Catherine De Medici

X

COSMO RUGGIERO

The Cardinal de Lorraine obtained, within a few days of the events just related, certain revelations as to the culpability of the court of Navarre.  At Lyon, and at Mouvans in Dauphine, a body of Reformers, under command of the most enterprising prince of the house of Bourbon had endeavored to incite the populace to rise.  Such audacity, after the bloody executions at Amboise, astonished the Guises, who (no doubt to put an end to heresy by means known only to themselves) proposed the convocation of the States-general at Orleans.  Catherine de’ Medici, seeing a chance of support to her policy in a national representation, joyfully agreed to it.  The cardinal, bent on recovering his prey and degrading the house of Bourbon, convoked the States for the sole purpose of bringing the Prince de Conde and the king of Navarre (Antoine de Bourbon, father of Henri IV.) to Orleans, —­intending to make use of Christophe to convict the prince of high treason if he succeeded in again getting him within the power of the Crown.

After two months had passed in the prison at Blois, Christophe was removed on a litter to a tow-boat, which sailed up the Loire to Orleans, helped by a westerly wind.  He arrived there in the evening and was taken at once to the celebrated tower of Saint-Aignan.  The poor lad, who did not know what to think of his removal, had plenty of time to reflect on his conduct and on his future.  He remained there two months, lying on his pallet, unable to move his legs.  The bones of his joints were broken.  When he asked for the help of a surgeon of the town, the jailer replied that the orders were so strict about him that he dared not allow any one but himself even to bring him food.  This severity, which placed him virtually in solitary confinement, amazed Christophe.  To his mind, he ought either to be hanged or released; for he was, of course, entirely ignorant of the events at Amboise.

In spite of certain secret advice sent to them by Catherine de’ Medici, the two chiefs of the house of Bourbon resolved to be present at the States-general, so completely did the autograph letters they received from the king reassure them; and no sooner had the court established itself at Orleans than it learned, not without amazement, from Groslot, chancellor of Navarre, that the Bourbon princes had arrived.

Francois II. established himself in the house of the chancellor of Navarre, who was also bailli, in other words, chief justice of the law courts, at Orleans.  This Groslot, whose dual position was one of the singularities of this period—­when Reformers themselves owned abbeys—­Groslot, the Jacques Coeur of Orleans, one of the richest burghers of the day, did not bequeath his name to the house, for in after years it was called Le Bailliage, having been, undoubtedly, purchased either by the heirs of the Crown or by the provinces as the proper place in which to hold the legal courts.  This charming structure, built by the bourgeoisie of the sixteenth century, which completes so admirably the history of a period in which king, nobles, and burghers rivalled each other in the grace, elegance, and richness of their dwellings (witness Varangeville, the splendid manor-house of Ango, and the mansion, called that of Hercules, in Paris), exists to this day, though in a state to fill archaeologists and lovers of the Middle Ages with despair.  It would be difficult, however, to go to Orleans and not take notice of the Hotel-de-Ville which stands on the place de l’Estape.  This hotel-de-ville, or town-hall, is the former Bailliage, the mansion of Groslot, the most illustrious house in Orleans, and the most neglected.

The remains of this old building will still show, to the eyes of an archaeologist, how magnificent it was at a period when the houses of the burghers were commonly built of wood rather than stone, a period when noblemen alone had the right to build manors,—­a significant word.  Having served as the dwelling of the king at a period when the court displayed much pomp and luxury, the hotel Groslot must have been the most splendid house in Orleans.  It was here, on the place de l’Estape, that the Guises and the king reviewed the burgher guard, of which Monsieur de Cypierre was made the commander during the sojourn of the king.  At this period the cathedral of Sainte-Croix, afterward completed by Henri IV.,—­who chose to give that proof of the sincerity of his conversion,—­was in process of erection, and its neighborhood, heaped with stones and cumbered with piles of wood, was occupied by the Guises and their retainers, who were quartered in the bishop’s palace, now destroyed.

