking of nothing but dancing and hunting; and without much interest even in dressing and in appearing beautiful, not having yet reached the age of such ambitions.” The fear she always felt for the queen, her mother, and the respectful silence she maintained in her presence, held her back still further. “I came very near,” she says, “replying to him as Moses did to God in the vision of the bush: ‘Who am I? Send, I pray thee, by him whom thou shouldest send.’” Nevertheless, she felt within her at her brother’s words a new courage, and powers hitherto unknown to her, and she soon consented to all, entering zealously into her brother’s design. From that moment she felt herself “transformed.”
This fraternal and politic union thus created by the Duc d’Anjou did not last. On his return from the victory of Moncontour she found him changed, distrustful, and ruled by a favourite, du Gua, who possessed him as so many others possessed him later. Henceforth his sister was out of favour with him, and it was with her younger brother, the Duc d’Alençon, that Marguerite renewed and continued as long as she could a union of the same kind, which gave room for all the feelings and all the ambitious activities of youth.
Did she at that time give some ground for the coolness of her brother d’Anjou by her liaison with the young Duc de Guise? An historian who knew Marguerite well and was not hostile to her, says: “She had long loved Henri, Duc de Guise, who was killed at Blois, and had so fixed the affections of her heart from her youth upon that prince of many attractions that she never loved the King of Navarre, afterwards King of France of happy memory, but hated him from the beginning, and was married to him in spite of herself, and against canonical law.”18 However this may be, the Duc d’Anjou seized the pretext of the Duc de Guise to break with his sister, whose enemy he became insensibly, and he succeeded in alienating her from her mother.
Marguerite, in this flower of her youth, was, according to all testimony, enchantingly beautiful. Her beauty was not so much in the special features of her face as in the grace and charm of her whole person, with its mingling of seduction and majesty. Her hair was dark, which was not thought a beauty in those days; blond hair reigned. “I have seen her sometimes wearing her natural hair without any peruke artifice,” Brantôme tells us, “and though it was black (having inherited that colour from King Henri, her father), she knew so well how to twist and curl and arrange it, in imitation of her sister, the Queen of Spain, who never wore any hair but her own, that such arrangement and coiffure became her as well as, or better than, any other.” Toward the end of her life Marguerite, becoming in her turn antiquated, with no brown hair to dress, made great display of blond perukes. “For them she kept great, fair-haired footmen, who were shaved from time to time;” but in her youth, when she dared to be dark-haired as nature made her, it was not unbecoming to her; for she had a most dazzling complexion and her “beautiful fair face resembled the sky in its purest and greatest serenity” with its “noble forehead of whitening ivory.” Nor must we forget her art of adorning and dressing herself to advantage, and the new inventions of that kind she gave to women, she being then the queen of the modes and fashion. As such she appeared on all solemn occasions, and notably on that day when, at the Tuileries, the queen-mother fêted the Polish seigneurs who came to offer the crown of Poland to the Duc d’Anjou, and Ronsard, who was present, confesses that the beautiful goddess Aurora was vanquished; but more notably still on that flowery Easter at Blois, when we see her in procession, her dark hair starred with diamonds and precious stones, wearing a gown of crinkled cloth of gold from Constantinople, the weight of which would have crushed any other woman, but which her beautiful, rich, strong figure supported firmly, bearing the palm in her hand, her consecrated branch, “with regal majesty, and a grace half proud, half tender.” Such was the Marguerite of the lovely years before the disasters and the flights, before the castle of Usson, where she aged and stiffened.
This beauty, so real, so solid, which had so little need of borrowed charms, had, like all her being, its fantasticalities and its superstition. I have said already that she frequently disguised her rich, brown hair, preferring a blond wig, “more or less charmingly fashioned.” Her beautiful face was presented to view “all painted and stained.” She took such care of her skin that she spoiled it with washes and recipes of many kinds, which gave her erysipelas and pimples. In fact, she was the model and eke the slave of the fashions of her time; and as she survived those days she became in the end a species of preserved idol and curiosity, such as may be seen in a show-case. The great Sully, when he one day reappeared at the Court of Louis XIII. with his ruff and his costume of the time of Henri IV., gave that crowd of young courtiers something to laugh at; and so, when Queen Marguerite, having returned from Usson to Paris, showed herself at the remodelled Court of Henri IV. she produced the same effect on that young century, which smiled at beholding this solemn survival of the Valois.
