Henri II: His Court and Times (13 page)

In the meanwhile, the Queen had crossed the river with her
ladies and the Cardinal de Tournon, and, guided by torchlight, the whole company set out at once for Saint-Jean-de-Luz, where they arrived at midnight. From that town
Montmorency despatched a messenger to Bordeaux to
announce the glad news to the King and Louise of Savoy,
who were waiting there with the whole Court; and on
July 3 François started to meet his bride and his sons.

The Queen and the princes, who were greeted in every
town and village through which they passed with transports
of joy, reached Bayonne on the evening of the 2nd. Great
preparations had been made for their coming. A bridge
had been constructed over the Adour, "so cunningly and
ingeniously built, that people knew not whether they were on
land or sea"; the streets between the bridge and the citadel,
where the royal party was lodged, were decorated "triumphantly
and magnificently"; "people habited in divers
costumes" scattered money among the people, and "whoever
wanted it might pick it up," and "
comédies, facéties, et
fantaisies
" were performed "so wonderfully and ingeniously
that never had son of man heard tell of such enterprises."
⁰⁷
The Queen and the princes assisted at one of these entertainments
— a pastoral play, written by the secretary of the Cardinal
de Tournon, in which, we are told, the actors wore costumes
of white taffeta, each of which had cost fifty livres
tournois
.

On the morrow, they resumed their journey, Eleanor riding
in a litter, the princes on horseback. At Tartas, they were
magnificently received by the King of Navarre, and at Mont-de-Marsan, where they arrived on the 6th, the Queen was
informed that the King would meet her, with a small retinue,
that evening at the Convent of Veyrières, about four leagues
distant. Eleanor reached the rendezvous at nine o'clock,
and was escorted by the Grand-Master and the Spanish
Ambassador to the apartment prepared for her. François
arrived two hours later, accompanied by the Cardinal de
Lorraine, Chabot de Brion, and a few gentlemen of his
Household, and gave the Queen "as good and honourable
a reception as it was possible for a man enamoured of a lady
to do." At midnight, the nuptial Mass was celebrated by the
Bishop of Lisieux, First Almoner to the King, after which
their Majesties retired.

Change effected in the characters of the Dauphin and the Duc d'Orléans by
their captivity in Spain — Impatience of François I, who "does not care for
dreamy, sullen, sleepy children" — Eagerness of the King to regain a footing in
Italy — Charles V's Italian league — Position and policy of Clement VII — Catherine
de' Medici — Her early years — Her adventures during the revolution in Florence
— Her suitors — François I sends envoys to Rome to propose a marriage between
her and the Duc d'Orléans — Embarrassment of the Pope, who, while anxious for
the French alliance, fears to give umbrage to the Emperor — Proposed interview
between François and Clement at Nice — Duplicity of the Pope — The intimacy
between Catherine and her cousin, the Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, a source
of disquietude to his Holiness — Catherine is sent to Florence and Ippolito to
Hungary — Interview between the Pope and Charles V at Bologna — Clement
skilfully outmanoeuvres the Emperor, and the marriage between Catherine and
the Duc d'Orléans is arranged

N
OTWITHSTANDING
the apprehensions of
François and Louise of Savoy, the health of the young
princes would not appear to have been much
affected by their captivity. The same, however, could not
be said for their characters.

The Dauphin, who was now twelve, returned to France a grave, reserved youth,
speaking little, and then in slow, measured tones, drinking scarcely anything
but water, wearing only the most sombre clothes, and showing a regard for
the minutiæ of etiquette most unusual in so young a prince —
in a word, far more of a Spaniard than a Frenchman.

In the Duc d'Orléans — his junior by a year, and of a more
sensitive nature — the change was even more marked. Awkward, taciturn, morose, unsociable, he seemed an altogether
different being from the bright, intelligent lad whom the
English Ambassador had seen at Amboise on the eve of his
departure for Spain. The boy's spirit, in fact, had been
crushed by the dreary existence which, as we have seen, had
been his lot for more than four years — an existence in which
he had not only been deprived of the affection and sympathy
so necessary for one of his age, but subjected, it is but too
probable, to constant petty humiliations at the hands of his
callous gaolers. So profound was the impression which his
sufferings had left upon him, that in 1542 — that is to say,
twelve years after his return from Spain — Matteo Dandolo, the
Venetian Ambassador in France, wrote that few people at the
Court could ever remember to have heard him laugh.
⁰¹

François, who was not the kind of man to make allowance
for the shortcomings of others, could not conceal his displeasure
at the change which had taken place in his sons, and
particularly in the younger. He might have endeavoured to
win the boy's confidence and affection, and thus gradually to
dissipate his melancholy humour and persuade him that life
held joys as well as sorrows. But the task was not one which
commended itself to his selfish nature; and so, observing that
the mark of a true Frenchman was to be always gay and lively,
and that "he did not care for dreamy, sullen, sleepy
children,"
⁰²
he left both Henri and the Dauphin severely alone,
and bestowed all the affection of which he was capable on his
youngest son, Charles, Duc d'Angoulême, a frank, high-spirited boy — now in his ninth year — who bade fair to become
a replica of his father in both appearance and character.