The town was under military discipline, and the measures taken by the Guises proved how little liberty they intended to leave to the States-general, the members of which flocked into the town, raising the rents of the poorest lodgings.  The court, the burgher militia, the nobility, and the burghers themselves were all in a state of expectation, awaiting some coup-d’Etat; and they found themselves not mistaken when the princes of the blood arrived.  As the Bourbon princes entered the king’s chamber, the court saw with terror the insolent bearing of Cardinal de Lorraine.  Determined to show his intentions openly, he remained covered, while the king of Navarre stood before him bare-headed.  Catherine de’ Medici lowered her eyes, not to show the indignation that she felt.  Then followed a solemn explanation between the young king and the two chiefs of the younger branch.  It was short, for that the first words of the Prince de Conde Francois II. interrupted him, with threatening looks: 

“Messieurs, my cousins, I had supposed the affair of Amboise over; I find it is not so, and you are compelling us to regret the indulgence which we showed.”

“It is not the king so much as the Messieurs de Guise who now address us,” replied the Prince de Conde.

“Adieu, monsieur,” cried the little king, crimson with anger.  When he left the king’s presence the prince found his way barred in the great hall by two officers of the Scottish guard.  As the captain of the French guard advanced, the prince drew a letter from his doublet, and said to him in presence of the whole court:—­

“Can you read that paper aloud to me, Monsieur de Maille-Breze?”

“Willingly,” said the French captain:—­

  “’My cousin, come in all security; I give you my royal word that
  you can do so.  If you have need of a safe conduct, this letter
  will serve as one.’”

“Signed?” said the shrewd and courageous hunchback.

“Signed ‘Francois,’” said Maille.

“No, no!” exclaimed the prince, “it is signed:  ’Your good cousin and friend, Francois,’—­Messieurs,” he said to the Scotch guard, “I follow you to the prison to which you are ordered, on behalf of the king, to conduct me.  There is enough nobility in this hall to understand the matter!”

The profound silence which followed these words ought to have enlightened the Guises, but silence is that to which all princes listen least.

“Monseigneur,” said the Cardinal de Tournon, who was following the prince, “you know well that since the affair at Amboise you have made certain attempts both at Lyon and at Mouvans in Dauphine against the royal authority, of which the king had no knowledge when he wrote to you in those terms.”

“Tricksters!” cried the prince, laughing.

“You have made a public declaration against the Mass and in favor of heresy.”

“We are masters in Navarre,” said the prince.

“You mean to say in Bearn.  But you owe homage to the Crown,” replied President de Thou.

“Ha! you here, president?” cried the prince, sarcastically.  “Is the whole Parliament with you?”

So saying, he cast a look of contempt upon the cardinal and left the hall.  He saw plainly enough that they meant to have his head.  The next day, when Messieurs de Thou, de Viole, d’Espesse, the procureur-general Bourdin, and the chief clerk of the court du Tillet, entered his presence, he kept them standing, and expressed his regrets to see them charged with a duty which did not belong to them.  Then he said to the clerk, “Write down what I say,” and dictated as follows:—­

“I, Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Conde, peer of the kingdom, Marquis de Conti, Comte de Soissons, prince of the blood of France, do declare that I formally refuse to recognize any commission appointed to try me, because, in my quality and in virtue of the privilege appertaining to all members of the royal house, I can only be accused, tried, and judged by the Parliament of peers, both Chambers assembled, the king being seated on his bed of justice.”

“You ought to know that, gentlemen, better than others,” he added; “and this reply is all that you will get from me.  For the rest, I trust in God and my right.”

The magistrates continued to address him notwithstanding his obstinate silence.  The king of Navarre was left at liberty, but closely watched; his prison was larger than that of the prince, and this was the only real difference in the position of the two brothers,—­the intention being that their heads should fall together.

Christophe was therefore kept in the strictest solitary confinement by order of the cardinal and the lieutenant-general of the kingdom, for no other purpose than to give the judges proof of the culpability of the Prince de Conde.  The letters seized on Lasagne, the prince’s secretary, though intelligible to statesmen, where not sufficiently plain proof for judges.  The cardinal intended to confront the prince and Christophe by accident; and it was not without intention that the young Reformer was placed in one of the lower rooms in the tower of Saint-Aignan, with a window looking on the prison yard.  Each time that Christophe was brought before the magistrates, and subjected to a close examination, he sheltered himself behind a total and complete denial, which prolonged his trial until after the opening of the States-general.