Like all those Valois, a worthy granddaughter of François I., she was learned. To the Poles who harangued in Latin she showed that she understood them by replying on the spot, eloquently and pertinently, without the help of an interpreter. She loved poetry and wrote it, and had it written for her by salaried poets whom she treated as friends. When she had once begun to read a book she could not leave it, or pause till she came to the end, “and very often she would lose both her eating and drinking.” But let us not forestall the time. She herself tells us that this taste for study and reading came to her for the first time during a previous imprisonment in which Henri III. held her for several months in 1575, and we are still concerned with her cloudless years.
She was married, in spite of her objections as a good Catholic, to Henri, King of Navarre, six days before the Saint-Bartholomew (August, 1572). She relates with much naïveté and in a simple tone the scenes of that night of horror, of which she was ignorant until the last moment. We see in her narrative that wounded and bleeding gentleman pursued through the corridors of the Louvre, and taking refuge in Marguerite’s chamber, and flinging himself with the cry “Navarre! Navarre!” upon her; shielding his own body from the murderers with that of his queen, she not knowing whether she had to do with a madman or an assailant. When she did know what the danger was she saved the poor man, keeping him in bed and dressing his wounds in her cabinet until he was cured. Queen Marguerite, so little scrupulous in morality, is better than her brothers; of the vanishing Valois she has all the good qualities and many of their defects, but not their cruelty.
After this half-missed blow of the Saint-Bartholomew, which did not touch the princes of the blood, an attempt was made to unmarry her from the King of Navarre. On a feast day when she was about to take the sacrament, her mother asked her to tell her under oath, truly, whether the king, her husband, had behaved to her as yet like a husband, a man, and whether there was not still time to break the union. To this Marguerite played the ingénue, so she asserts, apparently not comprehending. “I begged her,” she says, “to believe that I knew nothing of what she was speaking. I could then say with truth as the Roman lady said, when her husband was angry because she had not warned him his breath was bad, ‘that she had supposed all men were alike, never having been near to any one but him.’”
Here Marguerite wishes to have it understood that she had never, so far, made comparison of any man with another man; she plays the innocent, and by her quotation from the Roman lady she also plays the learned; which is quite in the line of her intelligence.
It would be a great error of literary judgment to consider these graceful Memoirs as a work of nature and simplicity; it is rather one of discrimination and subtlety. Wit sparkles throughout; but study and learning are perceptible. In the third line we come upon a Greek word: “I would praise your work more,” she writes to Brantôme, “if you had praised me less; not wishing that the praise I give should be attributed to philautia rather than to reason;” by philautia she means self-love. Marguerite (she will remind us of it if we forget it) is by education and taste of the school of Ronsard, and a little of that of Du Bartas. During her imprisonment in 1575, giving herself up, as she tells us, to reading and devotion, she shows us the study which led her back to religion; she talks to us of the “universal page of Nature;” the “ladder of knowledge;” the “chain of Homer;” and of “that agreeable Encyclopædia which, starting from God, returns to God, the principle and the end of all things.” All that is learned, and even transcendental.
She was called in her family Venus-Urania. She loved fine discourses on elevated topics of philosophy or sentiment. In her last years, during her dinners and suppers, she usually had four learned men beside her, to whom she propounded at the beginning of the meal some topic more or less sublime or subtile, and when each had spoken for or against it and given his reasons, she would intervene and renew the contest, provoking and attracting to herself at will their contradiction. Here Marguerite was essentially of her period, and she bears the seal of it on her style. The language of her Memoirs is not an exception to be counted against the mannerism and taste of her time; it is only a more happy employment of it. She knows mythology and history; she cites readily Burrhus, Pyrrhus, Timon, the centaur Chiron, and the rest. Her language is by choice metaphorical and lively with poesy. When Catherine de’ Medici, going to see her son, the Duc d’Anjou, travels from Paris to Tours in three days and a half (very rapid in those times, and the journey put that poor Cardinal de Bourbon, little accustomed to such discomfort, entirely out of breath), it is because the queen-mother is “borne,” says Marguerite, “on the wings of desire and maternal affection.”