But, if poor Henri appeared to be lamentably deficient in
princely qualities, he was, none the less, a Son of France, and
as such a useful pawn in the political speculations of his ambitious sire; indeed, even before he had crossed the Bidassoa,
he had already become the chief factor in a scheme by
which François hoped to regain a footing in Italy.

For François's passion for Italy was the scourge of his reign; it was the
passion of a lover for a beautiful and capricious mistress, and the rebuffs
which he had sustained only seemed to make him the more eager to prosecute his
suit. To him, the Peace of Cambrai was merely a truce to enable his exhausted
kingdom to gather strength for fresh exertions; he had no thought of abiding by
it a moment longer than suited his convenience. Scarcely, indeed, was the ink
dry upon the parchment of the treaty than he was planning new combinations,
eagerly scanning the map of Europe for fresh allies.

And his search did not seem likely to be a long one. The
Turks, who had threatened Vienna in 1529, were again eager to
advance into Austria; Henry VIII, whom the Emperor's
attitude in the matter of the divorce of Catherine of Aragon
had completely alienated, was ready for a close alliance with
France; the Protestant princes of Germany were already
casting their eyes in the same direction. Finally Charles V's
settlement of Italy had left behind it the germs of much
future trouble.

Charles had no ambition for annexation of territory for territory's sake,
and, in opposition to the advice of several of his Ministers, he had restored
the Milanese to Francesco Sforza, in consideration of an annual payment of
900,000 ducats, and reinstated the Pope in all his former possessions. The policy he had resolved to pursue was that of closing
Italy to France by means of a federation of States, which
was to comprise Naples, the Papacy, the Milanese, Ferrara,
Florence, and Mantua, and the republics of Genoa, Siena,
and Lucca.

It was a scheme which had much to recommend it, but there
were several obstacles to its success. Sforza's subjects, ground
down by the taxation which their ruler was obliged to impose
in order to meet the Imperial demands, were not inclined to
be exactly enthusiastic in the common cause; Siena's sympathies were with France, as were those of the democratic party
in Florence; while Venice, which was still too powerful and
too independent to be brought within the league, and had not
forgiven Charles for having thwarted her ambition of becoming
the predominant power in Italy, constituted a standing danger
on the north-east.

But the chief source of disquietude to the Emperor was the
attitude of the Holy See, which was the pivot of the Italian
political system. Although the Papacy was not strong enough
to unite Italy, it, nevertheless, wielded a great influence, and
could always foment a formidable opposition to any prince
who aimed at the domination of the peninsula. Recognising
this, Charles had already done much to conciliate Clement and
was prepared to do even more. He had given back to him all
the Papal fortresses which had been occupied by the Imperialists
during the war, compelled the Venetians to restore Ravenna
and Cervia, and assisted him to reduce the rebellious
Florentines to submission; and he had resolved to create Alessandro
de' Medici Duke of Florence and bestow upon him the hand of
his natural daughter Margaret. But neither thankfulness for
past mercies nor the expectation of favours to come sufficed
to make the scheming, shifty Pontiff more than a very unstable
ally. As a temporal prince, he naturally regarded with jealousy
and suspicion the Imperial predominance in Italy; as head of
the Church, he positively shuddered at the prospect of the
General Council which Charles was being strongly urged to
convoke as the only way of securing the union of distracted
Germany. For a General Council might demand Clement's
deposition, on the ground that the election of a person of
illegitimate birth to the Holy See was uncanonical; and, even if it spared him,
it would most certainly insist on reforms in the financial machinery of the Holy
See, which would result in the withdrawal of immense sums from his immediate control. To avert this disaster was now the principal object of
Clement's tortuous policy, and he was quick to recognise that
his chances of success would be greatly strengthened by an
alliance with François. François had made a Concordat with
the Papacy, and had therefore nothing to gain from the proposed Council; indeed, it was to his interest to oppose it,
since the pacification of Germany would mean an alarming
increase in the power of the Emperor. If his Holiness could
arrive at an understanding with François, without alarming
Charles and sacrificing the advantages he counted to secure
from him, he would find himself in a stronger position than he
had been since his accession. And the means of accomplishing
this lay ready to his hand.

Clement VII had a little orphan cousin
à la mode de
Bretagne
, whom he called his niece — Caterina Maria de' Medici,
daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino,
⁰³
and Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne
⁰⁴
— for whom he was anxious
to find a suitable alliance — that is to say, one calculated to
promote the Medicean interests.

Catherine — to give the girl the Gallicized form of her name,
by which she is best known to history — had passed a troublous
childhood. Born in the Palazzo Medici, at Florence, on
April 13, 1519, she had lost her mother on the 28th of the
same month, and her father a week later, victims both, say the
chroniclers, of Lorenzo's promiscuous gallantries. Alfonsina
Orsini, the ill-fated duke's mother, took charge of the little
orphan, who towards the end of that summer was taken so ill
that no one seems to have expected her to live. However, she
recovered, and Leo X having summoned her to Rome, in the
last days of October she set out for the Eternal City, under the
care of her grandmother and Cardinal Giulio de' Medici,
afterwards Pope Clement VII.
"Secum fert arumnas Danaum!"
(She brings all the calamities of the Greeks with her)
exclaimed Leo, as this frail shoot of the line of Cosimo was
carried into his presence — words which were certainly to prove
prophetic with regard to the nation which Catherine was one
day to be called upon to rule.