Old Lecamus, who by that time had got himself elected deputy of the tiers-etat by the burghers of Paris, arrived at Orleans a few days after the arrest of the Prince de Conde.  This news, which reached him at Etampes, redoubled his anxiety; for he fully understood—­he, who alone knew of Christophe’s interview with the prince under the bridge near his own house—­that his son’s fate was closely bound up with that of the leader of the Reformed party.  He therefore determined to study the dark tangle of interests which were struggling together at court in order to discover some means of rescuing his son.  It was useless to think of Queen Catherine, who refused to see her furrier.  No one about the court whom he was able to address could give him any satisfactory information about Christophe; and he fell at last into a state of such utter despair that he was on the verge of appealing to the cardinal himself, when he learned that Monsieur de Thou (and this was the great stain upon that good man’s life) had consented to be one of the judges of the Prince de Conde.  The old furrier went at once to see him, and learned at last that Christophe was still living, though a prisoner.

Tourillon, the glover (to whom La Renaudie sent Christophe on his way to Blois), had offered a room in his house to the Sieur Lecamus for the whole time of his stay in Orleans during the sittings of the States-general.  The glover believed the furrier to be, like himself, secretly attached to the Reformed religion; but he soon saw that a father who fears for the life of his child pays no heed to shades of religious opinion, but flings himself prone upon the bosom of God without caring what insignia men give to Him.  The poor old man, repulsed in all his efforts, wandered like one bewildered through the streets.  Contrary to his expectations, his money availed him nothing; Monsieur de Thou had warned him that if he bribed any servant of the house of Guise he would merely lose his money, for the duke and cardinal allowed nothing that related to Christophe to transpire.  De Thou, whose fame is somewhat tarnished by the part he played at this crisis, endeavored to give some hope to the poor father; but he trembled so much himself for the fate of his godson that his attempts at consolation only alarmed the old man still more.  Lecamus roamed the streets; in three months he had shrunk visibly.  His only hope now lay in the warm friendship which for so many years had bound him to the Hippocrates of the sixteenth century.  Ambroise Pare tried to say a word to Queen Mary on leaving the chamber of the king, who was then indisposed; but no sooner had he named Christophe than the daughter of the Stuarts, nervous at the prospect of her fate should any evil happen to the king, and believing that the Reformers were attempting to poison him, cried out:—­

“If my uncles had only listened to me, that fanatic would have been hanged already.”

The evening on which this fatal answer was repeated to old Lecamus, by his friend Pare on the place de l’Estape, he returned home half dead to his own chamber, refusing to eat any supper.  Tourillon, uneasy about him, went up to his room and found him in tears; the aged eyes showed the inflamed red lining of their lids, so that the glover fancied for a moment that he was weeping tears of blood.

“Comfort yourself, father,” said the Reformer; “the burghers of Orleans are furious to see their city treated as though it were taken by assault, and guarded by the soldiers of Monsieur de Cypierre.  If the life of the Prince de Conde is in any real danger we will soon demolish the tower of Saint-Aignan; the whole town is on the side of the Reformers, and it will rise in rebellion; you may be sure of that!”

“But, even if they hang the Guises, it will not give me back my son,” said the wretched father.

At that instant some one rapped cautiously on Tourillon’s outer door, and the glover went downstairs to open it himself.  The night was dark.  In these troublous times the masters of all households took minute precautions.  Tourillon looked through the peep-holes cut in the door, and saw a stranger, whose accent indicated an Italian.  The man, who was dressed in black, asked to speak with Lecamus on matters of business, and Tourillon admitted him.  When the furrier caught sight of his visitor he shuddered violently; but the stranger managed, unseen by Tourillon, to lay his fingers on his lips.  Lecamus, understanding the gesture, said immediately:—­

“You have come, I suppose, to offer furs?”

“Si,” said the Italian, discreetly.

This personage was no other than the famous Ruggiero, astrologer to the queen-mother.  Tourillon went below to his own apartment, feeling convinced that he was one too many in that of his guest.

“Where can we talk without danger of being overheard?” said the cautious Florentine.

“We ought to be in the open fields for that,” replied Lecamus.  “But we are not allowed to leave the town; you know the severity with which the gates are guarded.  No one can leave Orleans without a pass from Monsieur de Cypierre,” he added,—­“not even I, who am a member of the States-general.  Complaint is to be made at to-morrow’s session of this restriction of liberty.”

“Work like a mole, but don’t let your paws be seen in anything, no matter what,” said the wary Italian.  “To-morrow will, no doubt, prove a decisive day.  Judging by my observations, you may, perhaps, recover your son to-morrow, or the day after.”

“May God hear you—­you who are thought to traffic with the devil!”