Marguerite likes and affects all comparisons borrowed from fabulous natural history, and she varies them with reminiscences of ancient history. When, in 1582, they recall her to the Court of France, taking her from her husband and from Nérac, where she had then been three or four years, she perceives a project of her enemies to blow up a quarrel between herself and her husband during this absence. “They hoped,” she says, “that separation would be like the breaking of the Macedonian battalion.” When the famous Phalanx was once broken entrance was easy. This style, so ornate and figurative, usually delicate and graceful, has also its outspokenness and firmness of tone. Speaking of the expedition projected by her brother, the Duc d’Alençon, in Flanders, she explains it in terms of energetic beauty, representing to the king that “it is for the honour and aggrandizement of France; it will prove an invention to prevent civil war, all restless spirits desirous of novelty having means to pass into Flanders and blow off their smoke and surfeit themselves with war. This enterprise will also serve, like Piedmont, as a school for the nobility in the practice of arms; we shall there revive the Montlucs and Brissacs, the Termes and the Bellegardes, and all those great marshals who, trained to war in Piedmont, have since then so gloriously and successfully served their king and their country.”
One of the most agreeable parts of these Memoirs is the journey in Flanders, Hainault, and the Liège country which Marguerite made in 1577; a journey undertaken ostensibly to drink the waters of Spa, but in reality to gain partisans for her brother d’Alençon, in his project of wrenching the Low Countries from Spain. The details of her coquettish, and ceremonial magnificence, so dear to ladies, are not omitted:—
“I went,” says Marguerite, “in a litter with columns covered with rose-coloured Spanish velvet, embroidered in gold and shaded silks with a device; this litter was enclosed in glass, and each glass also bore a device, there being, whether on the velvet or on the glass, forty different devices about the sun and its effects, with the words in Spanish and Italian.”
Those forty devices and their explanation were an ever fresh subject of gallant conversation in the towns through which she passed. Amid it all, Marguerite, then in the full bloom of her twenty-fourth year, went her way, winning all hearts, seducing the governors of citadels, and persuading them to useful treachery. On this journey she meets with charming Flemish scenes which she pictures delightfully. Take, for example, the gala festival at Mons, where the beautiful Comtesse de Lalain (Marguerite, Princesse de Ligne), whose beauty and rich costume are described most particularly, has her child brought to her in swaddling-clothes and suckles it before the company; “which,” remarks Marguerite, “would have been an incivility in any one else; but she did it with such grace and simplicity, like all the rest of her actions, that she received as much praise as the company did pleasure.”
Leaving Namur, we have at Liège a touching and pathetic story of a poor young girl, Mlle. de Tournon, who dies of grief for being slighted and betrayed by her lover, to whom she was going in the utmost confidence; and who himself, coming to a better mind too late, rushes to console her, and finds her coffin on arrival. We have here from Queen Marguerite’s pen the finished sketch of a tale in the style of Mme. de La Fayette, just as above we had the drawing of a perfect little Flemish picture. On her return from this journey, the scenes Marguerite passes through at Dinant prove her coolness and presence of mind, and present us with another Flemish picture, but not so graceful as that of Mons and the beautiful nursing countess; this time it is a scene of public drunkenness, grotesque burgher rioting, and burgomasters in their cups. A painter need only transfer and copy the very lines which Marguerite has so happily traced, to make a faithful picture.
After these journeys, being now reunited at her house of La Fère in Picardy with her dear brother d’Alençon, she realizes there for nearly two months, “which were to us” she says, “like two short days,” one of those terrestrial paradises which were at all times the desire of her imagination and of her heart. She loved beyond all things those spheres of enchantment, those Fortunate Isles, alike of Urania and of Calypso, and she was ever seeking to reproduce them in all places and under all forms, whether at her Court at Nérac or amid the rocks of Usson, or, at the last, in that beautiful garden on the banks of the Seine (which to-day is the Rue des Petits-Augustins) where she strove to cheat old age.
“O my queen! how good it is to be with you!” exclaims continually her brother d’Alençon, enchanted with the thousand graceful imaginations with which she varied and embellished this sojourn at La Fère. And she adds naïvely, mingling her Christian erudition with sentiment: “He would gladly have said with Saint Peter: ‘Let us make our tabernacle here,’ if the regal courage he possessed and the generosity of his soul had not called him to greater things.” As for her, we can conceive that she would gladly have remained there, prolonging without weariness the enchantment; she would willingly have arranged her life like that beautiful garden at Nérac of which she constantly speaks, “which has such charming alleys of laurel and cypress,” or like the park she had made there, “with paths three thousand paces long beside the river;” the chapel being close at hand for morning mass, and the violins at her orders for the evening ball.
Whatever ability and shrewdness Queen Marguerite may have shown in various political circumstances in the course of her life, we nevertheless perceive plainly that she was not a political woman; she was too essentially of her sex for that. There are very few women who, like the Princess Palatine [Anne de Gonzaga] or the illustrious Catherine of Russia, know how to be libertine yet sure of themselves; able to establish an impenetrable partition between the alcove and the cabinet of public affairs. Nearly all the women who have mingled in the intrigues of politics have introduced and confused with them their intrigues of heart or senses. Consequently, whatever intelligence they may have, they elude or escape at a certain moment, and unless there be a man who holds the tiller and gives them with decision their course, we find them unfaithful, treacherous, not to be relied on, and capable at any moment of colloguing through a secret window with an emissary of the opposite side. Marguerite, with infinite intelligence and grace, was one of those women. Distinguished but not superior, and wholly influenced by passions, she had wiles and artifices of a passing kind, but no views, and still less stability.
One of the remarkable features of her Memoirs is that she does not tell all, nor even the half of all, and in the very midst of the odious and extravagant accusations made against her she sits, pen in hand, a delicate and most discreet woman. Nothing can be less like confession than her Memoirs. “We find there,” says Bayle, “many sins of omission; but could we expect that Queen Marguerite would acknowledge the things that would blast her? Such avowals are reserved for the tribunal of confession; they are not meant for history.” At the most, when enlightened by history and by the pamphlets of the period, we can merely guess at certain feelings of which she presents to us only the superficial and specious side. When she speaks of Bussy d’Amboise she scarcely restrains her admiration for that gallant cavalier, and we fancy we can see in the abundance of that praise that her heart overflows.
Even the letters that we have from her say little more. Among them are love letters addressed to him whom at one time she loved the most, Harlay de Chanvalon. Here we find no longer the charming, moderately ornate, and naturally polished style of the Memoirs; this is all of the highest metaphysics and purest fustian, nearly unintelligible and most ridiculous. “Adieu, my beauteous sun! adieu, my noble angel! fine miracle of nature!” those are the most commonplace and earthly of her expressions; the rest mount ever higher till lost in the Empyrean. It would really seem, from reading these letters, as if Marguerite had never loved with heart-love, only with the head and the imagination; and that, feeling truly no love but the physical, she felt herself bound to refine it in expression and to petrarchize in words, she, who was so practical in behaviour. She borrows from the false poetry of her day its tinsel in order to persuade herself that the fancy of the moment is an eternal worship. A practical observation is quoted of her which tells us better than her own letters the secret of her life. “Would you cease to love?” she said, “possess the thing beloved.” It is to escape this quick disenchantment, this sad and rapid awakening, that she is so prodigal of her figurative, mythological, impossible expressions; she is trying to make herself a veil; the heart counts for nothing. She seems to be saying to love: “Thy base is so trivial, so passing a thing, let us try to support it by words, and so prolong its image and its play.”