“Come to my place,” said the astrologer, smiling.  “I live in the tower of Sieur Touchet de Beauvais, the lieutenant of the Bailliage, whose daughter the little Duc d’Orleans has taken such a fancy to; it is there that I observe the planets.  I have drawn the girl’s horoscope, and it says that she will become a great lady and be beloved by a king.  The lieutenant, her father, is a clever man; he loves science, and the queen sent me to lodge with him.  He has had the sense to be a rabid Guisist while awaiting the reign of Charles IX.”

The furrier and the astrologer reached the house of the Sieur de Beauvais without being met or even seen; but, in case Lecamus’ visit should be discovered, the Florentine intended to give a pretext of an astrological consultation on his son’s fate.  When they were safely at the top of the tower, where the astrologer did his work, Lecamus said to him:—­

“Is my son really living?”

“Yes, he still lives,” replied Ruggiero; “and the question now is how to save him.  Remember this, seller of skins, I would not give two farthings for yours if ever in all your life a single syllable should escape you of what I am about to say.”

“That is a useless caution, my friend; I have been furrier to the court since the time of the late Louis XII.; this is the fourth reign that I have seen.”

“And you may soon see the fifth,” remarked Ruggiero.

“What do you know about my son?”

“He has been put to the question.”

“Poor boy!” said the old man, raising his eyes to heaven.

“His knees and ankles were a bit injured, but he has won a royal protection which will extend over his whole life,” said the Florentine hastily, seeing the terror of the poor father.  “Your little Christophe has done a service to our great queen, Catherine.  If we manage to pull him out of the claws of the Guises you will see him some day councillor to the Parliament.  Any man would gladly have his bones cracked three times over to stand so high in the good graces of this dear sovereign,—­a grand and noble genius, who will triumph in the end over all obstacles.  I have drawn the horoscope of the Duc de Guise; he will be killed within a year.  Well, so Christophe saw the Prince de Conde—­”

“You who read the future ought to know the past,” said the furrier.

“My good man, I am not questioning you, I am telling you a fact.  Now, if your son, who will to-morrow be placed in the prince’s way as he passes, should recognize him, or if the prince should recognize your son, the head of Monsieur de Conde will fall.  God knows what will become of his accomplice!  However, don’t be alarmed.  Neither your son nor the prince will die; I have drawn their horoscope,—­they will live; but I do not know in what way they will get out of this affair.  Without distrusting the certainty of my calculations, we must do something to bring about results.  To-morrow the prince will receive, from sure hands, a prayer-book in which we convey the information to him.  God grant that your son be cautious, for him we cannot warn.  A single glance of recognition will cost the prince’s life.  Therefore, although the queen-mother has every reason to trust in Christophe’s faithfulness—­”

“They’ve put it to a cruel test!” cried the furrier.

“Don’t speak so!  Do you think the queen-mother is on a bed of roses?  She is taking measures as if the Guises had already decided on the death of the prince, and right she is, the wise and prudent queen!  Now listen to me; she counts on you to help her in all things.  You have some influence with the tiers-etat, where you represent the body of the guilds of Paris, and though the Guisards may promise you to set your son at liberty, try to fool them and maintain the independence of the guilds.  Demand the queen-mother as regent; the king of Navarre will publicly accept the proposal at the session of the States-general.”

“But the king?”

“The king will die,” replied Ruggiero; “I have read his horoscope.  What the queen-mother requires you to do for her at the States-general is a very simple thing; but there is a far greater service which she asks of you.  You helped Ambroise Pare in his studies, you are his friend—­”

“Ambroise now loves the Duc de Guise more than he loves me; and he is right, for he owes his place to him.  Besides, he is faithful to the king.  Though he inclines to the Reformed religion, he will never do anything against his duty.”

“Curse these honest men!” cried the Florentine.  “Ambroise boasted this evening that he could bring the little king safely through his present illness (for he is really ill).  If the king recovers his health, the Guises triumph, the princes die, the house of Bourbon becomes extinct, we shall return to Florence, your son will be hanged, and the Lorrains will easily get the better of the other sons of France—­”

“Great God!” exclaimed Lecamus.

“Don’t cry out in that way,—­it is like a burgher who knows nothing of the court,—­but go at once to Ambroise and find out from him what he intends to do to save the king’s life.  If there is anything decided on, come back to me at once, and tell me the treatment in which he has such faith.”