Her life well deduced and well related would make the subject of a teeming and interesting volume. Having obtained, after the persecutions and troubles, permission to rejoin her husband in Gascogne (1578), she remained there three and a half years, enjoying her liberty and leaving him his. She counts these days at Nérac, mingled, in spite of the re-beginning wars, with balls, excursions, and “all sorts of virtuous pleasures,” as an epoch of happiness. Henri’s weaknesses and her own harmonized remarkably, and never clashed. But Henri soon crossed the limit of license, and she, on her side, equally. It is not for us to hold the balance or enter here into details which would soon become indelicate and shameful. Marguerite, who had gone to spend some time in Paris at her brother’s Court (1582, 1583) did not return to her husband until after an odious scandal had made public her frailty.
From that time forth her life did not retain its early, smiling joyfulness. She was now past thirty; civil wars were lighted, never to be extinguished until after the desperate struggles and total defeat of the League. Marguerite, becoming a queen-adventuress, changed her abode from time to time, until she found herself in the castle of Usson, that asylum of which I have spoken, where she passed no less than eighteen years (1587-1605). What happened there? Doubtless many common frailties, but less odious than are told by bitter and dishonourable chroniclers, the only authorities for the tales they put forth.
During this time Queen Marguerite did not entirely cease to correspond with her husband, now become King of France. If the conduct of the royal pair leaves much to be desired with regard to each other, and also with regard to the public, let us at least recognize that their correspondence is that of honourable persons, persons of good company, whose hearts are much better than their morals. When reasons of State determined Henri to unmarry himself, to break a union which was not only sterile but scandalous, Marguerite agreed without resistance,—seeming, however, to be fully conscious of what she was losing. To accomplish the formalities of divorce, the pope delegated certain bishops and cardinals to interrogate separately the husband and wife. Marguerite expresses the desire, inasmuch as she must be questioned, that this may be done “by more private and familiar” persons, her courage not being able to endure publicly so great a diminution; “fearing that my tears,” she writes, “may make these cardinals think I am acting from force or constraint, which would injure the effect the king desires” (Oct. 21, 1599). King Henri was touched by the feelings she showed throughout this long negotiation. “I am very satisfied,” he writes, “at the ingenuousness and candour of your procedure; and I hope that God will bless the remainder of our days with fraternal affection, accompanied by the public good, which will render them very happy.” He calls her henceforth his sister; and she herself says to him: “You are father, brother, and king to me.” If their marriage was one of the least noble and the most bourgeois, their divorce, at any rate, was royal.
[Here Sainte-Beuve does not keep strictly to history. Henri IV. had long urged Marguerite to consent to a divorce; but she, aware that he was taking steps to divorce Gabrielle d’Estrées from her husband, in order to marry her, and feeling the indignity of such a marriage, firmly refused, and continued to do so until the sudden death of Gabrielle in Paris during Holy Week of 1599; on which Marguerite consented at once to the divorce, and Henri married Marie de’ Medici, December 17 of the same year.
Five years later (1605) Marguerite returned from the castle of Usson and held her Court in Paris at the hôtel de Sens (which still exists) and at her various châteaux in Languedoc; no longer, alas! the Reine Margot of our ill-regulated affections, and somewhat open to the malicious comments of Tallemant des Reaux, but appearing at times with all her wonted spirit and regal dignity. These were the days when she kept a brigade of golden-haired footmen who were shorn for the wigs; and the story goes that her gowns were made with many pockets, in each of which she kept the mummied heart of a lover. But such tales must be taken for what they are worth, and a better chronicler than the satirists of the Valois has given us ocular proof of her last majestic presence at a public ceremony five years before her death.
In 1610, Henri IV. preparing to leave France for the war in Germany, and wishing to appoint Queen Marie de’ Medici regent, it became necessary to have the latter crowned. This was done in the cathedral of Saint-Denis, May 13, 1610. The Queen of Navarre, as Marguerite, daughter of France and first princess of the blood, was required to be present at the ceremony. Rubens’ splendid picture (reproduced in this volume) gives the scene. Marie de’ Medici, kneeling before the altar, is being crowned by Cardinal de Joyeuse, assisted by his clergy and two other cardinals; beside the queen are the dauphin (Louis XIII.) and his sister, Élisabeth, afterwards Queen of Spain. The Princesse de Conti and the Duchesse de Montpensier carry the queen’s train; the Duc de Ventadour, his back to the spectator, bears the sceptre, and the Chevalier de Vendôme the sword of Justice. To the left, leading the cortège of princesses and nobles, is the Queen of Navarre, easily recognized by her small closed crown, all the other princesses wearing coronets. In the background, to right, in a gallery, sits Henri IV. viewing the ceremony. As he did so he turned with a shudder to the man behind him and said: “I am thinking how this scene would appear if this were the Last Day and the Judge were to summon us all before Him.” Henri IV. was killed by Ravaillac the following morning, while his coach stood blocked in the streets by the crowds who were collecting for the public entry of Marie de’ Medici into Paris.
The young Élisabeth, eldest daughter of the king and Marie de’ Medici, who appears at the coronation of her mother, was afterwards wife of Philip IV. of Spain, and mother of the Infanta Maria Theresa, wife of Louis XIV, also of Carlos II., at whose death Louis XIV. obtained the crown of Spain for his grandson, the Duc d’Anjou, Philip V. This Élisabeth of France, Queen of Spain, is the original of Rubens’ magnificent portrait reproduced in this chapter.—Tr.]
Queen Marguerite returned from Usson to Paris in 1605; and here we find her in her last estate, turned slightly to ridicule by Tallemant, the echo of the new century. Eighteen years of confinement and solitude had given her singularities, and even manias; they now burst forth in open day. She still had adventures both gallant and startling: an equerry whom she loved was killed at her carriage door by a jealous servant, and the poet Maynard, a young disciple of Malherbe, one of Marguerite’s beaux-esprits, wrote stanzas and plaints about it. During the same period Marguerite had many sincere thoughts that were more than fits of devotion. With Maynard for secretary, she had also Vincent de Paul, young in those days, for her chaplain. She founded and endowed convents, all the while paying learned men to instruct her in philosophy, and musicians to amuse her during divine service and at hours more profane. She gave many alms and gratuities and did not pay her debts. It was not precisely good sense that presided over her life. But amidst it all she was loved. “On the 27th day of the month of March” (1615), says a contemporary, “died in Paris Queen Marguerite, sole remains of the race of Valois,—a princess full of kindness and of good intentions for the good and the peace of the State, who did no harm to any but herself. She was greatly regretted. She died at the age of sixty-two.”
Certain persons have attempted to compare her for beauty, for misfortunes, for intellect, with Marie Stuart. Certainly, at a point of departure there was much in common between the two queens, the two sisters-in-law, but the comparison cannot be maintained historically. Marie Stuart, who had in herself the wit, grace, and manners of the Valois, who was scarcely more moral as a woman than Marguerite, and was implicated in acts that were far more monstrous, had, or seemed to have, a certain elevation of heart, which she acquired, or developed, in her long captivity crowned by her sorrowful death. Of the two destinies, the one represents definitely a great cause, and ends in a pathetic legend of victim and martyr; the reputation of the other is spent and scattered in tales and anecdotes half smutty, half devout, into which there enters a grain of satire and of gayety. From the end of one comes many a tearful tragedy; from that of the other nought can be made but a fabliau.
That which ought to be remembered to Marguerite’s honour is her intelligence, her talent for saying the right word; in short, that which is said of her in the Memoirs of Cardinal de Richelieu: “She was the refuge of men of letters; she loved to hear them talk; her table was always surrounded by them, and she learned so much from their conversation that she talked better than any other woman of her time, and wrote more elegantly than the ordinary condition of her sex would warrant.” It is in that way, by certain exquisite pages which form a date in our language, that she enters, in her turn, into literary history, the noble refuge of so many wrecks, and that a last and a lasting ray shines from her name.
C. A. Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi (1852).