“But—­” said Lecamus.

“Obey blindly, my dear friend; otherwise you will get your mind bewildered.”

“He is right,” thought the furrier.  “I had better not know more”; and he went at once in search of the king’s surgeon, who lived at a hostelry in the place du Martroi.

Catherine de’ Medici was at this moment in a political extremity very much like that in which poor Christophe had seen her at Blois.  Though she had been in a way trained by the struggle, though she had exercised her lofty intellect by the lessons of that first defeat, her present situation, while nearly the same, had become more critical, more perilous than it was at Amboise.  Events, like the woman herself, had magnified.  Though she seemed to be in full accordance with the Guises, Catherine held in her hand the threads of a wisely planned conspiracy against her terrible associates, and was only awaiting a propitious moment to throw off the mask.  The cardinal had just obtained the positive certainty that Catherine was deceiving him.  Her subtle Italian spirit felt that the Younger branch was the best hindrance she could offer to the ambition of the duke and the cardinal; and (in spite of the advice of the two Gondis, who urged her to let the Guises wreak their vengeance on the Bourbons) she defeated the scheme concocted by them with Spain to seize the province of Bearn, by warning Jeanne d’Albret, queen of Navarre, of that threatened danger.  As this state secret was known only to them and to the queen-mother, the Guises knew of course who had betrayed it, and resolved to send her back to Florence.  But in order to make themselves perfectly sure of what they called her treason against the State (the State being the house of Lorraine), the duke and cardinal confided to her their intention of getting rid of the king of Navarre.  The precautions instantly taken by Antoine proved conclusively to the two brothers that the secrets known only to them and the queen-mother had been divulged by the latter.  The cardinal instantly taxed her with treachery, in presence of Francois II.,—­threatening her with an edict of banishment in case of future indiscretion, which might, as they said, put the kingdom in danger.

Catherine, who then felt herself in the utmost peril, acted in the spirit of a great king, giving proof of her high capacity.  It must be added, however, that she was ably seconded by her friends.  L’Hopital managed to send her a note, written in the following terms:—­

  “Do not allow a prince of the blood to be put to death by a
  committee; or you will yourself be carried off in some way.”

Catherine sent Birago to Vignay to tell the chancellor (l’Hopital) to come to Orleans at once, in spite of his being in disgrace.  Birago returned the very night of which we are writing, and was now a few miles from Orleans with l’Hopital, who heartily avowed himself for the queen-mother.  Chiverni, whose fidelity was very justly suspected by the Guises, had escaped from Orleans and reached Ecouen in ten hours, by a forced march which almost cost him his life.  There he told the Connetable de Montmorency of the peril of his nephew, the Prince de Conde, and the audacious hopes of the Guises.  The Connetable, furious at the thought that the prince’s life hung upon that of Francois II., started for Orleans at once with a hundred noblemen and fifteen hundred cavalry.  In order to take the Messieurs de Guise by surprise he avoided Paris, and came direct from Ecouen to Corbeil, and from Corbeil to Pithiviers by the valley of the Essonne.

“Soldier against soldier, we must leave no chances,” he said on the occasion of this bold march.

Anne de Montmorency, who had saved France at the time of the invasion of Provence by Charles V., and the Duc de Guise, who had stopped the second invasion by the emperor at Metz, were, in truth, the two great warriors of France at this period.  Catherine had awaited this precise moment to rouse the inextinguishable hatred of the Connetable, whose disgrace and banishment were the work of the Guises.  The Marquis de Simeuse, however, who commanded at Gien, being made aware of the large force approaching under command of the Connetable, jumped on his horse hoping to reach Orleans in time to warn the duke and cardinal.

Sure that the Connetable would come to the rescue of his nephew, and full of confidence in the Chancelier l’Hopital’s devotion to the royal cause, the queen-mother revived the hopes and the boldness of the Reformed party.  The Colignys and the friends of the house of Bourbon, aware of their danger, now made common cause with the adherents of the queen-mother.  A coalition between these opposing interests, attacked by a common enemy, formed itself silently in the States-general, where it soon became a question of appointing Catherine as regent in case the king should die.  Catherine, whose faith in astrology was much greater than her faith in the Church, now dared all against her oppressors, seeing that her son was ill and apparently dying at the expiration of the time assigned to his life by the famous sorceress, whom Nostradamus had brought to her at the chateau of Chaumont.